Session Notes

Citizen Magazine – no More Dirty Dancing:

“When I grew up I wanted to feel in control, like I was somebody. I had voids I couldn’t fill any other way,’ Marie says. She found ready money in sexually oriented businesses (SOBs). The work also gave her independence and security. She progressed easily from topless dancing to nude dancing. ‘I had a hard heart,’ she says. ‘It didn’t make any difference to me.’”

This is a great article on the root causes of the sexual oriented businesses.

Focus on the Family Magazine: May I Have This Dance?:

“he fathers and daughters paired off as they entered the elegant ballroom of the five-star Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. The dads wore suits or tuxes, the young ladies beautiful ball gowns. This was the fourth annual Father-Daughter Purity Ball, an event sponsored by Generations of Light Ministries last March. The ball featured an inspirational ballet by the Ballet Society of Colorado Springs, dinner accompanied by chamber music and ballroom dancing until midnight. (Okay, some non-ballroom dancing occurred, too. Try dancing a minuet to Blue Suede Shoesor a Glenn Miller big band tune.) The 100 father-daughter guests some dads brought more than one daughter, and some of the daughters were as young as 4 came from around Colorado, and a few from as far away as Pennsylvania. The highlight of the evening was when the dads signed the Covenant of Purity and Protection, witnessed by their daughters. right.) “This is not a debutante ball, but an elegant spiritual celebration that honors what God has created in fathers and daughters,”

Dancing is a great way to build confidence/femininity in girls.

Dancing With the Stars:

“Skimpy outfits and occasional mild language notwithstanding, Dancing maintains a degree of class and style reminiscent of past generations. It also spotlights dedication and the ability to overcome obstacles.”

Martial Arts: A Family Affair: Aren’t Martial Arts Violent?:

“Most martial arts instructors who teach kids consider their primary responsibility to be character development, not skill development. Abusive behavior is simply not tolerated in Universal Kempo, and we take accountability in the matter seriously: We periodically request signed statements from their teachers and parents about their behavior at home and school. Parents these days are rightly concerned about exposing their children to violence, especially on TV or in the movies. Yet most children, boys especially, are two-legged tidal waves of energy and aggression. Martial arts can offer a healthy, controlled way for children not only to release some of that energy, but also to learn to channel it into self-discipline and character development.”

Introducing The First Stage of Therapy with Women with Same-Sex Attraction: Securing the Foundation:

“Attunement is the nonverbal communication such as eye contact, facial expression, voice modulation, gestures, and timing and touch, [1] common to the relationship between a young child and mother, ‘in which both are sharing affect and focused attention on each other in a way such that the child’s enjoyable experiences are amplified and his/her stressful experiences are reduced and contained’ [2] (emphasis mine).”

This is a great article on the importance of mirroring empathy and acknowledging the difficulty in sharing/breaches of disconnect. In order to be with/love another we need to take a deptht breath and rest with them in the moment.

Cravings, Lust, and Boasting :

“These believers are, of course, living at various stages of Christian maturity. In chapter two, John affirms the younger men for growing strong as the Word of God changes their lives. He rejoices that the fathers – the more mature members of the church – have increasingly been delivered from the power of sin and have developed an intimate communion with God. All the truly converted are among the dear children whom John addresses, and he graciously attests to the evidences of saving and sanctifying grace in their lives. What We Must Not Love John’s affirmation of the church provides the necessary basis for this firm, unequivocal exhortation: Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. (1 John 2:15-17) Here, honest questions may arise in the minds of some. In Genesis, didn’t God declare all his creation ‘good’? Then how is it that we, God’s dear children, may not love it? And if ‘God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,’ (John 3:16) why are we forbidden that same love? The issue here is, of course, simply a matter of translation. When Christians in the first century read John’s letter, there was no confusion about the meaning of this passage. There need be none for us, either. The original readers of John’s letter recognized that the John 3:16 ‘world’ which God loves is a reference to people - the entire human race. And they knew that elsewhere in Scripture, that which we now find translated as ‘world’ often speaks of the sinful ways of fallen humanity – the world of arrogant self-sufficiency and hostility toward God. This is the ‘world’ we are warned of in 1 John 2:15. Not the human race, creation, or God-ordained structures such as family, career, and government. It is, instead, the world of sin, rebellion, and self-reliance from which we must diligently withhold our so easily diverted affections.”

This makes some good points about using creation to deepen your love for God.

Boundless: What If We Love Each Other?:

“When you ask God in prayer whether it’s okay to have sex outside marriage, you’re only pretending, because you know He has already answered that question in His Scriptures. You see, God doesn’t contradict Himself; He doesn’t say one thing in the Bible and another thing when you pray. If He has already told you what to do, then asking Him ‘What should I do?’ isn’t a way to find His will, but to avoid it. He says to you, ‘Why do you keep asking me questions I’ve already answered?’ So what do you do now? Before anything else, you and your girl friend need to repent. That means admitting to yourselves, and to God, that you’ve disobeyed Him; it means admitting to yourselves, and to God, that you’ve been playing tricks on your conscience; it means being sorry; it means telling Him that you’re sorry; and it means reversing course. If your girl friend doesn’t want to repent, that doesn’t get you off the hook, because you will just have to repent by yourself. You’ll have to do that even if she becomes angry, even if she threatens to break off the relationship, and even if she does break off the relationship. After repenting, ask God to forgive you through Jesus Christ. Then ask Him for strength to resist future sexual temptations because by giving in once, you’ve made it harder to resist the next time. Finally, agree now to avoid the tempting situations situations like being alone together. I’ll bet you didn’t know that the more time a couple spends alone together, the more likely they are to wind up in bed!”

This is an excellent article on self-perpetuating confusion in relationship boundaries, particularly. If you train yourself not to repent you are hardening your heart in being able to hear from God. let alone do it.

TrueU.org | Career Services: Do Not Go Gentle Into Your Career:

” I found very helpful in better understanding myself. For now, consider the following questions: What motivates you to do your best work? What doesn’t motivate you? That is, what kind of tasks, environments and personalities hinder your ability to be your best (or bore you to tears)? For example, if you thrive on teamwork and personal interaction, you’d likely pass on more solitary careers like architecture or computer programming, and avoid environments in which people are primarily ‘looking out for number one.’ What skills and abilities do you naturally excel at? It’s important to distinguish them from skills and abilities at which you are merely adequate or that you wish you excelled at. For example, I seriously considered pursuing a career in music, having grown up playing the drums and writing lyrics. As I explored different classes in my freshman and sophomore years, however, I realized that I had non-musical interests that were equally compelling. Though I had talent, I couldn’t see myself dedicating the amount of time necessary to truly excel as a musician. My interests in business and communications were pulling me in another direction.”

The Treatment of Ego-Dystonic Homosexuality: The Development of a Masculine Self-Image:

” I attempted to demystify the later homosexual fantasies through clarifications such as the following: ‘Deep down your fantasies serve as a security blanket in the same way they did when you were five. At that age your heart ached for your father’s strong arms to hold you, but sensing his rejection, you turned away and inward in an attempt to create your own good father image. This helped you to endure his emotional detachment but laid the groundwork for your dependence upon fantasies for soothing your pain. With the onset of adolescence, you feelings of masculine inadequacy were intermixed with sexual urges, and once again you turned to your fantasies for soothing your pain. But this time, you had no choice other than to construct them in a blatantly sexual style due to the phase of life you were in. Heterosexual fantasies would not provide any type of relief and refueling, since you were still stuck in the arms of the good father, not ready to let go and too scared that you would not make it as a man.’”

Boundless Answers: Dating and Sex :

“Typically, a relationship follows the natural progression of ever-growing intimacy until it reaches the point of, not sex, but commitment lifelong commitment. When people don’t want to commit for a lifetime, but also don’t want the relationship to end, they enter that hazy, thorny middle ground of sexual intimacy without lifelong commitment, hoping to prolong what they have not by marriage and lifelong commitment, which is God’s design but by jumping to sex and maybe living together. It’s counterfeit ‘marriage’ and a train wreck waiting to happen. Feeding this problem is what I call passive dating — growing more intimate with someone without really any ultimate purpose other than having fun, with no intentionality in the relationship. I can’t tell you how dangerous it is to continue growing intimate in a relationship that has no ultimate purpose beyond ‘fun’ or ‘personal pleasure.’ Those are great things, but they are by-products of a great relationship, not at all strong enough to be its ultimate purpose.”

This is another great article that discusses the danger of chronic delay of lifelong commitment. Aloneness motivates a a man to pursue a lifelong companion. Pursue a spouse not a boyfriend. Girls do not let men have a quasi-commitment from you.