[Paul] was concerned to emphasize, rather [than fornication], the continuing validity of all social bonds. The structure of the household as a whole was at stake. This included the institution of domestic slavery. On this, Paul was adamant: slaves, like wives, must remain in their place\u2026.<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u2013Peter Brown, The Body & Society: Men, Women, & Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity<\/p>\n
In Brown\u2019s portrayal of early Christian communities, celibate people could take a few different stances toward the married, sexually-active householders who were (usually) the majority. Sometimes the very presence of celibates was an implicit critique of the worldly compromises marriage and economic stability required. Sometimes celibates and virgins were a direct threat to the family: I gave one example in that post about Coco<\/em><\/a>, but Brown\u2019s book is replete with stories of parents devastated by their children\u2019s choice of celibacy over marriage. At other times celibacy allowed a brutal honesty about the costs of marriage and childbearing to women, what Brown calls \u201cthe carnage of the marriage bed,\u201d as in Ephraim the Syrian\u2019s still-searing lyrics:<\/p>\n
There find their sweet repose<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
Wives with bodies broken,<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
Through pregnancy\u2019s dire curse,<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
Through birth\u2019s hard labors.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
There do they see the babes,<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
That they buried with sighs,<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
Feed like new born lambs,<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
Deep in the green of the Garden.<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Celibates could also be pillars of the community\u2013and the economy. It was said that the prayers of virgins were what made the Nile send forth the tides without which the people would starve. Brown quotes one author: \u201cIn every house of Christians, it is needful that there be a virgin, for the salvation of the whole house is that one virgin.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
I mostly write about ways in which gay people\u2019s celibacy can build up our communities. Married couples still really need the friendships and prayers of the unmarried<\/a>. We\u2019re trying now to build a society in which isolated couples have no one to depend on but one another; shockingly, making marriage the only vocation turns out to be really bad for marriage<\/em>. Households depend spiritually on the prayers of monastics (this, I think, is expressed analogically in the way so many great Christian novels show their family-ridden characters seeking refuge in the monastery), and on the prayers of others whose celibacy frees up our time and attention for God\u2019s use. Households depend practically on the extended family and on friendships which have become as durable and inescapable as kinship.<\/p>\n
I basically never write about gay celibacy-as-implicit-critique except to say it exists. I don\u2019t know that I, with my novelistic mind all abuzz with community and kinship forms, can portray well that fierce Christianity which slices through our mammal wants like so many soap bubbles. (Although there will be a bit about this in Tenderness<\/em>, and later in this series.)<\/p>\n
I sometimes write about marriage as arena<\/a> of suffering<\/a>. Others are probably better than me at this task. (\u201cWhat task\u2013marriage, or suffering?\u201d Yeah, everyone\u2019s a critic.) I\u2019d like to think that gay celibate people can express solidarity here\u2013everybody\u2019s vocation is a cross, God doesn\u2019t ask of you only the sacrifices you want to make\u2013instead of resentment that other people get to<\/em> make the sacrifices many of us long to make.<\/p>\n
But the quotation at the top of this post makes me wonder about another role gay people may be able to play vis a vis the \u201ctraditional family.\u201d Most of us know what it\u2019s like to be on the margins of the church, under suspicion and treated as if our needs and emotions are mere obstacles to the smooth running of the Community. If we don\u2019t forget what that\u2019s like, we may be better able to see the ways in which our churches have treated other people as instruments or obstacles.<\/p>\n
I edited this anthology, Christ\u2019s Body, Christ\u2019s Wounds: Staying Catholic When You\u2019ve Been Hurt in the Church<\/em>. It\u2019s available now (BUY! SHOP! CONSUME<\/a>! Also on KINDLE<\/a>!) and you\u2019ll hear much more about it soon. My own experience in the Church has been almost entirely wonderful. To the extent that it\u2019s been difficult I think that\u2019s mostly been due to my being gay. And when I talk about the difficulties (often much more harrowing than mine) of being gay in the Church, afterwards people sometimes come up and say, \u201cI\u2019m not gay, but\u2026\u201d, and then they tell me their story of mistreatment in the Church. On a less-intense level, Peter, in this post about how you end up as a basically cheery and stable celibate gay Catholic<\/a>, says that when he came out to his family, \u201cthat\u2019s when everyone thought it would be good to share shocking and gross stories [about their sexual misadventures] to make me feel better.\u201d On the one hand that\u2019s incredibly awkward and there\u2019s a reason he laughed sardonically at that point in our interview. On the other hand, what a mercy to be able to prompt that kind of (weird, uncomfortable\u2026 maybe unnecessary!!) honesty and vulnerability in your family. They told him this stuff, I think, in part as a kind of self-abasement, to show that they accepted him. What a great thing to let your family do for you.<\/p>\n