Bookwi.se

It’s been said that females and males can’t be friends because of the big S word involved…..that friendship without sex equals questionable intentions (blame When Harry met Sally!). I’ve always found that to be a very simplistic and stereotypical view of men and women relationships. I personally, have been able to have two very close platonic male friends (they were “bridesmen” in my wedding). As a woman in the book quotes, we have never nor will we ever engage in any sexual intimacy. Instead, we laugh, we talk, and we share stories. I often find myself getting offended that people, especially church people (not all but some!) have relayed to me that having male friends somehow conflicts with God’s view of marriage and intimacy. Luckily, in this book, it seems Mr. Dan Brennan is on my side!

This author presents a different perspective from existing church culture. “Christ came not to just reduce the old disorder of lust, violence, and possession between men and women ,but to usher us into a new world of embodied communication with each other.” He submits that it is possible to live together in Christ without lust or sexual innuendos interfering with the friendship. In focusing on the fact that we are brothers and sisters in Christ, our focus shifts onto our common bond of Christianity rather than our own temptations and desires.

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For as long as I have been a Christian, I remember being taught, repeatedly, the story of Billy Graham and his attempt to always be above reproach.  I have no idea if the stories of the Reverend Graham are true or not but they went something along the lines of:  Reverend Graham would not get on an elevator if he’d be on board with a woman alone, that he wouldn’t counsel a woman unless a third party was present, etc.

I never questioned these stories or Reverend Graham’s intent until recently.  A dear friend of mine, we’ll call her Molly, came home from college and told me the story of how she couldn’t visit a male friend of hers because his wife wasn’t available to “œtag along”.  Molly understood her friend’s feelings but yet she wound up feeling “œicky”; which was quite vexing to her because she did nothing wrong.

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Mary Magdalene had a difficult couple of days after her best friend Jesus was crucified. She was numb all over. When she couldn’t stand it any longer she decided she would go to the place her friend was buried and mourn for him there.

She gathered up the spices of her religious custom to ensure that he was properly buried. She arrived at the tomb and found that Jesus’ body was gone. Immediately, Mary loses it. She goes to find a couple of Jesus’ guy friends to help her figure out what happened.

The guys showed up and sure enough Jesus’ body is no longer in the tomb. The guys totally forgot that Jesus’ was going to rise from the dead and they get angry. They looked at each other and said, “OK, it’s on. Let’s get everyone else and find the punk that took Jesus’ body and teach him a lesson.” They totally forgot that Mary was there and just leave her behind as they go to “save the day.”

Mary was not in a good place emotionally. Her good friend Jesus was crucified and when she came back to the tomb to care for him his body was gone. Her friends didn’t really ask how she was doing; they just came up with a plan to right the wrong and left her in the garden alone. After all of the emotion of the last few days she broke down in front of the tomb weeping for the friend she lost…not once, but twice.

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Note: Due to a mis-communication, there were two posts for chapter 3.  Here is the second version.

So I am going to start out by stating my own personal opinion and go from there. I truly do believe it is possible for a friendship to happen between males and females. We start out as kids and maybe your best friend growing up is the boy next door. Then somewhere in junior high and high school, you start thinking about cute boys and he is thinking about hot girls. It goes to show that as kids we have a certain maturity we tend to lose as we get older and trends get sexualized.

In chapter 3, it starts out comparing our segregation of sexes to the segregation of blacks and whites. History shows us that cross-gendered and cross-raced friendships have not been popular. But in a day were sex is everywhere you turn, can you really assume a man and woman eating lunch together really are just eating lunch? There is nothing else more?

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Takeaway: One of the few books where I am more disappointed by the publisher than the book

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition

I like fixed hour prayer.  I think more Christians should participate in it.  But I am far from a regular user of it.  I am a nanny for my two nieces and having a 3 and 2 year old running around the house 8 to 12 hours a day makes fixed hour prayer difficult.

So I viewed Lent as a time to try to get back on track again.  It did not really happen during Lent either.  I was definitely an occasional rather than regular user of this book.

But I do love the prayers and choices that Tickle uses.  No prayer book is perfect and there are always some things that I would not choose.  But I think the variety and choices of prayers and scriptures I would not choose is on of the benefits.

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