As long time readers of Adam’s Ale know, I like to spend some time in prayer and reflection hanging out in the old choir loft (no longer in use) and bell tower here at the Church of Saint Clare. Sitting there and reading I came across a paragraph in Scott Hahn’s book, “A Father Who Keeps His Promises” that led my thoughts racing though a series of connections that I want to share particularly with certain dads.
Here is the paragraph: “After forty long years (in the desert), the first generation had died off, except for Moses and the two courageous spies, Joshua and Caleb. During this time, the second generation was being taught by their Levitical tutors and hopefully rehabilitated from the sinful ways of their parents. But patterns of bad behavior die hard, especially when they’re transmitted from parent to child . . .”
This is the meaning of, “The sins of the father are visited upon his children”. God is not going to punish innocent children for the sins that their parents committed. Just because my father may have cheated at cards does not mean that God is going to punish me for it. Rather the sins that the father (or parent) commits is setting up a pattern of living for his son – for his children. It is a cycle that is difficult to break and requires fathers, in this particular instance, to be incredibly strong and unselfish.
It is astonishing how many men say that their problem with pornography
began with the unknowing example of their fathers. Men in their later years tormented that they have this problem that is so hard for them to kick (is that freedom America?) said it all began by finding their father’s (brother’s, uncle’s, neighbor’s dad’s) stash of porn magazines and how they’ve been haunted by it ever since.
Children are inquisitive and snoopy. They aren’t evil. It is what they do. And they find these things and the sins of their fathers haunt them their whole lives as it becomes their sins. I can only imagine what our kids, who are so much more savvy than parents on the computer, can find when snooping about on the home computer that adults think hidden.
Society tells us that it isn’t so bad. It is natural. Kids will get over it. Society does not sit in a confessional. It can be heart wrenching.
Here is the paragraph: “After forty long years (in the desert), the first generation had died off, except for Moses and the two courageous spies, Joshua and Caleb. During this time, the second generation was being taught by their Levitical tutors and hopefully rehabilitated from the sinful ways of their parents. But patterns of bad behavior die hard, especially when they’re transmitted from parent to child . . .”
This is the meaning of, “The sins of the father are visited upon his children”. God is not going to punish innocent children for the sins that their parents committed. Just because my father may have cheated at cards does not mean that God is going to punish me for it. Rather the sins that the father (or parent) commits is setting up a pattern of living for his son – for his children. It is a cycle that is difficult to break and requires fathers, in this particular instance, to be incredibly strong and unselfish.
It is astonishing how many men say that their problem with pornography
began with the unknowing example of their fathers. Men in their later years tormented that they have this problem that is so hard for them to kick (is that freedom America?) said it all began by finding their father’s (brother’s, uncle’s, neighbor’s dad’s) stash of porn magazines and how they’ve been haunted by it ever since.Children are inquisitive and snoopy. They aren’t evil. It is what they do. And they find these things and the sins of their fathers haunt them their whole lives as it becomes their sins. I can only imagine what our kids, who are so much more savvy than parents on the computer, can find when snooping about on the home computer that adults think hidden.
Society tells us that it isn’t so bad. It is natural. Kids will get over it. Society does not sit in a confessional. It can be heart wrenching.
Dads with porn: Throw it all out. Today. Get rid of it. Clean it off your computer and make sure that there are controls on your computer never to let it back on again. Don’t let anything of the sort into your house under your Okay. Your sons are counting on you.
13 comments:
"Your sons are counting on you."
and daughters!
Anon ~ Just what I was going to say! It's just as damaging to daughters, perhaps even MORE so, because if a little girl finds that stuff, it's an outright betrayal of her father.
I know my Dad bought that stuff, learned it later in my teens. And now that I'm older and understand a great deal more, it leaves me with this question to pose to ALL fathers, speaking on behalf of their daughters:
How can you say you love me and still objectify my sisters? How can you say you love me when your actions reveal you don't value the gift of femininity? How can you say you love me when your actions reveal that you don't know what love is?
Harsh, I know. It should be.
Too harsh, yes Adoro, unless your father made a pass at you. Men are human and the sexual drive is ferocious in them, but it is to be loving and procreative, not a pleasure for one.
Women don't escape their own temptations, either -- they get to read novels that are far more subtle yet some are just as titillating, or watch racy soaps, etc., and no one is the wiser. Seriously. Snow White is more fairy tale than not sometimes.
When I first came online into Catholic venues, I got tired of guys hitting on me ("ASL?") so my nickname became (facetiously, I'd thought) "SirRussellStover". So many folks, however, thought I was a guy (and apparently one who took 'his' faith quite seriously), I'd receive "whispers" from guys who were tormented by their sensual addictions here, asking for advice, help, prayers.
There was a HUGE price to pay for the sexual revolution, and women's liberation, and someone had to pay it. We all do, but the guys whose babies are stashed in incinerators and landfills without the slightest recourse for them or their children are some who pay it. Indeed, America the Vaginal.
I have enormous pity for men who are titillated day in and day out by women's "fashions" everywhere they go. They don't need actual porn -- a woman's Cosmopolitan magazine would do.
But indeed, happening upon a guy's porn, no matter who that guy is, is something that guys should at least guard against, because it does hurt us women deeply. It is a psychic wound. It DOES make one wonder, as Adoro says, if he sees the true value of women.
To guys: As Fr. V says, you know you shouldn't have it anyway. Throw it out. If not you, who? If not now, when? Porn is satan's skewing of the beautiful, and as such, it becomes your slavery. You were created potent for a much higher reason. If not to chastely, holily co-create children-- miraculous!, then to lay that part of your gender down in celibacy -- an extraordinarily holy sacrifice like that of Jesus Himself.
Just Me ~ Exactly...that's why my comments are harsh. No, my Dad did not direct his issues at me, however, it's still a betrayal. It sends a message, loud and clear: Women are good only for sex. They are objects for my pleasure.
How is a daughter supposed to feel when the person who is supposed to defend her honor is busy looking at OTHER men's daughters?
Certainly, I also pity those who get drawn into this stuff, and I do not exclude the women who do the same thing, either visually or in reading. It can become an addicition, and the harm doesn't just end.
and please pray for the women who are actively involved in creating the porn that others watch ... many horror stories there, too.
Exactly, Adoro, and indeed, Uncle Jim. I was reading of how Brit may play the mother of a returned Saviour.. One of these days, the sky is going to cloud over with snow, but it's not going to snow, and the clouds are not going to clear.
Sexual sins were the ones that cut Jesus the deepest.
Uh.. I think I must've read that somewhere.
To tell you the truth, I mostly came back here to apologize for being so graphic in that earlier post, Fr. V. I apologize, for we may not all be adults reading here. If I've offended or embarrassed any reader, I'm sorry.
I agree with everyone's comments about porn being a bad thing. That's why I couldn't believe it when one of the popular women' magazines had an article suggesting "what to give your guy" for a gift; and one of the hints was porn. Because "all guys like it". In the first place that's not true, and in the second place, a woman would have to be nuts to encourage her husband to look at the perfect silicone-augmented, airbrushed and photo-shopped images that a real woman could never compete with. Not only is it an occasion of sin for him, it belittles and demeans her.
I have a class every year for the parents of my RE kidlets warning them about the dangers of porn on the internet. They are instructed about filters, keeping the computer in a public place in the house, and warnings about MySpace and how easy it is to find out the location of someone.
Porn is a HUGE problem in today's world. I have spoken to many priests and ministers and they have all said it is the biggest problem they have to deal with.
Because I teach kidlets, I have seen what is available on-line and it is horrendous.
.......and, not all men do it. My Dad wasn't all that great of a Dad but he never looked at porn and my husband finds it repulsive.
I saw no harm in pornography for years. Then I stopped drinking, started going to AA meetings where there always seemed to be women who had supported their drug addiction (AA gets a lot of dual addicted people) by stripping, hooking, etc. That's when it started losing it's appeal.
It hurts like Hell when you look into the eyes of another human and see their screaming soul.
Check out the suicide statistics sometime for the "adult" film industry. If that doesn't give you something to think about, nothing will.
Along the lines of this excellent post and subsequent comments, there's an article in the current issue of First Things by one Jason Byassee titled "Not Your Father's Pornography" that would serve well as a primer on just how bad the let's-see-how-far-we-can-push-the-limits porn of today is compared to that of, say, a generation ago.
(Apparently FT only makes a handful of articles from its current issue available on its website — Byassee's article isn't there yet — but then makes the rest of the issue available the following month.)
Furthermore, porn makes it hard for a man to love a woman. In the porn world, (I mean the fantasy world in your head that porn encourages) women are flawless, plastic, odorless, hairless, and totally compliant. No real woman is that way. Thus, union with a real woman is always disappointing. Porn actually ruins sexual congress for a man (and for women, I guess).
By the way, I was exposed to my father's porn at age 8 or 9. And that was why, IMO, it was so hard to kick. It became ingrained in my mind before I even had sexual thoughts. In fact, porn initiated my first sexual thoughts - not a cute girl at school, not the way her hair bounced in a ponytail, not the shape of her lips. Rather, I was only interested in the virtual slave, naked as an animal, which I saw in a magazine.
And people want to say that this is "healthy"?
Well, off to pray the divine office before temptation gets me. Bye!
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