Intimate and Connected

Human connections, relationships and emotional longing that ties us to another person is one of the most intense experiences of life. To be a friend to be a father, a cousin, a grandchild and a son are some of the most important roles that I have played and hope to someday play. And as I type the word “play” I’m hit with the idea that I don’t just fulfill role and it’s duties but that the embodiment of actually “being” that which our role alludes. I want to embody the true essence of what it means to be a son and what it means to be a brother just as I want the rest of my family to take the roles that they have been allotted.

The intense experience of being connected with someone intimately and romantically is a gift and can be an intensely spiritual experience. Why is celibacy an option for anyone? Why is there a need to make the parameters that someone’s life void of human contact and intimate romantic connections? Why do we fear that need to merge our lives with someone we are compatible with? How is it possible that we reach our full level of progress on the earth without the companionship of another human being that is committed to every aspect of our journey?

I know that it is not good for man to be alone. I also know that relationships are hard and complicated, but the joy of having someone touch your hand and run his fingers through your hair and to just reach over and grab a guys butt is an amazingly rich experience.

I have a lot of intentions to set for myself right now. I’ve just ended a marriage of three years and it will be awhile before I am committed to giving my heart away to someone, but I have every intention of fulfilling my gifts and experiences on the earth. I want human connection. I want to passionately hug someone I am in love with. I want to go to bed next to a man that is good and kind and beautiful. I want to have kids and raise them with someone that will grow old with me and give me fire for life and intensity for growth.

I know that there is power in human connection. The Church knows that there is power in human connection. And the Lord knows that the gift of emotional intimacy and romantic relationships is to be enjoyed on this earth and in this life for all of us because happiness in this life means happiness in the next. If you are miserable here and think that all you have to do is hold out for when you die then you’ve wasted your probationary state and you spend a lifetime trying to hold out just to realize that happiness was for the taking all around you.

A friend of mine just entered in a relationship with a guy who he has been getting to know for quite some time. He was embarrassed to tell me that they were boy friends. I was so happy an overjoyed that I couldn’t listed to all the excuses he wanted to give me. He said he was happier than he had ever been in his life but that he was waiting for the bad thing to happened when everything comes crashing down. And the beauty of it all is that he isn’t going to have to wait for something bad because he has decided to be happy and to enjoy someone’s company that he is in love with.

He went to talk to his bishop about it and his Bishop said that as long as not a lot of people knew about it and that the stake president didn’t find out that he would allow him to stay in his calling and that he wouldn’t try and punish him because the Bishop felt it important that my friend continue to go to church every Sunday, regardless of who he was in love with. And when my friend started to leave the Bishop’s office the Bishop asked if he was thinking about marriage and my friend looked puzzled and asked why and the Bishop replied that that is what dating is for, for marriage and that it isn’t good for man to be alone, so if he’s going to date a guy and he’s in love with him he should think about marrying him.

I think that’s a little hard to believe, but I know my friend is telling the truth considering he went into tell the Bishop hoping that the Bishop would call him to repentance so that he could continue his self inflicting guilt ridden spiral of shame. But no such luck. The Lord gave my buddy the opportunity to claim the intention that he had originally set, to be happy and to be loved and to be fulfilled.

I truly believe that it’s that easy.