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wrent band : evening with

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this evening we welcomed the music and message of wrent. wrent is a group of made up of jennafer & brady who are using their gifts of songwriting & performing to help change the world and bring to light the ills of poverty in the us & world. wrent came to us via one of our youth. they were the worship band for camp kanakuk which one of our families loves. our youth brought up the possibility and i was happy to play host. didn't know much, anything, about the band at the time, but i trust my kids. i liked their sound that i heard over the net. i became more a fan tonight after knowing really what they were about and deeply listening to some of their songs.

looking for a group for your next retreat or event? i'd recommend. looking for a special group with a message for youth to be change for God's kingdom? i would highly recommend.

as is customary, we take a lot of photos.

lets talk about sexy baby : ed young & sex week

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a lot has been made of ed young and his mega-church's sex week challenge where parishioners were encouraged to have sex every day of the week. i know there is enough news about this, surely there is enough blogging my favorite being from micheal spencer. my problem lies within that sex, tho not inherently bad, is not an answer to marriage success. what do i mean by this? i'll turn the mic over to kathleen norris on celibacy.

Americans are remarkably tone-deaf when it comes to the expression of sexuality. The sexual formation that many of us receive is like the refrain of an old Fugs' song: "Why do ya like boobs a lot-ya gotta like boobs a lot." The jiggle of tits and ass, penis and pectorals, assault us everywhere – billboards, magazines, television, movies. Orgasm becomes just another goal; we undress for success. It's no wonder that in all this powerful noise, the quiet tones of celibacy are lost; that we have such trouble comprehending what it could mean to dedicate one's sexual drives in such a way that genital activity and procreation are precluded. But celibate people have taught me that celibacy, practiced rightly, does indeed have something valuable ot say to the rest of us. Specifically, they have helped me better appreciate both the nature of friendship, and what it means to be married.

They have also helped me recognize that celibacy, like monogamy, is not a matter of the will disdaining and conquering the desires of the flesh but a discipline requiring what many people think of as undesirable, if not impossible – a conscious form of sublimation. Like many people who came into adulthood during the sexually permissive 1960's, I've tended to equate sublimation with repression. But my celibate friends have made me see the light; accepting sublimation as a normal part of adulthood makes me more realistic about human sexual capacities and expression. It helps me to respect the bonds and boundaries of marriage.

Any marriage has times of separation, ill-health, or just plain crankiness, in which sexual intercourse is ill-advised. And it is precisely the skills of celebrate friendship – fostering intimacy through letters, conversation, performing mundane tasks together (thus rendering them pleasurable), savoring the holy simplicity of a shared meal, or a walk together at dusk – that can help a marriage survive the rough spots. When you can't make love physically, you figure out other ways to do it.

-kathleen norris, the cloister walk

the secret to saving marriage or making some statement of marriage health is not having more sex.. its cultivating intimate friendship. i fear most folks experiences during sex challenge was some bad sex by a lot of people who needed to make friends first. ed, maybe you can speak to that.