Chastity: A Life of Fun & Love
What is your favorite thing about practicing chastity?
I want to preface that practicing chastity is not the easiest thing to do. It’s easy to fall out of the virtues that we desire to live out. The life of chastity is not for the faint of heart; it’s actually for the courageous. It’s a life for those willing to swim against the tide.
My favorite thing about this life is that I get to live in freedom. I live in the freedom and confidence of knowing that I can give my love over to someone in a specific way, and this is a life of both fun and love!
Books and movies have been written about this stuff. This thing called love, but don’t take my word for it. Let’s read what Virgil had to say about love: “Love conquers all things, so we too shall yield to love.” See, I practice chastity because it gives me the opportunity to yield to love, and each day I can look at my friends and tell them, “I pursue a life of love.” By practicing virtue I can love in wild and crazy ways. Some call me a hopeless romantic. Honestly, I’d have to agree. We’re just yearning to live with love in our lives.
Nowadays, people heroically travel across the country and even the world for the sake of love. Long distance relationships have become common-place with the internet, and at the drop of a finger we can speak with someone on the other side of the planet. Technology has become a facet of our daily lives, and with the proper boundaries it can be a way to enhance each of our most fundamental relationships.
Here are three major ways that you can have fun and live love this summer, all while living out the virtue of chastity:
1. Live life by going outside and being active. Hanging out with friends at a lake, throwing a frisbee around, and riding bikes on a Saturday afternoon. Nothing about living out the virtuous life stops us from being fully who we are and having fun with the people that we love. In fact, living a life of virtue should help each us to become who we are even more fully. Get out there and live life to the fullest. Virtue does not hinder fun.
2. Write thank you notes to people who have made an impact on you this year. I challenge you to scroll through your text messages, emails, and rolodexes to write a thank you note to all those who have made a huge impact on you personally this past year. Cultivating gratitude by thank you notes can help remind us that the virtuous life is worth living. There are plenty of opportunities throughout our daily lives to cultivate gratitude.
3. Make a bucket list. By making a home or office bucket list and by having a clear visual of the things that everyone would like will create excitement for what is to come. Gather your friends from work or your family members and make a list for the summer. Then post it on a home refrigerator or even the one at your office. Bucket lists build a sense of community; we are all made for this.
To conclude, my favorite thing about practicing and striving to live the virtuous life is that I get to live life to the fullest. I get to strive to live in the freedom of love. By living an active and full life, staying grateful, and making lists of things to unify communities each of us can live out virtue each day. As Virgil said, we can all yield to love. Incorporate these actions of fun and love into the virtuous life you have been living. Make the practice of chastity your favorite to live.
