The Girl and God

Posted by HolySmack on April 24, 2014

A young man falls in love with a young woman. How he is still an atheist makes no sense. She is beautiful… even the mere complexion of her skin wracks my thoughts — never mind her entire person! How it doesn’t make a believer out of him confuses me just the more…

I would tell him:

Look into her eyes and tell me they just got their color and shape because of 7,000,000+ years of human evolution. Tell me her voice is just noise vibrating from vocal cords in her throat, and that her words communicate thoughts that are merely electrical charges passing from one neuron to the next.

Tell me her hair is just like the next woman’s — the next great ape’s — and that her laughter is just some strange development not much different from hyena calls. Sit down, share honeyed tea with her and overlook how her lips kiss the porcelain — it’s nothing but the animal need to satisfy thirst. In fact, it’s all just an animal need and an animal reaction. If she was struck dead by one of many cancers, or fatally stabbed through the blood-brain barrier, just go and find another female human to perpetuate the species. She was weak, sick, and too stupid to protect herself anyways… it would’ve been bad to have her pass her genes onto the next generation.

[Black Sesame Ice Cream: an Asian Delight]

Why bother memorizing her phone number, email address, birth date, last name, middle name, first name, saint name, favorite color, song or ice cream flavor? All of those things are random and meaningless. Her phone number is only a jumble of digits mixed by the telephone service company database server. Her email may be just the same thing as her phone number – only it was her brain instead that jumbled the mix of digits and letters. Her ancestors jumbled the letters for her names. And what’s a saint got to do with anything? Colors are merely wavelengths of invisible photons. One color is as special as the next: yellow, canary, saffron, gold, and urine color. Songs are just assortments of organized noise. If you listened to all the explosions, crashes, hushes and thunder in the universe, you would have by now heard all the frequencies audible to your ears. Anything else was already heard before in the mix… somewhere. Ice cream flavor — if nothing discussed above matters, then ice cream matters even less. What does that have anything to do with some female human that’s going to die one day and be replaced by an evolved and improved female human?

Unless… unless you love her like I do. Unless you see signs of God through her person – and by person I mean everything that is hers. Can you not realize that no chance process set her fingers so that they fit so warmly into yours? No toss up tuned her voice so that you can hear music call your name from even across busy streets. There’s no way she wasn’t thought up and nurtured by Love. Something – someone so beautiful and precious to you could never be merely a thing rolled out by an expanding universe of matter… she could only be a holy miracle.

– “To love someone means to be the only one to see a miracle that is invisible to others.”

-François Mauriac

First written and posted by Evan Pham on: April 28, 2011

The Dark Knight Fails

Posted by HolySmack on April 10, 2014

The Dark Knight Trilogy is by far my favorite in film history. Many things were simply done right in the story, but a few things could’ve been better. But since I have a reputation for nitpicking the negatives, I’ve decided to write about more redeeming things.

Except… Miranda and Bruce

Do you remember the scene in The Dark Knight Rises, when Bruce and Miranda share an intimate night together in his lonesome mansion? Yes – the scene that didn’t need to be in the movie at all. Yes – the scene that was followed by a silly shot of Batman overlooking a Gotham sunrise, standing atop a skyscraper, triumphantly posed as if he just accomplished a rite of passage into manhood.

Yes, that one-night-stand between Wayne and Tate. What was it all about? Why have it in the storyline?

Here’s what I think (SPOILER ALERT):

In Bruce’s loneliness after being abandoned by business, boss, and butler, he finds a lovely young woman in Miranda – someone also interested in him. Together, they share something proper only for a married man and woman to share. But it doesn’t end there.

Every act of love-making has consequences. And in this case, Bruce just cursed himself. How so?

1. Miranda turns out to have been only using sex to gain Bruce’s trust (where Bruce was using love only to gain sex).

2. As a consequence of using and being used, Bruce falls for someone out to manipulate him even more. Miranda is Talia al Ghul, none other than Ra’s al Ghul’s vengeance-bound daughter out to finish her psycho-father’s plan to terrorize Gotham.

3. Because of Bruce’s weakness and lust, he fell for Talia’s treachery, which made him overlook a lot of clues a virtuous Batman would’ve noticed sooner and used sooner to track down Bane and the League of Shadows resurgent.

4. Finally, Bruce’s weakness and lust betrayed Selina – his true love, his true friend and companion, despite her stained history. Because he gave away the gift of his body and love to Miranda, he failed in keeping himself for Selina, and that deprives Selina of what she rightfully deserves as Bruce’s bride.

If you are hoping to find your spouse one day, please think of him or her right now:

Men: she’s out there somewhere, waiting to meet you. Wouldn’t you want her to be keeping herself, saving herself for you? Shouldn’t you do the same?

Women: he’s out there looking for you, eager to meet you. Wouldn’t you want him to keep himself, save himself for you, because of how special you are? Shouldn’t you do the same?

[Happily Ever After…]

Special Deliverance

Posted by HolySmack on March 21, 2014

I just finished reading a book!

The book is Matt Fradd‘s Delivered. It’s a great collection of nine testimonials from men and women who once were or are struggling to be free from pornography addiction.

Yes, there is such a disorder as porn addiction, and if you don’t believe me, consider this article, and this article, and this one too… and this one. (Btw, the last one was made by an ex-porn actress.)

And if you were or are addicted to porn, if you are tempted, if you think porn is harmless, please know that I was like you.

I was caught up in lust starting from a very young age. I remember the first incident was when I was in fifth grade, and it worsened when my family got Internet for the first time (in 1998 – yes, I just showed my age) and I was trapped for ten years.

For ten years I abused women and girls by lusting after them. I abused my imagination, my body, my freedom, my desire to love. I was butchering my ability to truly love and to truly be loved.

Then in 2006, I was Holy Smacked in the face. I was punched with this insight: “The problem with pornography is not that it shows too much, but because it shows too little.”

That’s right. Read that quote again: Porn is not showing too much — it’s not showing enough! So… what is there more to see?

How about all of her? She has a name. The girl is someone’s daughter. She’s someone’s sister. Someone’s granddaughter. The woman is someone’s wife, someone’s mother, someone’s aunt. She is someone’s friend. She has dreams, goals, aspirations. She has a childhood, a history, a whole life-experience. She’s not just a body, she’s not just body parts. She has an irreplaceable soul, a unique mind, a heart made for love.

The most beautiful part of a woman is her. All of her.

And porn blinds us from seeing all of her for who she is. Porn blinds us from seeing anyone for who they are, including the person who uses it. There’s so much more to a person than we can see (If you don’t believe it, look over a copy of Delivered for yourself).

My life changed when I realized this (via the Theology of the Body). Actually, my life more than changed, I felt more free, strong, manly and a follower of Jesus than ever before. I even saw more in girls and women than I could ever see while trapped in lust. Today, whenever I see a beautiful person, I stop and sigh a prayer: “Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for this person, and all her beloveds, for they all have recourse to thee.”

And if she’s especially beautiful to me, then I pray and pray and pray for her to be safe from my lust and the lusts of others. I pray over and over, and thank God for creating and nurturing this person, and I pray for her to become a saint. And by this time, I think so much about who she is that I’m too lost in wonder with God to start lusting.

What just happened there? What exactly?

I just turned the temptation to abuse the woman into a reminder to pray for her and thank the Lord. And guess what: that really annoys the devil. REALLY ANNOYS that leech! And he can’t do anything about it.

Last thing: Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I don’t feel tempted anymore. I’ll be tempted until I die. But now the chains are off, and I know where the gun safe is, and I know how to aim and shoot.

[Click on the safe for your own weapons.]

The World Is Not Enough

Posted by HolySmack on November 23, 2013

I am thinking of some of you… perhaps most of you — maybe.

I am asking the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. The following is an actual prayer journal entry of mine from the morning of November 15th, 2013:

Jesus? how do those who used to believe in You stop believing? How would anyone un-believe after realizing the Beauty? When in unbelieving, the cessation would limit their gaze on Beauty?

How did they decide there was enough beauty, that they were satisfied with the world and all its temporary aesthetics? Whereas myself… in love and in need of greater and greater beauty, in hope of deeper and deeper drowning in Beauty, drowning in Her. I could never settle for the beauty of mere creation, not because Creation is cheap… no! But because She is so sensuous and luscious that I must find Her source! I must reach for it to reach it! Did man who gazed upon the blush of the moon rest content on merely gazing? Does man shrug at the tropical beach and leave perfectly happy to have seen it from afar? Does a bridegroom just married to his bride find satisfaction in merely beholding her silhouette?

What man would not hope instead to stroll the cheeks of the moon? to rest upon the beach, upon her warm sands, wade in her warm waters, wander her gardens and taste the sweets of her groves? What husband would not desire to embrace and behold fully his wife? All of her!

All of Her! All of Beauty.
And only All will do for me.

And who does not want even more? Who would settle for less than Heaven?

And I believe in You, God, for I cannot believe that Beauty ends, as this mortal creation ends. My appetite for Beauty is too great, it is too devoted to accept that it all perishes, and perishes forever. But, it is just barely great enough to have faith that Beauty is eternal, forever.
I will only be sated with Her forever.

“If love is not forever — it is nothing.” -Saint Teresa of Avila

Made of Love, Made for Love

Posted by HolySmack on October 29, 2013

Dear readers,
Today I’d like to share with you the Theology of the Body (TOB). In short, it’s an insight, a philosophy, a rejuvenating lifestyle that saved my life in October of 2006 and changed my life forever. Nothing’s been the same since — in fact, I divide my life into two parts: BTOB and ATOB [BEFORE Theology of the Body and AFTER Theology of the Body]. This past weekend, I celebrated my Sixth Year of Purity and reflected on how far I’ve come from where I was, and how beautiful the destination ahead looks. Honestly… it’s something you gotta see to believe.

I due time, I’ll tell you more about it from my personal perspective, but for now, may I introduce to you Sister Jane Dominic Laurel. Below is a link to her TOB talks. I just finished the final video and quiz (see if you can beat my score!) and cannot wait to share them with you all. Please give Sister a chance at your attention, and hang on. Even if you’re already familiar with TOB, I don’t think you’ve seen it from this perspective yet! Don’t let me be the only one!

Sister Jane’s “Rich Gift of Love” series.

Just Too Beautiful

Posted by HolySmack on August 27, 2013

I once heard a friend say this, and what she said shocked me:

“No matter how much a man tries, he can never be a woman. Women are just too beautiful.”

I agree with my friend.

No matter how good technology gets, no matter how advanced surgery gets, and definitely no matter how much effort, money, and care it takes – no man can be a woman. He will never smell as good, look as good, feel as good – and absolutely never be as beautiful.

Because a woman’s beauty and a man’s beauty are not the same, not equal, not interchangeable.

A woman is as different as she can be from a man – and still be 100% human. A man is as different as he can be from a woman – and still be 100% human.

Anyone who believes a man can become a woman must also believe that the night sky can become the stars, that the frame can become the painting, the page can become the story, the dress can become the body.

But no matter how similar the two – it is impossible for one to become the other, because the one is meant for the other, and the other for the one.

But it is understandable why any man would want to become a woman. Who does not want to be beauty? Who does not want to be the person he most adores, admires, cherishes and loves?

So did men get cheated then? Did men lose out somewhere in the scheme? Did we get suckered out of the bargain?

No.

No, because when man holds woman – he supports the stars, he protects and presents the painting, he carries the tale, he embraces the beautiful body. He gets to hold beauty, gets to be with beauty. He gets to care for beauty. He gets to love her.

TOB Inspired,

-Evan/Even/Ivan/Evian/Ev/Evon/Kevin/Evin/etc.

[Written originally in Autumn 2012]