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[Back to index of March articles] BEARINGS: By Martin L. Smith In Lent we expect to hear about 'being in the desert,' but often such language sounds like a pious cliché. It helps to reinvigorate the imagery if some of us know real deserts at first hand, even better to have actually trekked through desert terrain on foot. In the days when I could still carry 40 pounds on my back in the heat, I used to return as often as I could to the deserts of Utah, especially the Escalante wilderness. It is not only one of the most beautiful places on earth, it also is a great teacher. The challenges of finding one's way, even with compasses and the best charts, are formidable. You soon learn a lesson that is priceless for the practice of living itself. You must expect to reach impasses and dead ends and have to retrace your steps. The desert is cruel-to-be-kind if you fancy that you will be able to make smooth progress. In the spring you can fall asleep under a starlit sky and wake up blanketed in snow. The deserts are deceptive; canyons are invisible from a distance and what looks like an easy way to a point on the horizon is barred by a precipice. The heat bends the light and tricks the eye. Distances are greater than they appear. You hit an impassable cliff; you have to turn around to find another way. The wilderness teaches you that encountering dead ends is part of life. (This assumes of course you aren't playing so safe that you've become a cruise passenger instead of a pilgrim.) The spirit of truth is the enemy of our rationalizations. We do reach dead ends in our lives. In our work, in our relationships, in the ways we use our imagination to turn our lives into a story. And the Christ who emptied himself for us is the encourager of humility, keeping us company when we come clean with ourselves and others and admit: "I'm stuck here. I have to retreat from this cul-de-sac to find the new path forward." If we learn this lesson, we will be less anxious about the dead ends we often reach together in the church. Impasses aren't the end of the world or the end of the church. Just inevitable, and the clearest sign that the Spirit is instructing us to retrace our steps to a point from which we can set out afresh. So people are panicking because they think they have already reached an impasse over homosexuality, or because they suspect conversations between those who disagree will soon hit a wall. They are fearful, and decisions prompted by fear are unreliable, however justified by seemingly confident theologies. The action that is less fearful is to find the way back to the point where a new conversation can begin and go forward. If we reach a dead end in controversy about the morality of certain physical expressions of intimacy, then God may be guiding us back to the more fundamental discussion we haven't yet been having - one we must explore if we are to break through to a better future in Christian witness about the graces found in intimacy, eros and sexuality. I have a sense that we need first to enter what for many is virtually unexplored territory - the meaning of the nonsexual love that can flourish between men, and between women. In fact, same-gender love is a vital and wonderful thread in the fabric of the lives of very many of us, quite regardless of our sexual orientation. Yet conventional Christian thought and conventional Christian practice are strangely silent about the depth our friendships can reach. They show little awareness of the power that often makes the bonds of love between friends more enduring than vows of matrimony in a culture like ours, in which one marriage out of every two ends in divorce. In leading retreats for men, I have discovered how powerful it is for us to share stories of friendship with other men and to testify how holy the need for male bonding is, how rooted in our souls. I think of a man, straight, happily married, a grandfather, who was able in the supportive circle of such a retreat to release more than 50 years of pent-up grief over the loss of a wartime comrade whom he loved profoundly. I think of all the women who have confided to me how part of the secret of their fulfilled marriages was they hadn't expected their husbands to meet all their needs for intimacy, and how vital intimate friendships with other women, sustained over decades, were for their well-being. Church communities that helped us foster and rejoice in these relationships would be far better prepared to listen to what their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters are trying to say. Martin L. Smith is a well-known spiritual writer and priest. He serves on the staff of St. Columba's, D.C. as theologian-in-residence. [Back to index of March articles]
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