Twenty Years of Being Married to (and Writing about) My Dearling Carol

Twenty Years with Dearling (September 2, 1989 - September 2, 2009)

Carol Elaine and I sporting our cool mullets.
Hey! It was 1989. Mullets were still cool back then...
(the pic was for our wedding announcement).

-=-

I love my wife. This is no great virtue on my part, no real sacrifice. Rather, it is as close to involuntary an act and emotion as I experience. And it is Grace.

In what is surely a writer's act (and smells suspiciously of self-indulgence) I offer links to various Carol-based reflections and inspirations, lyrics and poetry and prose. Some of it is so sweet you'll need to brush your teeth afterward, while a little of it describes biblical "knowing" in ways not normally indulged in by Evangelicals. Then there were the two cancers she went through, taking me along for the scary ride.

Consider what follows my way of letting friends look into a family album of sorts, my way of celebrating these two decades with this singular lover, friend, sister in Christ. Or maybe it is a box of candy... so again, have that toothbrush ready.


--==++==--

The book Trees and Roots and Growing Things, published by Cornerstone Press in 1994, is now out of print but on the web in toto. It began as a present for my wife but was embraced by our house publishing board as something worth printing:

http://highromance.com/poetry/jbtrott/treeroot/index.htm


In 2000, we were in the midst of breast cancer treatments for Carol. This inspired not a little anxiety, but also growth, in each of us. I tried to capture some of that with these poems:

http://highromance.com/poetry/jbtrott/misc/carol2000-1.htm


Not much later, I was dinking around with the rather adolescent (in my opinion) miming of e. e. cummings' habit of using no capitalizations. It led to breaking a few other rules of English as well, all framed as if on a drive with Carol from Chicago to Bushnell (about a 4 1/2 hour trip) [PG, maybe PG-13 in a few spots]:

http://highromance.com/poetry/jbtrott/misc/sun_and_bible.htm



My attempt at a lover's dialogue with the Song of Solomon - [PG-13 rated]:

Part I: http://highromance.com/poetry/jbtrott/misc/purity_and_pomegranates.htm
Part II: http://highromance.com/poetry/jbtrott/misc/flashes-of-fire.htm


Carol and I have long been involved with Christians for Biblical Equality. Here is the talk we gave at a CBE Conference in Portand (yes, I wrote it all down, as I'm lousy at extemporaneous speaking):

http://highromance.com/articles/jtarticles/cbe2002.htm


Two short poems:

"She Is" captures love in the midst of dissimilarity:

http://highromance.com/poetry/jbtrott/misc/sheis.htm


And "Rock Tumbler" captures our larger context, the community of believers called Jesus People USA:

http://highromance.com/poetry/jbtrott/misc/Rock_tumbler.htm


And an addendum - Two sermons (neither mentions Carol, both are profoundly influenced by her):

This was a sermon I did in one of my "pinch hitter" moments when the A-string pastors were out of town. It doesn't mention Carol, but her influence on my theology of marriage is profound:

http://highromance.com/articles/jtarticles/eph5sermon.htm

And another, this one rooted in the Song of Solomon... again, Carol so profoundly influences my views of marriage, sexuality, and spirituality!:

http://highromance.com/articles/jtarticles/first-love.htm

Women & Girls, Men & Boys, and Sexuality

The CBE Scroll, dedicated to bringing women and men into full egalitarian mutuality within the Church and marriage, brought up The Effect of Pornography on Women and Girls. In turn, that discussion (to which I contributed some quickly-typed thoughts) began opening out into various linked issues. Some of that discussion began going into sexuality in ways that the folks at the Scroll thought might better be served in another forum. Since I was involved in the discussion, and they figured I was foolish enough to blurt out whatever comes to mind, they asked me to continue any of the more overt discussion points here. So please, digest their thoughts, and if appropriate post there. But if you want to offer more pointed questions / statements, return here.

I do moderate this site, which means when you post your post will not immediately appear. Particularly in discussions of this variety, it is a good idea. One additional note: be wise in using your real name if you post something you don't want everyone on the web to know about you personally. I don't want to stifle discussion -- far from it. But I do want to prevent anyone from getting hurt.

Discussion points might include in part:

1.) From spouses, girlfriends/boyfriends of porn users, how has your significant other's use of porn affected your relationship?

2.) What is relational sexuality meant to be, biblically speaking, and how do pornographic portrayals of sexuality affect its relational meaning?

3.) What does pornography tell us about women? About men?

4.) Some "Third Wave" feminists disagree w/ the Second Wave feminist emphasis on pornography's destructive nature. Anyone who's versed in that discussion is welcome to defend, or at least explain, it here.

5.) Men and women affected by porn, are you desperate to escape its addictive qualities? Are there some of you who have walked in sobriety for a time, and can help others here by telling your stories?

6.) What is pornography? We use the word, but do we always know what it means?

And so on. Ask your own questions as well, of course.

I'd like readers to peruse the original post, and (if so inclined) come back here to discuss. Have at it!