New Year's Reflections

I find it really interesting that you only need to know three things about me in order to know absolutely everything about me. If I were to tell you that I have the spiritual gift of mercy, that my personality is ENFP, and that I exhibit maladaptive perfectionism, you would have all the information you’d ever need to predict exactly how I will behave in literally any given situation. You’d be able to learn my moral code of ethics, my motivation, my strengths and weaknesses, my decision-making process, my bad habits, my unhealthy behaviours, and my coping mechanisms. Which means that you’d already know me far better than I ever want anyone to know me. What’s truly funny about all of this is that all those things are Nature, not Nurture. I was hardwired that way. That’s just who I am as a person. And I am physically incapable of behaving in a way that is contrary to my nature. I’m basically programmed that way. I’m essentially a robot obeying commands. I’m so easily summarized by a few choice labels. I’m nothing more than the combination of a select few traits. And I’m thoroughly predictable. 

Why worry about pleasing "God" and living your life to his standards instead of living for yourself and fulfilling your dreams and desires? I can't imagine living by someone else's rules and standards for a spot in an afterlife that i'm not even sure exists. I understand how strong faith can be, but why live by God's standards for a potential afterlife instead of living by your own standards now in the definite life you've been given.

As a Christian english geek, I am severely suspicious of your use of quotation marks. Because your entire question, in fact your entire world view, can be summed up by your usage of quotation marks in that question.

First up, do you know this “God” that you condemn to dubious ideology with your intellectually patronizing punctuation? Is “God” a lie or a fairytale to you? Is He a made-up story you tell kids, like Santa Claus or the Easter bunny?

Is He a vague, nebulous idea, filed away in your repertoire of knowledge, to pull off the shelf in time of crisis for some warm fuzzy feelings, like Love, Peace and Destiny? Because if you call Him “God”, it’s no wonder that you “can’t imagine living by someone else’s rules and standards for a spot in an afterlife that [you’re] not even sure exists.” Let me tell you about God. GOD cannot be contained to a cute little pair of quotation marks. GOD cannot be banished to history books and fairy-tales by academic snobs. He’s not just an idea made-up by people to control other people’s behavior. He’s not a historical figure in a book written thousands of years ago. He’s not a story or a religious figure or a symbol of the power in all of us, or a name for the forces of good and evil conflicting in the universe. And He’s not even just “someone else”. See, I don’t worry about pleasing “God”. I have the immense, undeserved blessing of knowing GOD:The architect of space and time. The composer of the stars’ song and the choreographer of the planets’ dance.The sovereign ruler of all that was and is and is to come. The infinite, almighty, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, transcendent orchestrator of the universe. He who wove strands of DNA into a person. He who breathes life into our bodies.He who supplies our very power of thought. He who commands the winds and waves to fall silent and they obey. He who can stop the earth spinning on its axis and start it again. He who said “Let there be light” and there was.Because He is light. He is life.He is love. Before you were, or I was, before Jacob was, before Isaac was, before Abraham was, God IS. He always was. Always is. Always will be.All of what we know exists in the mortal world sprang from His imagination.  So I know who He is. And I know that He loves me. Wait…what? He loves me? He loves me! He loves me!!!! I know that He loves me in a crazy, scandalous, outrageous, incomprehensible, all-consuming, unconditional, inclusive, tidal-wave kinda way. Not only that, but as one person out of 7 billion on a planet that is only one millionth the size of the sun. The sun is only a small star among billions of stars in the Milky Way. And the Milky Way is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe. Okay, so just take a second to grasp the scope of how massive that universe must be. And then stop and try to grasp that the God who created that universe out of His head knows me and you personally. He knows the number of hairs that are on our heads. He pays very particular and very close attention to our lives and knows the intimate details of our hearts. He saw our unformed bodies before we were even a thought in our parents’ minds. He knit together our unformed bodies in our mothers’ wombs. He knew every single second of every single day of our whole entire lives before we were conceived. That’s how important and precious we are to Him. Okay, so not only do I know WHO He is, and HOW MUCH He loves me, I know what He DID. He died. He stepped out of heaven, out of paradise, out of light and love and perfection…into the dirt and dust and disgustingness of our world. Into the rape and the murder and the genocide and the abuse and the poverty and the injustice and the pain and the shame and the guilt and the ugliness and the wretchedness. Why? For all those reasons. For all the crap and the gunk. For all my mistakes. For every time I hurt someone I cared about. For every time I hurt myself. For every time someone else hurt me. For every single careless word we wish we could take back. For every sleepless night ending in shame and guilt and fear. For every panicked feeling of helplessness. For all the bitterness. For all the anger. For all the feelings of worthlessness. For “every daughter whose innocence was stolen by every son who couldn’t help himself” (Jason Gray). For all the fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins and friends who betrayed the trust of a young girl and left her despoiled, abandoned, feeling like garbage. For every affair that shattered a marriage into painful, jagged shards. For every child who was left on the streets because their parents died of AIDS, sniffing an oil-soaked rag to numb the hunger pangs in their stomach. For every child who was abducted in the middle of the night, had addictive opiates ground into cuts on their arms, handed a gun and told to shoot their mothers and brothers and sisters. For every child who was packed into a shipping crate and sent across the ocean like worthless cargo to a brothel where they were assigned a number and put on a menu for people to choose from for their perverse desires. For the thousands tortured and killed in the most inhumane ways by people who thought they superior beings. For every scar on my friend’s arm. For my friends porn addiction. For my friend’s eating disorder. For my pride and arrogance. For your broken heart. GOD, the architect of space and time, transcendent, perfect being, who need not even concern Himself with us, stepped right smack dab into the middle of our colossal mess. And He allowed us to mock Him, whip Him, put a crown of thorns on His head, nail Him to a tree, and let Him suffocate under His own body weight, when He grew too exhausted to lift Himself up to inhale. He could have commanded angels to rescue Him, but He didn’t. He suffered a humiliating, barbaric death and the complete human experience when God the Father turned His back on His son and dumped ALL our sin on His shoulders. So you know that huge list of terrible things I listed back there? That was ALL dumped on Jesus. He felt it ALL. Generations upon generations of pain and hatred and hurt and shame of all humans since the beginning of time and until the end of time stacked on top of each other. More psychological and emotional agony than you or I will experience in an entire lifetime, or even billions of lifetimes. All of it, on Him. Can you imagine the immensity of that soul-wracking Hell on earth? Nope. None of us can. By that point, Jesus was probably BEGGING for that physically-excruciating death. Whose fault is it? Who put Him there? We did. We didn’t mean to. We’re just trying our best. But we don’t really know what we’re doing and we screw up a lot. And we’ve messed up our world, so we can’t go to heaven when we die cause heaven’s perfect and we’re imperfect. But God is like “I know a way. It hurts and it’s terrible and awful and painful but it’s the only way to save these pitiful human creatures that we love so much for no reason other than that we created them.” And Jesus is like “whatever you say, I’ll do it. I love them. I love Katherine and Rebecca and Joshua and Anna and Daniel and Rachel and Kate and Laura and Jessica and Emily and Jonathan and Adam and….” …and all of them. Every person who every existed. Even for a second. Even if they didn’t make it past their mother’s womb. Even if they had no human name, all of our names are written on the palm of His hand. The same hands that took the nails. And so, instead of being bitter or blaming us on that cross, He remembered the names on His hands and He remembered what the nails were for. And He said “Father, forgive them, for they know now what they do.” THEN, not only that! But He went to Hell. Heck yeah, He went to Hell. This is like the Disney Hercules movie for goodness sake! He went to the Devil’s turf, his territory, his playground. And HE TOOK THE FREAKING KEY! He took the key to death. He went and trashed the place! He stole victory from the devil. He conquered life AND death. He broke every chain the devil ever had on us. Then He came back, and now we can live forever with Him in Heaven. My point is that if you’re still putting God in quotation marks, you DON’T understand “how strong faith can be” because you don’t even know what my faith is in. 

If you’re still putting God in quotation marks, you don’t know God. And now that I’ve tried to explain who He is and what He did, it has NOTHING TO DO with “[living] by God’s standards for a potential afterlife instead of living by [my] own standards now in the definite life [I’ve] been given.” I live a life of complete surrender and worship to the God who made me and saved my soul because it’s the ONLY LOGICAL COURSE OF ACTION. If you knew what I know, you would live your life the way I do too. Once I understand what He did for me, I can’t help but pour my whole entire life out as a living sacrifice of praise. Every breath I take, every move I make, every thought I think, every word I say, is only by the grace of God and I am aware of that. I’m just trying to give back all that I can for a debt that I can NEVER EVER repay. So yeah, that’s why I “worry” about pleasing “God”. Ha. Because He’s the only thing in the whole world that matters. Also, the bible says that what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18) so I would say that the afterlife is more definite than this one. If I accept that God is real, I accept that heaven is real, and I accept that He loves me and died for me. Therefore, worship is the natural, instinctive response of this wretched human heart responding to His love and grace. On a side note, from a purely human point of view, living by God’s standards sure as heck hurts myself and other people a lot less. It gives me a moral code that saves me from addiction and heartache. It makes me a kinder, more generous, more compassionate, more loving person. It gives me empathy and a passion for helping the less fortunate. It gives me hope and peace. And it has been scientifically proven to improve my health and extend my life. Why the heck wouldn’t you live life by these standards? They’re awesome! If everybody actually lived by these standards (instead of twisting them through their own corrupt worldview, ahem WBC…), this world would be a beautiful place, and not the terrible place it is today. Jus’ sayin’. ;) To wrap this up, if He was just “God”, I wouldn’t bother trying to please Him either. So I can’t really blame you for your question. But your misunderstanding comes from a place of ignorance. I hope you understand a little better what I believe now. He’s NOT just “God”. I know I may have sounded vicious in this post, but I’m not mad, just passionate. Always, Peace and love!-Katherine 

Does the Pentecostal church allow gay marriage ?

Hi there :) 

***[I know a simple yes or no would suffice, but this is gonna be another long answer. I have, as usual, bolded important sentences for those who would rather skim.]*** 

This is going to be difficult for me to tell you, but I’m afraid that the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, with which the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland are affiliated - and therefore under which my own church exists - do not sanction gay marriage. Here is the “Statement of Fundamental and Essential Truths”. You will find homosexuality is addressed in section 5.9.1, “Marriage and the Family”. Here are a couple key quotes from that section:

"Marriage is a provision of God wherein one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others enter into a lifelong relationship through a marriage ceremony that is recognized by the church and legally sanctioned by the state."

…

"Marriage can only be broken by porneia, which is understood as marital unfaithfulness involving adultery, homosexuality, or incest. While the Scriptures give evidence that the marriage vow and "one-flesh" union are broken by such acts and therefore recognize the breaking of the marriage relationship, the Scriptures do recommend that the most desirable option would be reconciliation."

I imagine this is an affront to you, and I can understand why. I would like to justify the church’s stance, but I won’t. This decision is for two reasons: 

Firstly, because if what you want is for the Pentecostal church to allow gay marriage, then nothing I say will soothe your offended sensibilities. 

Secondly, because these practices apply only to members of the Pentecostal church: people who have actively chosen to participate in this institution, and whom evidently understand and are satisfied with the beliefs and practices. 

However, I will offer some of my own thoughts to supplement the information I’ve just given you.

[] 

Katherine’s thoughts: 

1. The Pentecostal church is part of the “private” sector, by which I mean that we are a non-profit organization and we are not affiliated with the government, be it federal, provincial, etc. Therefore, we do not attempt to extend our beliefs to anybody outside of our members. People who choose to become a member of the church (which, in case you’re wondering, is an official process involving an application and an interview) choose to abide by the practices set forth by the church, and that’s why those people chose to become a member in the first place. Therefore, the church will not corporately try to influence legislation involving gay marriage. How the church’s members vote is their individual decision, and in my experience, my church has never even discussed politics, let alone tried to influence my personal political beliefs. 

2. I am completely sure that while a person who is married to someone else of the same sex and/or gender may not choose to be a member of our church, NO ONE will discourage them from attending the services or benefiting from the various programs we offer. Being a member is a very official thing, and even though I’ve attended the church since birth, I’m still not a member. Membership involves stuff like voting for pastoral staff and board members and attending annual business meetings and boring stuff like that. So you could totally come on Sundays and chill with us and we won’t say anything to you. You could attend and volunteer and participate at Bethesda for 50 years and never be a member, so there’s that loophole. 

3. [THIS ONE IS SUPER IMPORTANT] Christianity is, above all, about a very personal, very intimate relationship with God. If you do not currently have an acquaintance with God, I would strongly encourage you to get to know Him. And if you want to, don’t let anybody or anything, including the church, including your sexual orientation, including the people in your life, dissuade you from doing so. Don’t ever let anybody tell you that there’s anything separating you from God, or that you have to change something about yourself before you get to know Him. He is waiting for you, exactly as you are, right here, right now, and He loves you exactly as you are, and nothing you do could ever make Him love you less….or more.

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”- Romans 8:38-39

We as the church, are attempting to function as the “body” of Christ, that is to say, the mortal manifestation of His divine love here in the natural world. We are not God, and we cannot judge you or tell you what to do. Only He can do that. And if you have some questions about your lifestyle, I suggest you take it up with Him, not me. I don’t know anything. 

4. [This one is a little more complex and not quite fully formed so bear with me.] Pentecostals are what one might call “orthodox” Christians, which means that we believe firmly in the Bible as the complete and absolute truth. We cannot deny that the New Testament states that practicing homosexuality is not a lifestyle officially condoned by the Christian church. That’s why it’s part of the official Pentecostal statutes. As Christians, we must trust that God is a divine being infinitely more wise and more powerful than us, and that His word is truth, and that the Bible is the inspired word of God, due to its historical credibility, internal consistency and enduring influence. As such, we must trust that His plan for our lifestyle is a good one. If this is due singularly to the biology of His creation, and the fact that babies generally occur from heterosexual sex, then I guess I can see how that kinda makes sense. But in reality, I can’t actually see how anything makes any sense ever, because I’m a finite human (which is redundant, because there is no such thing as an infinite human, but I really wanted to drive the point home). I just go through life trusting in a higher power than myself (with good reasons to do so, I might add. Please see here). That means that I trust Him despite my personal opinions and despite what’s going on around me. This puts us in a rather difficult situation when it comes to formulating an opinion on homosexuality because I genuinely do think that it’s not a choice. 

5. For this reason, I have taken this as my official personal stance on homosexuality and Christianity: "Love is my ultimate answer to any question, because God is Love and Love is as close to the divine as you will get in this life. I adhere to two inalienable truths - God loves you and I love you. This love is unconditional, and has nothing to do with whether or not we agree on…anything, really. My purpose and goal in life is to show you that God loves you. I attempt to do this by loving you. And I really really want you to experience this radical, world-changing, earth-shattering, mind-blowing, paradigm-shifting love of God for yourself because it will literally change your life. And I believe that you can experience this love no matter what. No conditions apply. None. I will never tell you how to live your life, and if you have questions about your lifestyle, talk to God, not me." 

6. [Last one, finally!] Like I said, Christianity means a relationship with God, not belonging to a church. However, I strongly advocate for finding a group of believers to offer support and solidarity and encouragement in your faith. So I recommend finding a church where you feel safe and comfortable. If that’s not a Pentecostal church, that’s okay. But above all, I want you to know God. 

Okay all done! 

Thanks for your question :) As always, tip next time, 

Peace and love! -Katherine

Evolution.

I'm supposed to be studying this Evolution course for my exam tomorrow morning, but the textbook made me so angry that I had to write about it. 

That absolute gem of a quote is from a section called "Evidence for Evolution". In fact, a fairly substantial number of the pages in this book are devoted to this evidence. The writers devote quite a bit of time and energy trying to tell me why I should believe this theory. 

NEWSFLASH: I'm doing a biology degree. I'm taking this stupid course. I believe that evolution is a valid theory. I know that genetic mutations cause changes in the phenotype and some of these changes allow organisms to adapt better to their environment and therefore these traits are passed on the successive generations. Blah blah blah. Yes, Darwin, your theory makes sense. A+! Gold star for you! I KNOW this. You don't need to convince me. You don't need to convince anybody. I'm religious. I'm not stupid. 

And that leads me to my next point. Judging from my flurry of angry tweets, few things in life push my buttons like someone simultaneously insulting my beliefs AND my intelligence. 

I don't understand why the writer felt the need to insert this snarky comment. Do they assume that because I believe in a supernatural being that I am not smart enough to be doing a biology degree? Do they assume that religious people will never read this book? Or do they not realize that what they're saying is offensive? Do they not care because anyone who might be offended is of lesser intelligence and therefore not worth concern? These are the only plausible explanations coming to mind. 

I mean, if they are trying to convert me to their way of thinking, they're being COLOSSAL hypocrites about it. Cause the way to change my mind is to mock me, patronize me and insult me. Yep, keep it up. That'll work. This pushy, self-righteous "evangelical" style is the exact type of thing Christians get ridiculed for. (another thing we get ridiculed for). 

Okay, here's what REALLY gets me: the sheer ARROGANCE of it all. So the author employs suspension of disbelief and hypothetically suggests that this supernatural might be "credited with arbitrariness, whimsy, or a devious intent to to make organisms look as if they have evolved." 

FIRST OF ALL you are talking about the supernatural, divine, all-powerful creator of the whole entire universe and you're assuming He tries to fit Himself into your patterns? You, who would not be breathing if not by His grace which gives you breath. You, whose puny mind cannot possibly fathom the vastness of His being. You, who were not even a thought when He wove the fabric of the cosmos. You, who are but a vapour, a speck of dust, when compared to Him. Yep, waaaayyyy back at the freaking beginning of time itself, when creating the animals, God thought, "better make them fit this evolution theory those scientists dudes are gonna come up with in the 1800s". That is EXACTLY what happened. Of course you're the centre of the universe, you clever, clever boy! The sun actually does revolve around the earth! HOLY SHIT GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS. 

SECOND OF ALL God is a God of order. Nah, scratch that. God is order. Absence of God is chaos. So yeah, absolutely, God's amazing animal kingdom follows a pattern. Yes, life itself has a hierarchal organization to it. But what you fail to realize is that this pattern that you can see is like looking through a microscope. It is a minute part of a pattern that spans the entire universe. It is possibly the tiniest part of an enormous machine that God designed, with working parts on the scale of galaxies. The "tree of life" is the equivalent of a screw in the machine of all of space and time. Scientists discover patterns in nature all the time. And they're surprised. Like it's this big discovery that the world follows mathematics. Because if the universe has no cause or purpose there is absolutely no reason for it to have order. But is does because the intelligent creator designed it as such. 

So no, He didn't try to make it look like they evolved. The pattern is Him, and you're just seeing a little piece of it. 

I think that a lot of people make this mistake: when they imagine God, they imagine Him as less intelligent than them. 

Is there a particular reason why you want to wait to have sex?

Hello! Thank you for your question :)There are a few reasons that I’ve decided to wait. The first and most important being that I believe God created sex as an absolutely beautiful and breathtaking thing, but as with all things possessing great power, it was created to be used in a specific way. I’m serious, when we were learning about reproduction in biology, I was like a little kid, like “THIS IS SO COOL!!” The human body fascinates me. And sex is a part of that. It’s designed in all its intricacy to have multiple functions on relational, physiological, and reproductive levels. We are humans, and as humans, we were created to have sex. I’m not even kidding. I don’t actually think that full-on lifetime celibacy and abstinence is necessarily a good thing. For some people, like Paul, it works. For others, it doesn’t. But I also believe with all of my heart that humans were created to be monogamous. Why else would we be so infatuated with fairy tales and “only true love’s kiss can break the spell”? God created us like that. So He created us to have sex and He created us to be monogamous. And so, in the logical progression of this train of thought, He created us to have sex within the confines of monogamy. So…where does marriage come into this? Marriage, to God, is a sacred and holy covenant, before men and before Him. Breaking such a bond is in no way taken lightly. Therefore, for the majority* of cases, a Christian marriage means literally “until death do us part”. In this way, we are assured that we only share these more intimate parts of us with someone who has pledged to love us forever. (See 1 Corinthians 7:2 and Hebrews 13:4)And of course, I trust God explicitly, so I believe that the way He designed sex is the way it was designed to be used, and that’s the way I intend to use it. Also, here’s why, from a totally human perspective that I (in my infinite wisdom..ha. ha. ha.) agree with God. The emotional crap that comes along with sex. Man like, I’ve seen a girl fall for some guy she met a month ago and have a night of passion under the stars and yeah yeah yeah I’m sure it was all so romantic, but after that he left and she couldn’t get over him for years. And I don’t even know if she ever totally will. I’ve seen a girl sleep with 8 different guys in a year, including one who was 1.5 times her age, and she’s as emotionally easy as she is sexually. She’s hungry for attention and validation from guys because she can’t find it in herself. I love both of these girls dearly, and their choices are not mine, and I will never presume to tell them what they should or should not do. But again, their choices are not mine, and while I will not judge, I will not make the same choices.  Cause y’all can deny it, but there is a hormone called Oxytocin which is released by the brain during sex, colloquially dubbed “the cuddle hormone” that gives you all the warm and fuzzy feels. You know what the purpose of this hormone is? To strengthen interpersonal bonds. It’s secreted by the brain during breastfeeding to fortify the connection between a mom and her baby, and it’s secreted by the brain during sex to fortify the connections between you and the person you’re having sex with. Now you go ahead and try to tell me you’re not gonna have any emotions associated with sex. Honestly, I’ll point-blank refuse to believe you. I get emotions associated with all kinds of trivial things, when I’m into the guy. I don’t even wanna think about how crazy I’d get if we brought sex into the equation. Jeepers. That’s like incorporating the alphabet in math. This situation just got a whole new level of complicated. So basically, I wanna wait to have sex til I’m married cause then they’re trapped, muahahaha. I’m joking. But I don’t want to literally become naked (meaning vulnerable and defenceless), strip myself of all the barriers we put up to protect ourselves, and go to that place of intimacy with someone who might walk away in a year’s time and whom I might never see again. Or I might walk away from them. The point is that why invest everything you have in something that might not even last? 

I think sex is gonna be amazing. I just think it’ll be amazing-er within the boundaries of marriage than it would be without. Finally, check out this quote from the song Temptation by the 116clique: "Sex is a gift from God but we’ve taken it and made it idolatry.We’ve taken it and put it in the place of God. And we worship it so it comes out in all kinds of profane ways. So we blame the women for what they’re wearing And we blame the media for what they’re producing. But we never blame ourselvesFor how we’ve twisted God’s gift to glorify us.”  Peace and love! -Katherine *I think for me personally, divorce is not only an option, but the option in cases such as abuse or infidelity. 

I’ve always had trouble with this idea of “hearing from God.” I always side-eye those super A+ put-together Christians who were hearing from God every week, and somehow I was outside the door of some secret club where God was throwing around fortune cookies full of His life-changing secrets.Let’s consider that God does speak to us every week. Let’s consider photosynthesis, the spinning of atoms, the burning of stars, the breath we just breathed, your child’s messy drawing, the twitching of your neurons to fire off emotions, a hug from your best friend. Let’s consider the sustaining of our molecules, which is purely by His grace. Let’s see all we are missing when our eyes are locked on a screen when the world is unrolling around us, as God makes His glory known through nature and coincidence. Let’s consider Christ, who is God’s spoken word and His very own glorious radiance (Hebrews 1:2-3). Let’s consider that God is already within the silence, and that even when we do not “feel” Him, God is okay with this too.

J.S. from this post (via yesdarlingido)

I know how hard it is to talk about Jesus. It’s the most awkward conversation you’ll ever have. If you even say the whole Gospel out loud right now, it sounds like the craziest thing you’ve ever heard. But the Gospel isn’t some ‘speech’ you unload on people and then ‘leave it in God’s hands.’ Blasting people with theology is like serving icing for dessert. Evangelism is your whole life, it’s sharing your home, it’s enduring patiently, it’s being a human being, it’s availability, it’s sharing Jesus through who you are; not perfectly, but passionately. Yes, invite them to church and to that revival and talk about your faith and your testimony, but once you dare to go there, just know you might be rejected immediately, a lot, and aggressively. Except secretly they can’t deny there must be something to it, because you’re not just a billboard: you’re an overflow of a barely containable supernatural miracle.

J.S. Park (via jspark3000)

Humans!!!!!!! Should!!!!!!! Not!!!!!! Kill!!!!!! Humans!!!!!!!

I'm feeling wistful.

Are you aware of the process of courting before engagement? It's like hands-off dating until you're engaged and then only hugs and hand-holding until you're married. How do you feel about this, is it something you would do?

Hello! I am indeed aware of such a process! In fact, one of my best friends is Muslim and that’s basically what they do…it’s like hands-off dates with a chaperone. I know it sounds sooo tiresome, but the whole point is to find out whether you are interested in spending the rest of your life with this person. And honestly, it sounds to me like they’re perfected the art of dating.

I am very incredibly interested in what it would be like. I think I really would try it. I don’t think that it’s necessary to remain pure, and I’ve always looked rather askance at the concept of saving your first kiss for your wedding day (simply because I think it’s a tad extreme, and unnecessary). So I don’t exactly think that it’s the right way to do it, but I think it sounds very interesting. It might be a good idea :P

I find that the physical aspect of a relationship has the potential to cloud judgment. Provided I can determine whether or not I’m physically attracted to someone and be aware of it (which I can, I dunno bout you :P) - because physical chemistry still is and always will be a very important part of a relationship - I think that it’s a “smart” way to do dating. You spend your time productively finding out how your values and worldview line up, and discussing thoughts and ideas instead of just, like, macking. :P

Because as important as physical chemistry is, it’s not what holds a marriage together. Mutual respect, appreciation, admiration and commitment is what holds a marriage together. And it’s possible that the way most people do dating focuses too closely on the physical aspect, and doesn’t prepare them for the future. So I think the process of courting *could* potentially produce stronger marriages. 

So in theory, I’m all for it. In practice…….

Honestly, I don’t even know if I could do it :P Well, I guess I could. I probably wouldn’t like it though :P When I’m in a relationship, the mental energy I devote to the physical part is divided evenly between paranoia about PDA and “I can’t wait to kiss him again”. So I think in one way, it’d be best kind! In another, it would annoy me. Thankfully, my love language is not physical touch! It’s words of affirmation, so I think that as long as I got to talk and text, I’d survive. 

Haha that was probably a long of information about me you didn’t need to know. But hopefully, it helps you understand my perspective. :) 

Thanks for the question! Peace and love! -Katherine