And another one!!
Jun. 26th, 2023 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amado1"Men, I hold this against you. You have forsaken your first-love passion for Jesus Christ." ...Garlington shouts that we need to have "a passion for his presence and a hunger for his word."... Without this original homoerotic passion, we have "sexual immorality," Garlington says. It's a fascinating formula. First-love passion for Jesus makes you free from any lower-grade passions like adultery and oral sex with men. But we haven't lusted in our hearts enough yet for the Son of Men. "Christian men are addicted to pornography. Christian men are addicted to sexual abuse. Say, 'It's my fault.'" The crowd says, rapidly, "It's my fault." ... "I'd like to ask you all to protrate yourselves now, if you're physically able."
All around me on the dirty grass men obey. They put their faces on the ground in a very cramped space ... "I'd like you to be silent like a dead man," Garlington bids us. Noiselessly, "I'd like you to first of all tell him of the love in your heart that is for him." ... In shame, men stick their butts up in the air, like Moslems praying to Mecca. Men are trying to weep without making any noise. "And now, I'd like you to privately and in your own hearts pray out a prayer to him of confession and brokenness, and how far you have gone from your own first love." The man next to me starts to moan, "oh, God!" and make crazy little desperate noises that may or may not be tongues. Others sob with their need to just reach Him, mucus dribbling from their noses.
Animal sounds, repentance, and love all around me. Men shake with prayers full of their own unspeakable vileness, and their tender longing to be changed. There's so much desperation mixed up with their desire to be good, it's hard to listen to. Sometimes "being good" is only about the desire to be let back in. If I obey, then he will love me. But they also sound like they're repenting some real wrongs. It is ugly, beautiful, weird. "What we have done," Garlington says. "Our abuses. Giving. Getting."
...This kind of love is not enough, I see. The "first-love passion" of it all is wonderful but it lacks something; the "brokenness" and abandon and surrender are gorgeous but not enough, not nearly enough for real loving. If the only way to meet the Other is to do exactly what they want, what good is love? Later in the rally we chant "NO MORE ABUSE! NO MORE ABANDONMENT," which is wonderful, and we watch moving videos of fathers apologizing for abusing their children. Why, then, are we asked to tongue the dirt to win the love of our Father in Heaven? Why should a vow to stop abusing others require abusing ourselves? Does someone have to get abused for love to on, to be shared?
These men seem to think so.
They really do want to be good; they are so fervent to be good that I sometimes want to kiss them. ... But their desire to be good is tied up with so many painful things that it often comes out incoherently. Their morality has little content, except abject need. And their love has little content but the same.
All around me on the dirty grass men obey. They put their faces on the ground in a very cramped space ... "I'd like you to be silent like a dead man," Garlington bids us. Noiselessly, "I'd like you to first of all tell him of the love in your heart that is for him." ... In shame, men stick their butts up in the air, like Moslems praying to Mecca. Men are trying to weep without making any noise. "And now, I'd like you to privately and in your own hearts pray out a prayer to him of confession and brokenness, and how far you have gone from your own first love." The man next to me starts to moan, "oh, God!" and make crazy little desperate noises that may or may not be tongues. Others sob with their need to just reach Him, mucus dribbling from their noses.
Animal sounds, repentance, and love all around me. Men shake with prayers full of their own unspeakable vileness, and their tender longing to be changed. There's so much desperation mixed up with their desire to be good, it's hard to listen to. Sometimes "being good" is only about the desire to be let back in. If I obey, then he will love me. But they also sound like they're repenting some real wrongs. It is ugly, beautiful, weird. "What we have done," Garlington says. "Our abuses. Giving. Getting."
...This kind of love is not enough, I see. The "first-love passion" of it all is wonderful but it lacks something; the "brokenness" and abandon and surrender are gorgeous but not enough, not nearly enough for real loving. If the only way to meet the Other is to do exactly what they want, what good is love? Later in the rally we chant "NO MORE ABUSE! NO MORE ABANDONMENT," which is wonderful, and we watch moving videos of fathers apologizing for abusing their children. Why, then, are we asked to tongue the dirt to win the love of our Father in Heaven? Why should a vow to stop abusing others require abusing ourselves? Does someone have to get abused for love to on, to be shared?
These men seem to think so.
They really do want to be good; they are so fervent to be good that I sometimes want to kiss them. ... But their desire to be good is tied up with so many painful things that it often comes out incoherently. Their morality has little content, except abject need. And their love has little content but the same.
