[This is Bishop Paul Marshall’s May 2008 column for secular newspapers, usually 600 words or less and different from his column in Diocesan Life. The column is sent to newspapers throughout our 14 counties. It is published by The Morning Call, Allentown, on the first Saturday of every month. It usually appears also in six or seven additional papers at some point during the month. The combined circulation of papers that publish the column regularly is about 400,000. Some 130 columns have been published over the past 12 years.]
The past is never quite past.
I was quietly watching Game Seven of the 1952 World Series on my computer, hoping the Dodgers would fare better this time. Just as Red Barber’s voice had me once again sitting on my grandfather’s lap watching the tiny screen on his Philco television back in Astoria, the laptop gave out its little you-have-mail ding. I am the slave of duty.
The past had come calling in the email as well. A person totally unknown to me had come upon a column published in this space almost twelve years ago and was writing to reply.
I had suggested in that column that we are helped by understanding our intimate moments as “making-love” rather than as the cruder unemotional expression, “having sex.” I observed also that American prudery had stripped from the wedding service of my church the wonderful expression, “With my body I thee worship.”
My correspondent misread me. She thought that the idea of making love must mean something gentle, expressing tenderness and devotion. She observed that in her serial relationships having sex meant the wild moments.
