Fall Break

Up late last night processing the most recent class in Spiritual Direction, up early this morning to run on the treadmill. The girlfriends and I were planning to run outside and take advantage of the later start offered by the children's being on Fall Break, but we were waylaid by an early snowstorm which has dropped four inches so far. The kids were rock stars this morning; they tackled homework, dioramas and crayon drawings as I struggled through the final pages of my latest project, translating the "Learning Physics with Toys" curriculum into Spanish for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Spiritual direction and physics in Spanish has left me fairly brain-dead, but the kids are watching Pink Panther now so thought I had better update the blog.

I really want to write something light and humorous but find that my brain sticks on the subject of last night's class: Sexuality and Spirituality. My friend and I pulled into the parking lot prepared to squirm in our seats, fight our giggles, and learn to go deeper on the subject (be more 'reverential', as Sister urged us). I've spent many years unwinding the psychological strait jacket prepared by the Catholic Church: don't talk about sex, don't have sex (until you are married, in which case have lots of it, but only for children), don't take pleasure in it, etc. In doing the readings to prepare for class I was pleased to see that the religious writers / leaders have changed their tune to some degree, insisting that all sexuality is a God-given gift and provided to us as a meaningful tool to develop relationships with other people and with God.

Using sexuality as a tool to get closer to God: what an interesting concept. We all had to prepare our sexual histories - to share or not as we desired - but I won't go into that here. Class loomed like a party which you half desired and half dreaded. Unfortunately for me, last night's instructor chose to focus the first two-thirds of the class on childhood heartbreak and trauma, I guess because those situations set the stage for adult intimacy. Her pretext was that we have to really go deep and explore these dark places before we can understand our attitudes about intimacy.

Well, I'm not a fan of the deep dark places, and certainly not in a room full of twenty-three lovely people who are more or less acquaintances. (Some are a lot closer after last night). My heart is a bit out of rhythm today, and I am sure I grew last night, judging by the heartache. The frustrating item for me is that I had a great childhood and great parents. I don't recall any reason for heartbreak, any reason for shame or longing or rejection, yet I felt those emotions when our instructor showed us a series of slides of stick figures getting their hearts broken, thrown down, rejected. The experts assure us that every child sustains trauma, regardless of their upbringing, but that does not really make me feel better. My mind just flashes on to my own children and wonders what childhood traumas affect them. As my dear friend says, "I'll be a successful mother when my kids grow up, get a job, and can pay for their own therapy." At least they're laughing out loud right now; the Pink Panther solves many problems. Think I'll go watch, too.