June...November...five months of silence

Owing primarily to work conflicts, I've not posted to this blog in nearly six month.  To a degree, I question whether that makes any difference whatsoever since I'm not sure that anyone ever reads this blog anyway.  Yet, I write this blog for myself as much as for anyone else, so here I am again writing what's been on my mind.

One thing that's been on my mind is II Corinthians 10:5, which says, "[W]e take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."  In other words, as inferred in this blog's entry regarding The Cycle of Addiction, as "addicts" or sinners either one, we are not free to think any and every thought we wish.  And that's a hard one to accept since, in nearly all other walks of our lives, we are free to let our minds wander as they will and in any direction they wish to go.  But when it comes to sex, pornography, etc., we must do things differently than we otherwise would.  I say that because I cannot think of a time when I masturbated and/or looked at pornography & masturbated (and let's face it: pornography is nothing more than a masturbation enhancer) that I had not first just let my mind wander into the terrains where I had no business allowing it to go.  And not doing that is a true challenge to not only the Christian but to the male in general.

This brings me to Philippians 4:8, in which Paul writes, "[W]hatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things."  And this leads to some rather uncomfortable questions:

Is masturbation or pornography noble?

Is masturbation or pornography right?

Is masturbation or pornography pure?

Is masturbation or pornography lovely?

Is masturbation or pornography admirable?

Is masturbation or pornography praiseworthy?

The (obvious) answer all the way around is a resounding "No!"  Instead, what comes to mind when I think of what I've seen depicted in pornography is disgust, disdain, degradation, despair, contempt, humiliation and most of all disrespect and disregard.  I emphasis these last two descriptors most of all because I cannot think of a single pornographic portrait or film wherein I have grasped one person treating another with respect or regard.  And that's heavy food for thought.