Decalogue VII:  Do Not Commit Adultery

“We live in an adulterous age.  We live in an age when promises and faithfulness, the hard work of fidelity, to values, to the moral live, seem secondary to the drive to attain fleeting scraps of pleasure.”  P. 116
We live in, “A culture that urges us to grasp at momentary bits of pleasure, to indulge in sensuality for it’s own sake, encourages to believe that nothing matters.  It fosters a culture of self-worship, one that turns us away from the self-denial essential to love. . . . . When we worship human achievement or the attainment of pleasure as a final end, we live a life dedicate to self”  P.117-118
“We live in a culture fascinated with stars and celebrities.  We are exhorted to stand out from the crowd, to have others admire and envy us, to make a name for ourselves.  But this admiration, which is really self-admiration, is one that crowds out the possibility of love, for love places the beloved foremost in life, it sees us make sacrifices for the happiness of the beloved, sacrifices that dent ambition and stunt careers, sacrifices that say there are others more important than ourselves—those we love.  For love means that our deepest source of happiness comes in bringing happiness to the beloved.  This radical way of living, one in stark contrast to the siren call of self-satisfaction, one that defies the call to live for self.  It is the bulwark against the destructive power of those who, angered and alone, seek through power to destroy life.  It stymies blind ambition and greed.  It creates another way of being. “  P. 118
“Love is about the capacity to subsume ourselves for others.  Love is the most powerful force in human existence.  It allows two people to combine feelings, impulses and wishes that are focused on each other, on the beloved.  It allows couples, often with different strengths & weaknesses, to become, through the other, better people, people who bolster strengths & check failings.  There is in this love a union that creates a new way of being, a new identity.   And this love brings the lovers the life-affirming force of the divine, giving them a way to resist the powerful self-destructive forces that entice us in a comparable intensity. 

      But love is also difficult and hard.  It requires us to become vulnerable, to accept self-criticism, to put the needs of another before our own.  There is a constant struggle to fine-tune any relationship, to right the slights & wrongs that wound, to take the time for compassion and care.  But only in love does the carnal become transcendent.” P.  117
“When we are rejected, or betrayed by those we love, those we have opened ourselves to be intimate with, we taste a bit of death, the ultimate rejection of our being.  Rejection, diminishes, and has the potential to destroy us.  The only hope of renewal is forgiveness.  If we cannot forgive, if we cannot allow ourselves to be vulnerable again, we shut out the possibility of friendship and love.  And once this door is closed we become, in some sense, dead.  We die, like orphans that are not held and coddled as infants, without love.  It is as vital as water.” P. 122
 
Lynn