A CLOSED GARDEN

Swimming up the down current

• Song of Solomon 4:12  "A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed."

  To the world of 2024, a prevailing attitude is that purity is repression or prudery or being held back.

  Based on my own searing experience in flagrant opposition to sexual repression, by becoming a flagrant fornicator in my youth, I can reasonably say, "BUNK". 

  We have trapped, wrapped, trolled, rumbled, rambunctiously prowled and charged headlong into darkness, with the pounding beat leading the way. No romance, no waiting, no tempering of immediate desires, no respect for honorable traditions, no boundaries whatsoever. Preaching the joy of darkness, what a path to tread. I know it, I was in the middle of it for a decade, 18 to 28, from about 1970 to 1980.

  Extolling the non- existent virtues of lust is a very bad thing. Orgies? Fun? Not remotely.  I only participated in two and they were small but highly overrated. The shy get trampled and mocked.  You have unfamiliar hands roughly probing your private parts. You have unwanted strangers pressuring you to do the deed. You are not relaxed and you do not have an orgasm. You feel like a receptacle for the desires of others. Pressure abounds all around. Not much "freedom" in all that mess.  I lived it, to my great despair.

  The natural modesty of women  has been severely trampled.  Mocking is the habit of the day. No mystery, no tenderness, no humility, no courting of souls  and spirits as well as bodies . No wonder sex was physically painful for me for years. I was not relaxed and my body did not like the roughhousing, as much as I tried to persuade it.  My body knew what my soul did not.

  No wonder despair is in rampant supply in 2024.  

  I never formally married. I had two abortions in 1973. As stunning a statement as this is, it would have better for me in the long run, if I had remained a virgin. 

  Celibacy for me, after nearly twenty years, is a balm to my soul.  Coming from a generation who pried the door all the way open ( even if others had tried that before us), a door that had functioned as a stopgap to the destructive tendencies of rampant sex with no honorable restraint, the results have been devastating, not only to the Boomer generation but for those who were trampled after us. We were in severe rebellion, during the sorrows of the Vietnam War and the pushing of free sex on all.  I have to tell you, there are unpleasant consequences that fan out from all four directions. This is not a "victimless" road. This is utter chaos that stomps on all goodness.

  Pornography, shoving children to rebellion, shoving of hard drugs on uncertain people, pushing aside of all doorways of safety, pulling off the coverings and laughing at the sorrowful, I lived it, I was deeply wounded by it and am spending the remainder of the years God gives me, in repentance and in humble warnings. Bring ALL your sorrow directly to God, repent and ask Him to help you, minute by minute and day by day, in finding  a path through the  weeds.  

  The " closed garden" is an interesting template, not of repression or prudery but rather a Holy setting-aside of both the physical and the spiritual in tempered preparation for marriage.  " Courting " used to be the tradition of a young man who was interested in a young woman. He would present himself to the girl's parents in a humble manner and they, as their daughter's parents and protectors, would meet him and consider his character, temperament and stability, on behalf of their daughter. The daughter had her say, of course, but the parents were directly involved in this most important of decisions, who to marry.  

  Even as I type this, I am shaking my head in trepidation. It seems so foreign to us now, with all the decades of raw rebellion and staggering acting-out and horrifying statistics of STD'S, broken hearts, children having sex and having children, and outright criminal  behavior. 

  For this blunt Oregon girl from the Boomer generation, Mom wanted me, Dad did not. There were already two boys and Mom prayed for a girl!

  At just the most vulnerable time of my own life ( early teens), my parent's marriage broke, they separated, I left with Mom and a few weeks later, Mom died overnight of a massive stroke. No warning, no goodbyes. She had wanted a daughter and for nearly 14 yrs, I was loved and cherished by her. I came to Christ under her help. Suddenly she was gone ( Home!) and I was left with a  crestfallen Dad who begrudgingly ferried me through my teens and out into the world.  I began my period alone. I had no caution or training in " boys" and besides getting on the blasted horrible birth control Pill for one disgusting year, I was cast adrift in the rocky and rambling and dangerous sea of lust. It was not fun. I had at least 50 sex partners over ten years.   I grew a hard shell but was lost in the rampancy of the plague of "sexual freedom". Awful, awful, awful. A marketing gig, 100%.

   I did manage to find a good man after a decade of stumbling and we partnered for many good years but the damage had already severely stomped me and still negatively affected me. I finally returned to Christ after more than 30 years as a Prodigal but the repair does not happen quickly. 

  I am not suggesting celibacy as lifetime practice.  Life begins with sperm and egg, no  way around that biology.

  I simply advocate for a standing down, a consideration of actions, a cooling of the fires and a look within to God first, as a solution to our sorrows. It is not easy but it is more deeply satisfying than any sexual rebellion.

  WEW     June 21. 2024