The Church is Full of Them

Chalk another one up for the adventures of serving at a Chinese church.

From an email from a dear-old auntie whose English is not so good to the mostly male church leadership council asking for some input regarding an upcoming event.

Being the Token ______

One thing about being the token _______ in any group is that you are the first person thought of when another member of the group meets a new person that is also a __________.

Being the token Catholic in a group of Protestants has been a common occurrence for me my whole life.

It's always funny when people bring over someone that they've met who they've discovered is also Catholic or grew up Catholic.  "Hey!  I want you to meet <so-and-so>.  S/he's Catholic too!"  And then they look excitedly back-and-forth between you and the newly introduced with big, anticipatory eyes for the surefire sparks wrought at their hands.

Haha, awkward.  But being a bridge-person and someone that likes to smooth over social situations, I embrace those situations and try to make the most of them.

Same deal with being one of the few committed young adults in my Chinese church.  Every few weeks there's a Chinese ah-yi (auntie) leading a usually reluctant young adult by the hand over to me and in fobby English saying, "You two are both young adults!"   She then walks away, looking proud of herself.

And on the flip-side, in my college days where our mostly Asian Christian fellowship was trying to grow in multi-ethnicity, I may or may not have done the same thing to a new black student introducing them to our token black student.  Whoops.

Not Sure Why I Never Put This Together...

In my experience, the classic answer in Christian circles for why masturbation is wrong is because it involves objectifying another person.

Makes sense.  And because the teaching that it's wrong is usually definitive, there's usually no motivation for thinking it through any further.  Classic sheep-think, I guess.

But then I noticed that choosing (or feeling compelled) to masturbate could be stress-induced.  Taking it even further, I also began to feel like there could be a distinction between being horny/desiring intimacy, but that it didn't necessarily have to be projected onto someone else (though that's the obvious next step).  I guess it was leading towards the question of, "Is it possible to masturbate without mentally objectifying someone?"

Even though I think that it's a heavily caveat-ed yes, I never realized until today that for the same reason (of many) that I believe contraception to be wrong - that the action of ejaculation should always be associated with the possibility of life (cf. Onan), it also applies to masturbation (usually cf-ed with Onan, but poorly).  I guess it comes from the fragmentation of mostly being taught about masturbation from the Protestant church and about contraception from the Catholic Church.  I did always feel funny shooting my swimmers directly into a toilet bowl (or mis-dripping them onto the seat; you know what I mean).  

And don't get me started on pre-cum or separating the sensation of orgasm from the action of ejaculation.  Yay for rabbit holes.  Or capital-m-Mysteries.

Lyric of the Moment 14

"When a dude's gettin' bullied and shoots up his school /
And they blame it on Marilyn /
And the heroin /
Where were the parents at? /
And look where it's at /
Middle America, now it's a tragedy /
Now it's so sad to see /
An upper class city /
Having this happening?

          ~ Eminem, The Way I Am

New Dad Confession 8

We just started solid foods with my daughter.

I've discovered that when I feed her, I sub-consciously move my mouth to mimic the shape that I want her to make and my head towards what would be her angle of easiest spoon entry. Or when food is falling out, my lips move as if I was trying to catch it from falling out of my own mouth.

It's sort of like how some people move their whole body when playing video games to move or turn faster.  Damn Mario Kart.