Some Random Ramblings

I have just spent a fairly sleepless night wrestling, once more, with difficult questions. Dear friends are 'going through the mill' at the moment - there has been a veritable spate of bereavements in two church families.  The most recent is the loss of a sibling's child, at the age of only two days.  Nineteen years ago, my wife gave birth to a stillborn child, so we know the devastating sense of loss they feel.  The pain, at the time, is unbearable. There are no easy answers; nothing one can say which will ease the pain of loss.  However much I want to, I can't take away their pain.

There isn't a 'best thing' one can do, because everyone suffers grief a little differently. Some wish, mainly, to be alone; others want company - but very often the sort of company who are able to sit comfortably in companionable silence, simply listening and 'soaking up' the hurt, the anger, the questions, without necessarily responding unless specifically asked for a response - many questions are rhetorical and need no answer - if, indeed, there is an answer…

This post, which sort of follows on from the last, is inspired mainly by the tribulations of Cardinal Keith O'Brian, until recently head of the Roman Catholic church in Scotland. It also stems from a  discussion at our house group meeting this week, on the theme of 'Grace'. I am not going to comment, other than in the most general terms, on Cardinal O'Brian's situation.  My thinking on this matter, and its relationship to the theme, is 'incomplete', so the post may seem a little disjointed - it's a 'work in progress'.  During it I shall wander, fairly freely, through homosexuality, paedophilia, Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, journalism and so on without pausing for breath - sorry if it's hard to follow and I seem to make links which don't exist - as I say, my thinking is incomplete, but I needed to write something down as part of working it all out in my mind...

So, sex and the Christian. Despite what some would have you believe, God is not anti-sex. If you believe that God created mankind in His own image, and that it was good, then you can't avoid the fact that sex is good.  God created the orgasm.  God (through an intermediary) wrote the Song of Solomon.  Read that, remember that it's part of the bible, and then try telling me God is anti-sex - though I don't deny that the church, at times, has appeared (and sometimes still seems) to be anti-sex.  God does, though, place quite strict boundaries on sexual activity - basically, it seems to be intended to be between a man and a woman who are married to each other (with some exceptions, if you trawl the depths of the Old Testament - there's some polygamy and other things going on there, apparently with God's approval??).  And that, throughout the history of God's people, has been the only place it was permitted - no, not just permitted, positively required. I am not, here and now, going to venture into the minefield of homosexuality, gay marriage, and all that - maybe some other time - perhaps when I've worked out where my views actually lie!