Monday, 12 May 2008

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  Why I'm a capital V...

  Forward: Reader take note. This post is not in response to anything anyone has said about the topic of sex. This is a mere post to explain my stance in a culture where this stance is often laughed at, sneered at, and seen as "old fashioned and out of date".

   

  I sit alone in this musky odored eggshell-white Ford F-150 as the day passes on. I wonder what happened to our American culture in the span of 50 years? Throughout the cold morning I worked in my wrinkled jet-black hoodie lifting manhole lids, but now as the morning wanes on heat and possible odor tells me it's time to shed a layer. I can live with heat, but not the smell of "I told you so".

  This late model work truck has become a haven of sorts to me. It has become my place of escape where peace and serenity surround me while noise and deadlines disappear. Driving from manhole to endless manhole I can listen to the latest sermons while taking mental notes for sermons of my own. On these hot days I can escape the scorching canary-yellow sun and it's bleeding rays with a pop-tart and grape Gatorade. However, as I drive around this city of Poteau I observe more things then the dirt brown roaches that call our sewer system home.

  I notice the college and high school girls wearing practically anything to catch the young man's fancy. Their short shorts and mini skirts reveal more skin then was allowable for a woman in her own bedroom during my grandmother's childhood. Shirts and blouses are presented to show not so much cleavage to cause a reck, but enough to keep a guy staring. Young and old men alike hoot and holler at the girls. The women soak up every bit and piece of attention they are given. I meanwhile laugh at co-workers causing traffic jams at one intersection in a town of 8,000 because the guys can't seem to drive more then 2 mph past the town's favorite tanning salon.

  After a hard day of physical labor I arrive back at headquarters with enough sweat on my forehead to fill a 7/11 Big Gulp and my blue jeans turning midnight black and harvest orange from the dirt and grime of the manholes. I check my email, nothing new as usual, and listen to full grown men talk as if they just entered puberty (for the 19th time in the same week).

  At 5 I drive a short distance home to change my clothes, get rinsed off, eat a quick snack, and retire to my plaid couch for some SportsCenter. After hearing the same story for the 3rd time I quickly begin to change channels surfing the airwaves with the greatest of ease. As I wiz past MTV I can't help but see some girl shaking her booty in some music video or some teenage couple talking about the county health department really helping them out by giving them a year's supply of condoms. E! is no better as Kim Kardashian tries to save her and her family's life once again from public scrutiny.

  I no longer laugh at this point. I am exausted, but their is nothing funny about this. I wonder into my bedroom, fall on my back onto my full sized bed, and listen to the radio as I wonder off into random thoughts and ponderings. As I maneuvre past tomorrow's breakfast, and my undying hope for rain, I begin to think back to simpler times with my grandfather. Grandpa and I were drinking buddies, Mt. Dew that is. I remember the great summers as we sat on his front porch guzzling down Mt. Dew talking about my future and his past. I even remember as he was fading away into eternity drinking Mt. Dew with him as he sucked on a rag dunked in the soft drink. Grandfather spoke so much of more innocent times where men and women stayed married, kids were respectful, American cars were better then foreign made hunks of metal, and sex was valued.

  As I come back to consciousness I begin to look at my culture, my society, what has become the norms and values of these United States and begin to wonder am I the freak here? Am I the weirdo as compared to everyone else? From my point of view it seems as though I am the odd man out. In Sociology 165 back at Blue River CC I read that 75% of guys, and 65% of girls will have had sex atleast once before graduating high school. Once guys graduate college their is a 95% chance they will have had sex. Three out of every 10 girls in college has some sort of STD. So how is it that I managed to be part of the 5% that is still sexually pure, and how did I luck out that my girl friend is a virgin as well?

  My ponderings point me into one direction. First, the kitchen. It's time for some frozen Boston Market roasted pork with garlic potatoes. Second, our herestanding as virgins isn't by chance it's by choice. During my freshman and sophomore years in high school I was the prototypical male; addicted to porn and if I wasn't thinking about food I was thinking about possible sex. However, like Paul when I encountered Christ on my Damascus road, something not someone telling me to, instilled me a pursuit of a live devoted to holiness. From that age of 15 I made the vow like countless other young Christian teenagers that I would too wait until marriage for the gift of sex. Yet, I wasn't going to be like so many others who threw their vows of purity away for a fateful night of lust with no parents home or in the backseat of the minivan. I knew my decision was going to take strength and determination on my part. Going against the grain head on into a culture that embraces open sexuality would be a tough stand.

  Strength. Exactly what I needed. Within a month of my committment one of the hottest girls at school made the offer to me of "Whatever, happens happens. Mom won't be home for an hour or so. Just come on in for a coke and we'll have some fun." I did the only thing an adolescent 15 year old would do. Run like Hell! Other "Christian" girlfriends came along the way who broke up with me because my view of oral sex or intercourse was too legalistic for them. As the great rapper Petididee said, "No wed, no bed".

  In the fall of 2005 I met the girl who will soon someday be my wife. After a few weeks of dating I realized that our dates had become much more then just hanging out, but a courtship for possible marriage. After school one day I approached her and asked her on bended knee, "Jordan, I really like you a lot. I see God having great plans for us. But first, I really need to know. Will you pursue purity with me?" Jordan, a casual Christian at the time by her own account, looked at me with her soft brown eyes and began to well up with tears. After a few minutes of silence she looked at me and told me with a whisper and a clamor in her voice, "Yes". Little to my knowledge, Jordan assumed that my question for her and my purity was my way of trying to avoid kissing or having sex with her. Now with joy in her heart and love in her face she tells me that seeking purity was the greatest decision she could have made at the time.

  Girls laugh at Jordan openly because she didn't know what a penis looked like in physiology class. Co-workers mock me because I don't understand their crude references to female body-parts. You may ask, why do you want to be pure, come on you guys love each other apparently and have been with one another long enough. It's because of our committment to Christ. So many out there wave the flag of Christianity but have nothing in their personal lives to back up their faith. I made the promise to be real and authentic. I will never become the Christian who causes non-believers to mock the faith and say, "It's because of hypocrites like you that I don't go to church."

  I loved my future wife enough before I ever met her to save a gift for her that I can only give once to one person. I wanted that person to be her, and whenever that day is I can present to her the gift that no one else can ever lay claim to or say they experienced, my virginity. So now as I close out I stand before all of you a 22, soon to be 23, year old Virgin who is proud of the choice he had made, the lifestyle he has chosen, and the path I will continue to run until I look into Jordan's eyes and say, "Mrs. Bennetzen, could you please turn off the lights."

  I pray that no one takes offense to my words. If you have or are involved in a sexual relationship don't merely thinking I'm pointing a finger or judging you. Nor am I trying to make myself look holy in the eyes of you my readers. I just want the world to know why I choose to stand out and live the way I do.

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