Faith Dance

Cross-Sex Friendship Quote of the Week

This is from James Smith's newest book, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. I am really looking forward to reviewing this book here in the coming week.  This excerpt below is not within any kind of immediate context of the ordered beauty of male-female friendship but there is so much relevant to it:

"What if we didn't see passion and desire as such as the problem, but sought to redirect it?  What if we honored what the marketing industry has got right--that we are creatures of love and desire--and then responded in kind with counter-measures that focus on our passions, not primarily our thoughts and beliefs?  What if the church began with an affirmation of our passional nature and then sought to redirect to it?" 

Cross-Sex Friendship Quote of the Week

I love this quote.  This is from an ordained monk, Guibert of Gembloux and his friendship with Hildegard of Bingen.  Although ordained, he opened his life, ministry, and heart to her.  Also, his language reveals an intimate bonding that was nonromantic but yet deeply passionate.  At many layers, this friendship goes beyond the shallow When Harry Met Sally dialogue, beyond simplistic gender roles, beyond sex-segregation.

"I live with her in the beauty of peace and of all delight and sweetness, I am directed by her counsels, supported by her prayers. I press forward by her merits, I am upheld by her kindnesses and daily I enjoy conversation with her."

Guibert of Gembloux regarding Hildegard of Bingen

A Beautiful Day

Summer is quickly closing to an end here in the midwest.  Tomorrow, Jennifer starts her new job.  We went canoeing down one of the parts of the Wisconsin River yesterday. Imagine going from two recent canoe trips where we spent two hours in the canoe both times and probably paddled a mile back and forth, to six hours in the canoe, paddling 11 miles!! 

Here we are starting out.  Several canoes and kayaks are in front of us:

It was a beautiful day.

Recent Blogs on Male Female Friendships

Some recent blogs on opposite sex friendships:

John Piper, Tornadoes, and the Reformed Culture

John Piper reformed theologian and pastor has caused quite a stir this week.   

On a day when no severe weather was predicted or expected...a tornado forms, baffling the weather experts—most saying they’ve never seen anything like it. It happens right in the city. The city: Minneapolis.

The tornado happens on a Wednesday...during the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America's national convention in the Minneapolis Convention Center. The convention is using Central Lutheran across the street as its church. The church has set up tents around it’s building for this purpose.

http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1965_the_tornado_the_lutherans_and_homosexuality/

At the exact time the Tornado hit the building, the Lutherans were scheduled to dialogue on homosexuality.  Piper seized the moment.  The timing of the tornado was a deliberate act of God's judgment. 

Christians are blogging:

Pomomusings on the culture of fear.

Jenell Paris on The Toddler, The Discharge, and The Humdity

Then you have the reformed culture applauding Piper's interpretation of the tornado:

http://www.puritanboard.com/f54/john-piper-blogs-tornado-lutherans-homosexuality-52250/

I don't intend to be uncharitable to reformed Christians, but Piper's reasoning is filled with so many problems--and is typical of those in the reformed culture.  This applies to far broader issues than just sexuality. 

Cross-Sex Friendship Quote of Week

"The recovery of eros is also a recovery of play, an important dimension of friendship...The recovery of play is an invitation to friendship.  Playfulness means the devaluation of control.  Play involves the capacity to trust and to surrender to the moment.  So also with friendship.  Friendship has no achievement agenda, no task orientation...Of course, friends often do things together.  They embark on common tasks and tackle common agendas.  They stand side by side facing something to be done.  Indeed, some suggest that men have their own distinctive style of relating: it is shoulder-to-shoulder rather than face-to-face.  But must it be an either/or proposition?  Friendship often means letting loose of the task, letting go of the need to prove one's usefulness.  It means valuing the presence of the other just for their own's sake.  It is enough just to be, and to be with.  That is playful, and that is gracious.  The recover of eros and its playfulness means the recovery of pleasure.  Friendship both depends and thrives on it." 

James Nelson The Intimate Connection

A Little Help From My Friend...

Jennifer and I went canoeing again yesterday.  We had a great time and went further up the river than we did two weeks ago.  We took my chapter draft with us--the one I am writing for Wikiklesia about rethinking sexuality and friendship.  Jen is a good editor. 

 

We did get very close to some sandhill cranes again.  Beautiful, big birds:

Thought for the Day

Sexuality invites us to a spirit of mutuality and equality encompassing the complex bonds of marriage and friendship.

I like that. 

The Mystery of Platonic Friendship Among Baboons

Interesting tidbit floating in the media in recent days:

"Some male and female baboons engage in strictly platonic, sexless relationships.  Male companionship comes in handy to females and their infants, as other baboons tend to pester less when female company is shared by their favorite male buddy.  

However, it remains a mind-boggling topic for scientists to understand why the males opt to be platonic friends.  

BBC News gave account to the study that explores baboon relationships, which was published in Behavioral Sociobiology and Ecology.  The findings of the study also suppose that male baboons may be to instinctively distinguish their offspring.  

To scrutinize the incidence of 'platonic' relationships, Primatologist Nga Nguyen, who is assistant professor at California State University Fullerton, California, along with her team of colleagues, Russell Van Horn of the Zoological Society of San Diego, California, and Susan Alberts of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina and Jean Altmann of Princeton University, New Jersey, collaboratively observed four groups of yellow baboons inhabiting Amboseli, Kenya.  

Baboons are not the only primates to exhibit these so-called 'friendships.'  Several species of female monkeys, macaques and others were observed spending quite a bit of time with a particular male companion.

Why these friendships remain platonic and don’t seem to include sex is undetermined." Carolina and Jean Altmann of Princeton University, New Jersey, collaboratively observed four groups of yellow baboons inhabiting Amboseli, Kenya.  

Baboons are not the only primates to exhibit these so-called 'friendships.'  Several species of female monkeys, macaques and others were observed spending quite a bit of time with a particular male companion.

Why these friendships remain platonic and don’t seem to include sex is undetermined. 'We don't really know what males or females get from these friendships," Nguyen confessed. "Males should be off trying to get other females to mate with them, not squandering their time on a female with a young infant."

 

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1706918/mother_baboons_aided_by_male_chaperones/

Cross-sex Friendship Quote of the Week

"In fact, if we were more comfortable with nonsexual physical contact, we would be less likely to fall into inappropriate sexual activity." Vinita Hampton Wright