Having your cake or eating it.

A woman has been removed as the organist and choir director of her Catholic parish because she refused to quit her job as a sales rep for a sex toy company.

Everybody here knows that I'm not Catholic. But there are times when I will defend them to the death. This is one of those times.

In the article it is revealed that the woman had a brain tumor. The tumor and the treatment left her 'sexually dysfunctional'. So she became a sales rep for a sex toy company called "Pure Romance".

Pure Romance is a company that sells sex toys the way they used to sell Tupperware. They have a bunch of women gather at someones home and the sales rep brings in a bunch of samples, and they all place orders. She said that she wanted to help other women like her overcome sexual dysfunction....by selling them sex toys? Wait a second. Wait. Sex toys? There is a way in which a dildo or a vibrator can correct sexual dysfunction?

For the sake of argument lets assume she is talking about Anorgasmia. Anorgasmia is a condition where people have difficulty reaching orgasm even when they have proper stimulation.

So by helping women buy sex toys, she is helping them have orgasms. Sounds reasonable. Unless of course you belong to a religion that says that masturbation is wrong.

Here again I find myself asking a very specific question: If you disagree with the Catholic church and you think that masturbation is A-OK...why in the hell would you keep going to a Catholic church?

Why would you choose to remain in a religion that you disagree with?

Then the woman says how shocked she was that she was told to resign from the sex toy company. Hello? Roman Catholic church? You were surprised that the priest disapproved of you selling dildos at house parties?

Then, and this is absolutely priceless, when she was told to resign from either the choir or the sex toy company, she had this to say:

"After I got over the initial shock, I prayed over this a long time," she said. "I feel that Pure Romance is my ministry."


A dildo company is your Roman Catholic ministry?

This woman needs to be a writer for South Park. But wait! There's more!

"Father Dean made it sound so sinful," she said. "There is so much more to this business than toys."

Father Dean made it sound sinful? No, the bible did that. He was just quoting. If you disagree with his position that selling dildos is against Christianity, why are you upset about not working there? Wouldn't it be good for you to go somewhere where people agree with you?

Some people.

Make no mistake, I am far from sexually pure. But I regard my lustful actions as being wrong, and I try not to repeat them. But lady, you cannot possibly sell dildos and claim to be a Roman Catholic. Sorry, it doesn't work. You do not get to define the faith all by yourself.

-Alexion

Back and forth

Sinning makes me not want to go to liturgy...which is the only thing that helps prevent future sinning...



So how am I supposed to get any better if I don't go? What kind of logic is "I'll go once I've had a decent week".

It's bullshit logic, since (for the purposes of this hypothetical question) you ask. I won't get anywhere without going anywhere. Gee. That was catchy. And it was inane enough to be on a keychain.

I won't achieve a life pleasing to God and peaceful for myself without going to God and making myself his Son.

Nothing will happen while I fester here without changing.

Gandhi said: "We must be the change we wish to see in the world."

OK, if I want an Orthodox wife, then I have to be an Orthodox man. And not a whiny jackass.

The disheartening thing about that is that even if I succeed in not being a God pleasing not-whiny-jackass kind of man, it doesn't mean I'll get to get married. I just means it will be possible where it wasn't before.

I debate if I should write about this, but I will do it and hope it isn't wrong. For the first time ever a few weeks ago I prayed for God's will do be done in my life regardless of anything I wanted for myself. It was liberating.

I felt clean like I hadn't felt in forever. I haven't stopped wanting the things that I want, but...I'm beginning to make some progress on accepting God's will instead of my own. It's very, very hard. Please keep praying for me.

And if it's somehow possible that there is time left over after praying for my salvation, pray that I become a real Orthodox man in the process, and that I become qualified for those things that an Orthodox man might be granted. Whatever that be in the eyes of God.

Thanks, Alexei

The Finer Points

I wonder what it was that was different for me than for other people that I've known.

When I was younger, I was operating under an assumption that there were some things I simply wasn't going to have. In high school, the idea of asking a girl out was so absurd that I virtually never tried it. Certainly I was one of the geeks, there can't be any question of that, but even some of them, in spite of their geekish likes and dislikes were socially normative kids.

I feel the need here to make it clear that this is an attempt at a reflective analysis, and not a 'misery me' post or some kind of a bitch fest.

But the thing that I'm wondering is, where did I miss the finer points of how normal people do it? I was around them, I admired their functionality, and I wanted the relationships they had. So how did I fail to absorb their methods? Even today there are things absent from my life that seem to be normal in other people.

Logically it works out to being the sum of my non-normative likes and dislikes, and the fact that I've always been something of a loner. But being alone sucks for me the same way it does for anyone else (the hermits notwithstanding), so why didn't I adapt? Hell, animals don't put up with things that cause them pain, why in the hell didn't I change my patterns?

Operant conditioning works. If you put a rat in a cage and you electrify part of the floor the rat moves to the other side.

Part of me wonders this: Precisely what in the hell would I do if a single Orthodox woman showed up at my parish next week?

I know this particular hypothetical scenario requires some imagination but bear with me.

So lets say she shows up for liturgy and stays for the food afterwards.

I have to admit I'm stumped at this point because there is one thing I've learned. Painfully.

Eagerness is bad. If you look, smell, walk, talk, or act eager, you've instantly failed a one time only must-pass test. I have blown more than one first impression this way. Ruining a first impression is an un-fixable error. That person will never really be comfortable around you again, and they probably won't trust you either. This is Gospel.

So you have to strike the critical balance. You have to walk the knifes edge. You must somehow convey that you are interested, but not be eager.

How in the hell do you do that?

You don't ask someone on a date that you're barely interested in. Isn't it obvious that you must want the person if you ask them out?

I really, really don't understand this.

-Alexei

Wow.

I really need to learn to not write Blog entries when I'm feeling emotional. Seriously. Never write anything that will be visible to the public when you aren't clear headed.

I'll endeavor to not do that again.


-Alexei

Every time.

It happens every time. When I come to write here, I'm always in turmoil. And I always start by dumping something highly toxic onto this page and then revamping it into something civilized.


Well, let me lay it out for you.

I'm screamingly fed up with it. I'm ragingly angry and frustrated and I'm beginning to hate being Orthodox.


This is why: I'm alone. It sucks more than I can describe. I don't get to be with anyone, because there just aren't any Orthodox girls even roughly my age. So, I have to go through life without a companion because if I marry outside the church, I get excommunicated, which means no more sacraments, which means I go to hell.

Wonderful situation eh?


I'm frustrated and I'm angry and I'm having trouble dealing with YET ANOTHER YEAR of being single, celibate and lonely. I want it to end. And it is just not happening for me.

I'm having trouble wanting to love God. Intellectually I know God has nothing to do with my situation. It's not His doing that there are very few Orthodox in America. It's not His fault. And the rules are the rules but...

Practically everyone I know got married before they became Orthodox. It was easier for them.



I can't even write coherently right now. God, pelase, end this. One way or the other, end this please. I can't do this. I can't go on like this. I've been doing it for too long. You Yourself said that it is not good for the man to be alone. So end this. In the name of Your pronounced Will for the human race end this aloneness that I am aflicted with. Send me someone, please, because I can't do this alone anymore.


Incoherently yours, Alexei

Well...it didn't work.

A second ago, I wrote a frustration fueled rant. I deleeted it, this is not the place for those kinds of things. But I will give a brief report.


It didn't work. There were no unmarried girls my age (or close to it) at the Antiochian church. In theory the priest has a daughter, but I never saw her in four visits to the place.

To compound matters, I basically don't know anyone there. How then did I make my observations? Well...the young ones were obviously young, the older ones were likewise. And the married ones all had rings. Believe me, I looked. Having been non-consensually celibate for years now...I've developed a laser like ability to spot a wedding band at a hundred paces. My eyes involuntarily seek out a woman's left hand when I meet her for the first time.

...God that was pathetic to write that. But, in the name of honesty, I feel compelled to leave it there. It is, after all, the truth.

Lord God Almighty of heaven, help me find what will set me at peace and bring me joy. I don't want to be a monk.

-Alexion