Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Eve Tushnet

Home
Catholic
Religious Music & Entertainment
Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: A “Gay and Catholic” DVD Extra

Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: A “Gay and Catholic” DVD Extra

Last updated on: October 5, 2014 at 1:41 am by Eve Tushnet

Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: A “Gay and Catholic” DVD Extra 2014-10-05T01:41:34-04:00 Eve Tushnet

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This is the post about “possibilities for publicly honoring nonmarital sacrificial love,” and there are a lot of directions I could go with it.

I could jump into the ongoing conversation about vowed friendships, except that a) I delve into those questions extensively in the book and b) I don’t tbh really grok the CS Lewis, friendship is about gazing outward not at one another, friendship is a realm of pure freedom, stuff. You all already know I don’t like realms of pure freedom and am not good at them. So I’m not the best person to talk about what’s good in that worldview and how we can still have those kind of friendships even in a world where vowed friendships are normal–although I do think that several different kinds or levels of friendship can coexist. They already do; and they did in the societies where vowed friendships were normal.

I could list ideas: ways we can honor people who sacrifice time, energy, money, and especially ego to care for loved ones outside a conventional family. I do this a bit in the book and there’s a huge range. Vows are at one end but, like, mentioning your friends in your Christmas letter is at the other. Yesterday we blessed pets for Pete’s sake, so why not the people you love? You’ll bless a cat who loves me “like a glutton loves his lunch,” but no blessing for friends or chosen family? But here I’m more interested in hearing your ideas. Where have you seen extrafamilial sacrificial love honored publicly? Where and how would you like to see it honored?

I could give you super practical reasons to honor sacrificial love in friendship more than we do now. You get more of what you honor–you get more of what you name, for that matter–and one reason we find it hard to build close friendships may be that we don’t view friendship as an arena where people are expected to sacrifice for one another.

I get that some people read this as adding yet one more area of debt and duty to already-overburdened lives. The same thing with “marriage is work!”–I have work to be work, do I need love to be work too? Whatever happened to home as my “haven in a heartless world”?

I see the force of that. But honestly, any relationship deep enough to shelter you is probably going to require a huge outlay of selflessness at some point. Better to view the sacrifices as a normal and necessary part of all long-lasting loves, so you’re prepared when they happen, and don’t add the humiliation of feeling like a freak or a loser to the preexisting humiliation of e.g. having to apologize to or forgive your friend. The more we honor friendship and chosen family as means of mutual sanctification, the easier it will be to perceive purpose and meaning in the really, really tough times. And therefore the easier it will be to stick it out.

But I don’t actually want to write a post about all of that. I want to write about one really deep emotional reason that I want greater honor for sacrificial love in friendship–and a deeply conservative reason, as well.

I love the song “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof. It consistently makes me well up. (Am I, at heart, a sentimental middle-class Jew? MAYBE.) Part of what makes it so poignant is that it shows us that the bride and groom–their lives as short as a breath–are linked to the past. They are part of the chain of generations. Because they are linked to the past, they can imagine a future. They are not alone in the world. Their love is as new as their first wedded kiss, and yet it also reaches back to Adam and Eve, and forward until the end of days.

Without tradition we are trapped in the present day. We are only as old as the age on our driver’s license. We’re trapped in our present historical circumstances, in the “bright room called day.” (Am I, at heart, a sentimental middle-class Communist Jew? ONLY SOMETIMES.) Even when we project our ideas forward into the future, without some tie to the lived human past we can only be utopians. Tradition draws us closer to the dead–the cloud of witnesses, the Church Suffering and the Church Triumphant. Tradition reunites us with our dead; it offers a shadow or echo of the communion of the saints. And by living within our tradition, we can also pass this gift on to the generations to come.

I think this is part of why Alan Bray and so many others–many gay, some straight–have been so moved by the evidence of public honor for same-sex friendship in the past. The shared graves, the vows, the kiss of peace on the church porches: These are our equivalent of the chuppah and the invocation of the law of Moses. Is there a canopy for me? Perhaps not; but there are other symbols, other ways by which a community acknowledged that God is above all human love, to guide and shelter it.

When I was a baby dyke I spent just hours and hours listening to cassette tapes and reading indefensible literature in search of those moments of recognition: Someone has felt this before! I’m not alone and not crazy. There’s a language for what I long for. Finding out about the Christian traditions for honoring friendship felt so similar, but even deeper: Someone has felt this before, and found a way to offer it to God and to God’s people.

I do believe honoring friendship would be useful to us, as a society. But I admit I want it more because it would be beautiful.

conservatism considered as a helix of semiprecious stones

friendship

Gay Catholic Whatnot

His banner over me was love

on beauty and being dust

suspicion of tradition's so new wave

turn your watch back about a hundred thousand years

Previous Post

October 5, 2014

"Five Awful Things I Learned as a Child Laborer in the USA": Cracked

Next Post

October 5, 2014 "Most People With Addiction Simply Grow Out of It--Why Is This Widely Denied?": Maia Szalavitz

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Art Best-Of Gay Catholic Whatnot Mackerel-Snapping self-obsessed Too much is never enough Uncategorized

Select a Month November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 August 2022 July 2022 May 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002 January 2002

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who did Jesus call out of the tomb after four days?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Lazarus Mary Jairus Bartimaeus