A sonnet for D

I don't do this often, but I figure somebody has to offer Apollo a little competition in the Bad Poetry category. It's an attempt to capture in meter and rhyme some of what I think about a conundrum that has always hovered somewhere in D's peripheral vision. The conundrum is this: How can she hold together, simultaneously, her very deep Christian faith and her overpowering sexuality?

At a very theoretical level this should be no problem: anyone who believes that God created the world must also believe that God created sex. And, after all, "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." (Genesis 1:31) On the other hand, too many Christian clergymen turn pink and make strangling noises at any serious discussion of sex; you don't hear many sermons compare the Beatific Vision to the ecstasy of orgasm; and D's sexuality is so intense and so ever-present that it can seem a bit incongruous coming from a grey-haired, Catholic professional woman. It looks even more incongruous that she is now totally committed to an extra-marital affair (with me), without making the slightest attempt to justify it in any terms outside the affair itself.

So how is she to make sense of all this? What's a girl to do?

Honestly, I think the incongruity is more apparent than real. I think God's perspective on things is so different from our own that it is a bit presumptuous for us to think He cares a whole lot about legal formalities of one kind or another. And my own religious sense is nebulous enough that I don't have to be very consistent about these opinions. It's convenient.

Anyway, as I say, I tried to take a few of my thoughts on the subject and distill them for her. I'll send this to her soon, and I hope she likes it.

Is this a Christian? Watch her through the door,
Conducting class with tender, tireless care,
Who gave up all she knew to teach the poor,
Whose love her students breathe in with the air.

“But are not Christians chaste?” So asks the scold.
“Where comes this passion, burning like wildfire?
“She should be meek and timid, never bold.
“Do not such driving lusts provoke God’s ire?”

But nay! The God who rolled back Timeless Night
With boundless pow’r, from flesh won’t hide His face.
In energy He takes His keen delight,
And casts on lovers gladness as His grace.

And so I think I’m not far wrong to say,
Amica sancta, ora nunc pro me.