Friday, March 4, 2011

The Need for Networks

My man is off on his daily rounds of volunteerism, honoring those who fought for our freedom. My friends, for the most part, work hard for their money. The young parents only want my availability intermittently, as they are also either learning how to earn or already earning their daily dollars. It almost makes me long for the days when women were stay-at-home homemakers, but not quite.

Here's the problem with being available: There are too many hours in the day. I've had many tell me that I spend too much time thinking, and maybe they're correct. But I don't know what else to do as the dishes are done, the laundry is folded, and I wait for someone to say they need my assistance. It would be different if there was a schedule of when, where, and how people wanted a piece of another, but this isn't how relationships work.

This is why networks are so important. For the sake of all involved, we agree to a common purpose and a set of boundaries. We then hold the network together by walking together in rhythm. We just have to be careful that the drum major is in tune with our overall purpose. We also have to have back-ups when the drum major falters or falls out of rhythm with our dedicated direction. And we have to be extra careful to stay aware of and accountable for each others' moves. I'm simply sick of solitude, and I don't want to spend all my time with only women and children.

The problem in networks is that we are led to believe that there are few people who are sexually or spiritually strong when any attraction calls. Since the sexual revolution, it seems that no matter the relationship between two people, we see sex as the only reason to, as Kahlil Gibran says so eloquently, "protect, and touch and greet each other". In our world, when any two people have a partnership, we automatically assume the sexual.

Love does indeed consist in this, "That two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other". And, to paraphrase a commonly used description of marriage, "As it was in the beginning, is now, until the end, we all draw our lives from others and give it back again".

Not all of us are meant to marry in the sexual sense, and even if we were, not all marriage is sexual. All of us need human communion; from this we draw our lives and give them back again. This is why Adam's prayer for Eve was answered. Otherwise, we'd all be visited upon the earth as manna from heaven, without mother, father, sister or brother. I'd like us to acknowledge that not all soul mating is sexual, as not all sexual mating is of the soul.