Just Where Was I Going With This?

It's difficult, working the overnight shift, for me to really get quiet and listen. I read a devotion earlier and have already forgotten what it was about. After that I started to read from 1 Corinthians, Chapter 14. I do recall that is about spiritual gifts, specifically speaking in tongues and prophecy and the difference between them. How speaking in tongues is for one's own spiritual edification but prophecy is for the edification of all present.

Every ten to fifteen minutes I am interrupted by having to quietly walk down the hall where the boys rooms are and carefully shine a flashlight into each room. I am looking to make certain a few things. First to verify that each boy is in his own room where he belongs and hasn't snuck out and gone somewhere. Second, to make certain none of the boys have hurt themselves. Some of the boys are prone to self-harming behaviors such as cutting, asphyxiation, biting, hitting themselves, repeatedly hitting the wall. So I have to watch for that overnight. Third, it's not uncommon for the boys who live here to have been sexually active at an early age, typically forced onto them by someone they know. A parent, a sibling, a cousin, aunt or uncle, someone the parent is dating... Sadly it happens and the boys then will often turn to each other because as awful as it has been, there is often something of these acts of violence against them that either felt good and they want to replicate or they are able to bully, control, force someone else into something that was forced onto them. They are able to be in control, harming someone else. It becomes about power. So the bed checks are to keep the boys safe and protected. To be honest, it's selfish of me to even think of these checks as an interruption considering the idea is to keep the boys safe, prevent them from becoming victims (again) or abusers.

But I do use the minutes between checks to try and listen, read, learn and grow spiritually. Tonight I've been reading about how pornography has potentially effected the male population especially so that many males may not see the importance of building healthy relationships with women because they can turn to a fictional presentation of what sex "should" be. How waiting to marry makes it more likely that women will often feel obligated to compromise their virtue for fear waiting will end a relationship. How men don't feel the need to court and are often not taught or expected to treat women in any special way. It's been a common theme today for some reason as earlier on my drive into work the radio aired a sermon on this and how we need to teach our children to respect others. Teach them to forgo things the world teaches us to seek out and take now.

I don't want to become complacent or even comfortable where I am. I want to keep myself apart from these damaging practices no matter what I may have been part of in years past. I know that alone I am destined to fail but I also know that there are very personal things that are difficult to bring to light. Uncomfortable for the confessor and even the councelor. Often maybe even more so for the councelor. A burden. Something not asked for. Something not welcome. Private, personal, awkward...risky. But I think that's where we need to go and we need to be ready to listen and be supportive. To pray for each other. To build each other up. To lift each other up. To not try and do this life thing alone.

It all got a bit to much for me when I started reading how in the Church the normal expectation is that a man be married and if he's not by the time he's in his 30's he'd better have good reason to not be. I stopped reading at the point, recalling I am in my 40's, single...for what I consider valid reasons if not altogether good reasons. I know people wonder, guess, assume. I can't blame them. Nor do I want to get into long explanations with everyone.

So thinking on these things I decide to put it to rest for the night and go back to the original article before I went off on the trail to enlightenment. The original article being: 5 Health Reasons to NOT Quit Drinking Coffee.

There's something I'm willing to discuss for a while.