Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Courtship
The hardest thing about courtship for guys is being able to listen to their fiance or prospective fiance. Guys seem to need a very strong motive to listen. Sex is such a motive. Many guys think that after marriage they can have the sex without listening. Oops! Wrong, guys! In marriage, you learn to listen or learn to fake it. Both are difficult. I knew that I was no good at either. Celibacy, as a choice, is much better than as a punishment for not listening.
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Me thinks thou doth protest too much. Listening is your strongest skill. You have the ability to make each person, woman or man, you come in contact with feel listened to.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you chose celibacy so that you could share your listening skills with more than just an insular one wife/one family. You chose to share with the wider family spread from sea to shining sea, parish to parish, and heart to heart.
You listen and teach listening - to each other and to God.
Fr Terry,
ReplyDeleteMy life changed rather dramatically one day after speaking to you. You listened very attentively (or so it appeared to me?) to my whine, but unlike the therapists and counselers before you, you replied,
"So you screwed up as a young man. Stop beating yourself up. Get over it and go read psalm 90."
After all these years, it is still my favorite Psalm!
"So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom"
I hope my husband reads this. Then he will know why he has a celibate life.
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