Intimacy's diversity

I just got off the phone from a rare chat with an ex-boyfriend and I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation, as did he, both of us loathe to end the conversation for the strong connection that still exists between the two of us.

We spent an hour pleasantly catching up: what we've been up to and recent events and ideas that have made an impact on our lives.

It was a conversation of shared intimacy, a meeting of minds, that enriched us both while building another cord of warm affection in our bond of friendship.

This is platonic friendship at its best. No expectations. Just simple gratitude for what it is, and for the occasional opportunity where we share our lives with love. 

In today's lingo, "friends with benefits" means a relationship between man and woman with no strings attached or any romantic allusions, but one which  includes sex. An antithesis to JPII's  Theology of the Body for man and woman use each other for selfish gratification without truly appreciating and respecting the dignity of the other.

Conversely what D. and I have is a failed romantic relationship, and a friendship that survives for we also accepted and loved the other for who we were - and we still do.

In mutually respecting the changed boundaries of a platonic friendship, we are both blessed with a hard-to-come-by relationship between the sexes where purity exists in love.

It's this purity I value for it allows me to love freely without wanting more, and my life is enriched, my femininity affirmed, without my dignity being sullied. I am filled without my craving for more.

And I value my worth sufficiently to be able to deal with the sporadic hunger pang in a way that increases my self-worth through the grace of discipline and self-mastery.

While men and women are made for love, the world today has bought into the ideal of love being romantic love, and a crude understanding of sexuality and carnality being bed partners, thereby reducing love into a longed for and prized erotic exchange of bodily fluids.

This belief perpetuated by media, art, music and a "culture of death" leaves men and women starved for intimacy, with very little ability to receive a perceived worthwhile or valued love in any way other than a romantic or sexual liaison. 

Singlehood is seen as the chief reason for loneliness, burdensome, rather that a state of life that can be as fulfilling and enriching as marriage and parenthood.

In Susan Muto's Late Have I Loved Thee, The Recovery of Intimacy, she speaks of the "faces of intimacy"  of being "as diverse as stars, as unique as snowflakes" and quite within reach of every person.

It simply requires us to "listen appreciatively', "to be present to every event" in our everyday lives; for our love for others to be "purified of self-gratifying passions" and to be chaste and respectful; and to cultivate a "poverty of spirit", to "live simply" so that we can "let go of things as final sources of satisfaction" and to "treat things reverently".

These choices, and a  broadening of our definition of love will allow us be open to the ways love and intimacy can touch our lives.

In mundane, ordinary  and diverse ways. Even through perfect strangers and humdrum events.

A single phone conversation.

As I increasingly continue to experience my individual being as someone sacred, unique and loved, I am able to extrapolate my everyday experiences to arrive at the truth that love, and intimacy are very much within my grasp.

Just like today.

And I thank God for friendships with the benefits of purity and freedom.