Fear & Hope

To me, these are the two diminishing return emotions as they work in contrast to one another.  Plus, they're simply never constant in their affectualness.  So often, there's a state of mind at play relative to whichever end of the "fear / hope spectrum" you happen to land upon.

Now, everything I just wrote above is coming from a fleshly (pagan) point of view, and I know this because fear and hope can coexist well within men.  In fact, healthy fear, if doing its job well, should promote hope and hopefulness.  How might I have come to this conclusion?  God's word.

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Video pornography was firstly screened by Rob via satellite television at my friend's house during one of many sleepovers.  We were both in middle school at the time.  His persona was entertaining and lighthearted, and his divorced parents happened to both be pagans.  Hence, his mother looked the other way while we took full advantage of the Playboy channel.  For a 7th grade adolescent, very new-Christian boy (me), it was wildly disconcerting and rebelliously fun!

The only clip / scene I remember from these '80s pornos was one featuring a male porn model costumed up as a priest who eventually seduces one of his female parishioners.  As they're having intercourse (doggy-style), he's still clothed in his pastoral regalia from the waist up.  I can still see within my mind's eye him saying to the camera, "He will forgive us.  He will forgive us...", with a sly smile across his lips as they had sex.

As you might imagine, I would find myself so aroused by these videos that I'd have to excuse myself from the living room in order to find a bathroom upstairs to masturbate in.  And from there, whilst covered in ejaculate, I'd often wish that I'd simply drop dead due to my guilt brought on by this extreme, off the charts rebellious sexual sin.  I knew it was wrong to be participating in this, but it was so unbelievably captivating to my 13-14 year old brain.

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Yesterday, I ate lunch with a friend, and the conversation turned to Jackson Public Schools.  He commented that blacks simply do not consider education a priority, therefore that particular school district will always be doomed to fail its minority students.  And that statement seemed to hold water, but the more I thought about it yesterday afternoon, I began to disagree.

I personally made my education a priority due to me having both hope and fear intact within my psyche.  I feared what my future as a white man might look like sans education whilst hoping, always hoping, for a bright outcome vocationally in tandem with the preparation that would come through my education.  And I would argue it's hope that truly propels a group of individuals forward.  To put in the work because of hopefulness grants an individual long legs to go the necessary distance with.

If you remove hope from individuals, in particular children, they aren't compelled to make a means towards a brighter future (like education) one of their priorities.  As as we all know, black children overall have little to no hope permeating through their minority cultural zeitgeist.

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Prior to my termination from the university I was employed at back in 2013, I slowly but surely clicked myself towards hardcore porn via my web browser on my office PC.  One click here, another there.  It was very deliberate, and I did proceed with caution early on.  But, when nothing "bad" happened initially, I kept going.  At the time, we didn't have (quite purposefully) an Internet connected device at our rental home, therefore I only had my work PC to serve as my official smut gateway.  As more of my fears (of being reprimanded) were allayed, I carried forward with absolutely breaking the institution's info technology policy.  And eventually, I threw all caution to the wind.  But, in conjunction with this fearlessness came the inevitable loss of hope.  And man, did it ever hit me hard.

When Christian men are mired in sexual sin, they're cognizant of their bondage to it.  But bondage is qualitative.  There are degrees to it.  For Rob, during this time in his life, he'd experienced great seasons of victory from sexual sin - primarily due to his involvement with authentic community amongst other Christian men.  But now, that community wasn't there in small town Mississippi.

Oh, how he despaired!

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What pushes a man to completely embrace rebellion from God through sexual sin?  It's lack of hope.  It's the belief that these desires are so demonstrative that he's literally at their mercy.  Often people bring in the word addiction at this level of helplessness, but I tend to shy away from that word pertaining to sexuality.

I have lived it, and believe you me, you don't want to find yourself in this place.  For a Christian, it is beyond horrible.

Where would men be without Samson Society?

Without hope and therefore in bondage.