As Hollywood Goes, So Goes The World

Although few of us want to admit it, and I'm sure we all want to believe that we're above this, I think we're all influenced by the big screen. Face it, it's mezmerizing: those perfect bodies, beautiful faces, and predictable outcomes. We all wish our lives followed a Hollywood script and that someone could airbrush away our physcial defects (and maybe a few extra pounds): a smaller, straighter nose, a longer, slimmer, more curvaceous waist, muscles that were a tad more defined, etc. Alas, though all of life may be a stage, the lighting experts and make-up artists aren't included in the ticket price. Still, we try to mimick as best we can, and although a select few may come close to imitating Hollywood beauty physically, our lives themselves can't be so easily controlled.

I love a feel-good movie as much as anyone. Superheros who save the day, no matter how unrealistic the rescue, make me cheer. I'll walk out of the theater with a smile on my face and a lightness in my step - the woes of life forgotten for at least a little while.

As long as we're able to distinguish between reality and Hollywood script, I think we're okay. When we begin to believe, albeit unknowingly, that what we see on the screen is how life is and should be, that's when we're in trouble.

When our kids were still under our watch and we had a say in their entertainment choices, we weren't nearly as concerned with movies/shows that contained violence as we were with ones that were laced with sexual inuendos. Why? The repercussions of getting in a fight were obvious: broken ribs and bloody noses. The repercussions of sex outside of marriage were not.

So here I am back at "Connectedness" as promised last week.

We want to believe that, just like Hollywood portrays it, sex has no deeper meaning than physical pleasure. There is nothing emotional that takes place. We want to believe that freedom is sleeping around, never being "tied down" to any one partner, having fun without a deeper connection. The problem is that it's just not possible and it's not supposed to be. Like it or not, sex is meant to be an expression of a deep connection between a husband and wife. It's meant to be the culmination of two hearts that are already one. It is much more than a physical act. It's a deep, emotional connection. It's a giving of the most private, most intimate part of yourself to another person - how can that NOT be emotional?

I find it interesting that Hollywood plays two sides and we believe them both:
a.)That premarital sex means nothing. You can sleep with all your friends and still be friends without any weirdness to your relationship. Afterall, it was just a physical act - kind of like shaking hands.
b.)That when a husband or wife sleeps with someone other than their spouse, it's a betrayal of the worst kind, so . . .
Sex outside of marriage means nothing but sex within marriage is sacred. The problem with this thinking is that you take yourself and all your experiences everywhere you go. So the single person who slept around for fun and later marries, somehow suddenly holds sex sacred? Even if they know this in theory, when facing a difficult time in their marriage, theory doesn't cut it.

It's not sex within marriage that is sacred. No, sex is sacred. Period. God created it. It's His gift to those who commit their lives to each other in marriage, and it's only in the freedom of the marriage vows - over a lifetime - that anyone can ever know the depths of connectedness that God intended for us long before Hollywood even existed.