Wait for the right fit.

This is the advice I have received most often of late.

Whether it is choosing a spouse or choosing a job, all of us are asked to navigate a cacophony of voices helping us to know what we want and what we need. In the midst, it is hard to unearth the voice within. Call it the Holy Spirit, call it your own still small voice, but listening for her is like leaning into the wind along 5th Avenue in New York City. If you have ever walked along the east side of Central Park you know you have a simple choice: you can click along the apartment-side of the street where you smile at doormen standing on pristine concrete only occasionally defiled by the urban dog (you can always tell a NYC dog—look deep into his eyes after he has circled and circled and circled, desperate for a blade of grass), or you can walk along the tree-lined portion of the park where uneven cobblestone threatens the heel and the ankle. Non-native New Yorkers often prefer this side of the street. This must be genetic.

Whichever side of the street you choose, you swim in sound. Horns, birds, barks, children chattering, cab drivers shouting, whistles blowing. Your own voice melds with the busy world and somehow the exhilarating clamor brings peace. But hearing your own voice? Good luck, Jack.

In the Presbyterian Church these days, there is a litmus test for the “right fit.” It is always embedded in a larger conversation about “Biblical Ethics” or “One’s Exegetical Hermeneutic” (swear to God, this is the heady, theoretical language that is used to describe the difference between Evangelical Christians and Christians of the more liberal slant). Christians supposedly have one or the other: an orthodox exegetical hermeneutic or one that is distorted by cultural/intellectual shifts. Ironically, I believe that both brands, both sides of the polarity, depend on something I would call ‘selective literalism’ when reading the Bible. All of us pick and choose which parts of our sacred texts to read authoritatively, which texts to interpret metaphorically, and which texts to carefully slide under the bed.

'Hermeneutic' is playing an important role these days in the debate about healthy sexuality (the litmus test used in determining who is in and who is out). Historically, here in the United States we separated the lambs and the goats based on who endorsed slavery and who endorsed abolition. Later we separated the lambs and the goats based on who ordained women and who exclusively ordained men. Now we are separating the lambs and the goats based on sexuality: not just who is gay or straight, but who has the right to enter into the covenant of marriage and who is disqualified. Hermeneutic aside, most folks have a knee-jerk reaction to this subject. Sex has a way of stirring up the most mild of souls. Yet, many of our knee-jerk reactions are ungracious. We fear variability, complexity, and the possibility of having it wrong.

Funny thing is, ask anyone, the church has been a disaster on the subject of sex. Here in the U.S. we live in the most hyper-sexed culture in the world. We are experts in commodifying bodies, exporting pornographic material, and our homes are more silent on the subject than ever. Churches are just one step above silence: “Humans are not sexual creatures until they are married, so either get married or pretend you are not sexual.” Eeeesh. The brave ones among us, spend time reflecting on the God-given goodness of intimacy, the art of loving, and the lessons derived from commitment.

I should move to Sweden.

I am living in a city where the most popular, populated church is rigorously black and white on the subject of sex (http://marshill.com/). But I have a hunch it is all far more complicated than Mark Driscoll suggests. So, I will live in the complexity of the conversation because I am just an idiot 33 year old that wants to enter into it more fully and with deeper integrity. Guess who probably won’t get a church-gig in the Emerald City.

But I'll keep on keeping on. Looking for the right fit, right?

Who knows. Maybe we will all begin to make more room for each other, for the parts of us that flop over the edge of the cookie cutter. Stupid cookie cutter. I suspect the cookie will be tastier for it.