Through a child's eyes...

Educating the "Heart" of Youths in the Virtue of Chastity
While this article is directed toward parents and how to teach toddlers - teens about chastity, I found the perspective rather refreshing. Sometimes looking at things simply (i.e. through a child's eyes) provides so much clarity to a topic that can seem so vast and complicated.

 It's interesting to think back to how all of our experiences, lessons learned and signals received from so many people and media shapes our views of our bodies and those of others and the way we do or do not use them.  In turn, this basic "knowledge of the heart" that is conveyed to us and instilled in us (for better or for worse) throughout our lives ultimately affects our sexuality and how we view chastity and sex. One of my favorite lines from the article is that  "The  chaste person not only “knows” notionally or conceptually what he or she ought to do or not do, but feels that way too." This is so true because it implies a deeper experience of the theology of one's own body...something more vast and essential than we ever thought possible.  We are taught in our culture to obey the rules and then we either obey them for the sake of doing so or break them because we feel somehow repressed by them, but in either case we rarely actually fully understand them. Pope John Paul II is revolutionary in his explanation of how our human bodily and sexual experience is so intimately tied to Christ and our spiritual souls. WHen you understand a truth you want nothing more than to follow it. It has nothing to do with following a set of rules and it has everything to do with wanting to be in the presence of and experience the purest forms of happiness and holiness we can attain and then share that joy with others. In relationships, if we truly care about the other person then we want those very same things for them. Ti care for their souls by wanting to honor and explore the truths that rely in the beauty of the theology of our bodies. 

   It's hardly possible to sum up the nature of these truths without going on for another 5,000 words but I will say that in light of the aforementioned article I hope that by God's grace I can instill this beauty in the minds and hearts of my kids someday.