Nothing Nice to Say - Part II.

Nothing Nice to Say – Part II.

The Blaming Approach

So many of the things people have actually said to me over the years have the tone of “blaming” to it.

That is why I have all this raw data to write about below.  None of what I have written is fabrication.  It is all real-life experience … the Blaming Approach has many slogans and it almost always makes the single person feel awful.

“Well you want it too much.”  Two things could be meant here.  I’ll start with the one that slights the single’s desire for fulfilled vocation.

(1)    God Himself saw the loneliness of Adam in the garden of Eden and made a suitable partner for him.  Do not tell me that we can quote that passage at weddings for the benefit of a couple but that when talking to single people it is just a myth.  Adam was single, walking with God and surrounded by beautiful animals in paradise yet he knew something was missing.  I firmly believe God understands this human need and was not in any way slighted by Adam’s wanting one more thing … a wife.

Someone once asked me, “What if you are so special that God wants you only to Himself?  Can you accept that?”  Now, at mid-life, having worked through some guilt for not feeling complete as a solitary, I can answer with my friend Adam from Eden:  no.  I can’t accept that.  And I know God is not offended by that.  His will in most cases is the sacrament of matrimony and I don’t think anyone can be faulted for wanting any sacrament too much.

Would you dare say to a seminarian “you want ordination too much”?  or to a person dying, “You want the Anointing of the Sick (Last Rites) too much”? Or to a sinner, “You want confession too much?” I hope not.

(2)    Perhaps in some cases the “it” that is meant in the statement (“You want it too much”) refers to the proverbial It.  As in, “You want IT too much” This has been typically followed up by a crasser extrapolation:  “Marriage isn’t just about sex you know.”  This comment is incredibly degrading to sacramental sexual expression and also humiliating to the person who is being accused of, in a word, being inappropriately carnal.

The fact of the matter is single people know that married life has its own unique daily challenges and that sexual expression is a relatively small part of life together as a couple.  (But it’s a nice bonus, I have heard).

When I was teaching a class about the sacrament of marriage, I proposed to the students that even under the most ideal circumstances, sex in marriage probably occupied only 2% of your life together.  That being said, it behooves us to find out what the other 98% is.  I propose a lot of it has to do with communication and collaboration.  When you are angry with your partner for being inconsiderate or hurting your feelings, the last thing you want is to yield yourself more to the Offender.  “Don’t touch me – just go away.  You hurt my feelings and I need to get through or over it.” 

I think I may speak fairly representatively for most single women that it is not the “It” that we want (although we do want that too).  It is the “Us” – the sense of fellowship and partnership, the feeling of having a unique relationship with our significant other – something deeper than all our other friendships and relational ties.  This is perhaps what the world calls “soul mates.”  It is in the particulars of the Pina Colada song:  Everyone wants to feel connected with a kindred spirit.  What is not to want about that?

“When You Stop Looking it Will Happen.”

Have you ever played Hide-and-Go-Seek as a child?  When you were “it” leaning against the house shielding your eyes did you ever wonder if your eyes were closed tightly enough?  Or perhaps if you squinted just a little, did that count as peeking?  So just how closed do my eyes have to be to count as “not looking”?  What a frustrating suggestion.

What the person may in fact be saying to the single is this:  “I cannot help you.  I do not know the answer to your predicament but you are frustrating me now, so stop talking about it.”  Singles, when you hear that line, “when you stop looking, etc.” go buy a journal and write letters to God.  At least you can get your feelings aired out without being shut down emotionally.  Don’t let your journey become a walk of self pity because that is very unattractive.  Emote.  Work through the experience as best you can with prayer and good support of the people who love you just the way you are.  As the Army says:  “Be All That You Can Be.”

“When You Are at the End of Your Resources, now God Can Do it His Way.”

This is particularly judgmental because the assumption is that you are spinning your wheels without God. Trust me, singleness in this culture is not something that can be done gracefully without Him.  As far as I know, God and I are together on this.  We are co-authoring the book of my life.  In Proverbs 3:5 it says He will give me the desires of my heart.  (He just didn’t say when.)

“Maybe the Lord is calling you to be a Sister.  I’ve always wanted to be a nun, you know.”  I have two friends that have said this to me.  They are both married.  Sometimes I feel like this is just a shut-down technique, in lieu of saying:  “I’m married and it aint all it’s cracked up to be so don’t waste your time longing.”  It reminds me of a particularly salient comment by a women’s conference speaker:  “Marriage is like flies on a screen.  Some of them are on one side eagerly wanting to get in; the others are on the opposite side desperately wanting to get out.” 

Let’s look at this honestly, if I wanted to be a sister, would I be wasting my time writing about the longings of single women?  Would I have allowed my heart the many attempts I made at romance and subsequent break-ups?  I hope that I would have been smart enough to know and discern that call years ago and to have stopped the whining and got into a good religious order and settled into a productive ministry.  But I did not do that because I feel “called” as it were, to participate in the arena of the world in order to advance the kingdom of God. 

Frankly, that’s what it boils down to:  I want to be close to the Lord – but not in a religiously vowed lifestyle.  Even though my friends played “nun” when they were grade schoolers, I did not.  I actually played priest – Necco wafers for communion and a tv tray with a blanket over it for a confessional.  To clarify:  I don’t want to be a priest.  I routinely pretended or aspired in my childhood heart to be other professions as well.  I have only participated in those interests in a very amateurish level:  a veterinarian (I have pets), a famous Christian singer (I do play guitar), a housing architect (no clear connection to present life at all), etc.  Children have their games and dreams.  Some of those are tips to who you are to become.  Some are just what they are.  So, no, I don’t aspire to become a sister.

A Final Word

I hope my nephews see the movie filmed somewhere in Maine where the lead character refers to her two aunts as “unclaimed treasures.”  That’s how I want them to see me.  Can we learn to truly see the person in front of us for the treasure that he/she is?  Do we have to continue to fracture the world into the have’s and have-not’s, the married-with-children, the married-without-children, the single, etc.?  As my mother reminded us as children:   “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

Tonight, the class I usually teach is suspended so that the married people in it can have “Valentine’s Dinner” together or whatever.  So, not only do I not have dinner, I don’t have a class either.  But I have three dogs that think I hung the moon, and maybe that’s enough.  Adam probably only had one dog.

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