"Sex is Currency"

So today I made a run to Walmart and bought the latest Switchfoot CD. I especially have taken a liking to the fifth song on the album . . .

Easier Than Love
by Switchfoot

Sex is currency;
She sells cars; she seels magazines.
Addictive, bittersweet, clap your hands
With the hopeless nicotines.
Everyone's a lost romantic, since our love became a kissing show.
Everyone's a Casanova, come and pass me the mistletoe.
Everyone's been scared to death of dying here alone.
She is easier than love, is easier than life.
It's easier to fake and smile and bribe.
It's easier to leave. It's easier to lie.
It's harder to face ourselves at night, feeling alone.
What have we done?
What is the monster we've become?
Where is my soul? (Numb.)
Sex is industry, the CEO of corporate policy.
Skin-deep ministry, suburban youth hail your so called liberty.
Every advertising antic our banner waves with a neon glow.
War and love become pedantic;
We wage love with a mistletoe.
Everyone's been scared to death of dying here alone.
Sex is easier than love.

This song is especially great when you can hear it. Switchfoot is making a strong statement about our current "pornographic culture." Everyone is looking for love; no one wants to be alone. But we do not really know what love is. Sex often feels like love; this is why women in particular are willing to make themselves objects to be used sexually by others, to be consumed . . . because when they are the center of attention and an object of desire, they feel wanted, they feel they have something to offer, they feel loved. Seems in our day and age that we have developed a wrong appetite. We make war with one another and our weapon is "making love." We have developed a taste for those things which most closely resemble the love and the mystery that we all seek. But we don't know that we are feasting on garbage and yet have a banquet of beauty and fulfilling sexuality prepared before us by our Maker. Until we get sick to our stomachs (or to our souls), we cannot see the wrongness of our approach to the human person, sexuality, relationships, and pro-creation. Even those of us who believe we have a Christian perspective still often have gaps in our understanding of the human person and sexuality. Our cultural norm is to revel in selfishness and physical pleasure until we "mourn at last, when [our] flesh and body are consumed, and say: 'How I have hated instruction, and my heart despised correction!' (Proverbs 5:11-12).

Fortunately, God reaches down to us to show us the more beautiful and fulfilling way to being human, to experiencing the fullness of all our sexuality, and to show us what our relationships were meant to be. Some, for whatever reason do not learn of these truths until they have spent their lifetimes in a confused pursuit of love. Such is the human condition. (Switchfoot sings in song #4 of the Nothing is Sound album: "Oh, Lord, why did you forsake me? Oh, Lord, don't be far away. Storm clouds gathering beside me. Please, Lord, don't look the other way. I'm a crooked soul trying to stay up straight. Shine on me; let my shadows prove the sunshine." Seems Plato's cave analogy would be fitting here.)

But I desire to hold forth to you now the fullness of truth that God has unfurled before all mankind. I want to be His ambassador. It is my intention to begin a lay man's discussion of the rich and philosophical writing of the late Pope John Paul II entitled Love & Responsibility. Although it has taken me years to get to this point, I do believe now that the Almighty God of heaven and earth has given us such men (popes) as John Paull II (and now Benedict XVI) to be the voice of Christ to us in our own age and culture. Please join me on my journey as I also learn the fullness of truth!

"The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him. " (Proverbs 18:17)

"And when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, 'How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?' When Jesus heard it, He said to them, 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.'" (Mark 2:16-18; Luke 5:30-32; Matthew 9:11-13)