Yesterday’s #AdventWord was “purify” which has all kinds of baggage. I’ve had that worship song running through my head - purify my heart, let it be as (purest gold). I’ve been thinking about purity culture, and how it took me longer to unravel shame about sex in general than to unravel queerness in particular.
𝘗𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 is not an easy word to reclaim. Purity conjures up gross youth group games with crumpled roses; ultra femininity & white dresses; being nice at the expense of being hurt or abused; being docile & tucked out of the way.
𝘗𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘧𝘺 is also tricky. It’s a harsh word - refiner’s fires burning away everything unholy, God hurting you intentionally to make you better.
So much old religion just said “your body is dangerous, and so is your God.”
What a way to raise young souls.
I want to find spaces where those words don’t feel as sharp or dangerous.
I do have one tiny north star for these baggagey words - Kierkegaard’s 𝘗𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, that I found at a yard sale 15 years ago. The title catches me, full stop, every time.
Purity of heart means wanting just one thing. Purity is an integration of desire, which means an integration of ourselves.
To be pure means to be a single self, your single self, instead of having many parts. Instead of answering Jesus like the man from Gerasenes, who said his name was “many,” we can say one name, our name. Purity means being whole.
Yes, the process of losing our other names can hurt & be a little “refiner’s fire”ish. It’s hard to drop the performing selves we think we need in order to be loved or interesting or good. And sex is part of purity, because wholeness means integrating into our bodies - “whatever we eat or drink,” whoever we have sex with, however we work or play, “we do it all to the Lord.”
But this calling is a gentle calling. It’s a calling into our bodies & not out of them; towards a careful & gentle God, not a violent “refiner” beating us into submission; towards wholeness, not of fragmentation; towards our fully Beloved, so small & so entirely whole self that is hidden and beloved with Christ in God.