How to Pass Chemistry?
High school chemistry class there and behold is the classic tall, dark and handsome senior star quarterback of the football team in the row right in front of my desk. My initial thought is there is no way he is going to notice me, I am just a sophomore girl that is no where near popular. But as the semester progressed our catching eyes became sharing notes, then our sharing notes became a combustion formula of a friendship tense with attraction! I knew that if this tension of physical attraction was left untrained it would be all consuming and so I ended that friendship.
What is it about physical attraction that can make us run away with fear? Looking back at this situation I am grateful for my wisdom to know that myself and that young man did not possess the virtue to enter into a relationship where initial attraction would lead us to truly knowing the fullness of who we were as individuals. But is leaving a friendship or dismissing a potential interest based on attraction the correct response?
We live in a world where we are told to do either one of two things: act on all our attractions or repress and get rid of our attractions. Both of these extreme spectrums actually see attraction through the same lens: attraction is an all encompassing force, a passion that moves people without their consent.
What this approach lacks is asking this fundamental question: why do I as a human person even have the ability to feel an attraction? What does this say about me and what I am created for?
But before we answer this question, I want us to just pause here. Sit in this reality that we may never have stopped to think about: I as a human person have this ability to feel something pull me to another human person, a draw that words fail to describe, something which ignites a part of our humanity. Wow. This is actually so incredible. And so beautiful.
Our ability to be physically drawn into a person, a spark of curiosity that ignites the whole experience of being tangible highlights the reality that we are created for relationship. We are made to be known and to know another. Our physical or sexual attraction is awakened at puberty and is written into our nature as human persons. We were created in the image of God which is love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in his own image…God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion” (CCC 2331).
God has created us with this capacity to feel so that we may understand that our happiness is not found in us alone. Attraction possesses a call to go outside of ourselves, to give of ourselves, to be vulnerable, to break away from the comfort of self-sufficiency and isolation. “It is not good for the man to be alone,” (Genesis 2:18). Attraction highlights that we truly discover life with a call to love.
Attraction can be a fire that consumes everything in its path or a flame that ignites a path that leads to a greater communion and warmth that radiates the capacity for new life.
So how do we let attraction be light and not a wild flame?
First we begin with the reality that we are complex beings of both spirit and body thus our actions come from the integration of the two, our essential essences as humans. We are not wild animals ruled by our passions, but human people who have the ability to ration, think for ourselves and choose what is good.
And guess what! We are actually created to live out of a successful integration of our sexuality within our personhood! This means the inner unity of our bodily attractions and our spirit’s knowledge and desires make us even more ourselves. Our sexuality and those physical attractions become personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of another human being. In other words, it becomes complete and a mutual gift of both man and woman (CCC 2337).
I am honestly on this journey and don’t have it perfect because its a life time project, but from my experience I want to share is three things I’ve learned:
- Do not be afraid of your humanity. It is a beautiful thing to feel attraction and it is something that will probably always be a part of your life. Sit in it and let it highlight your forever call to be one with our Beloved One, Our Creator.
- Integration. We. Are. Body. And. Spirit. It is a journey of self-mastery to know how to integrate our physical pulls, our heart’s desires, and the wisdom in our minds into acting in accordance with what is truly good. Practice in little ways by bringing awareness to all of you — mind, heart and body.
- Pray. What I mean by this is not just to ask God to give me the graces to guide my passions with reason, but to tell Him exactly what you feel, the joy, the frustration, the shame, the butterflies in your stomach each time you make eye contact with that one individual. He wants to give you rest, he wants you to live in freedom. Let Him meet you in your body.
So our sexuality, our physical draw to another is an essential part of our experience as human, as beings for it speaks to how we are made for relationships where mutual gift is to be given and received. And we integrate these desires into our whole personhood to lead us into seeing the complete person before us. Let us receive our gift of sexuality and let it propel us to a greater communion with Love Himself.
