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Becoming Whole
Relationships and sexuality are areas of life that can be beautiful or confusing, life-giving, or painful. Becoming Whole is a conversational podcast for men, women, and families seeking to draw nearer to Jesus as they navigate topics like sexual integrity, relational healing, spiritual health, and so much more.
Becoming Whole
What Your Sexual Temptations Are Actually Telling You with Marco Cassanova
What if your sexual struggles aren't merely obstacles to overcome but doorways to deeper healing? In this episode we welcome our guest Marco Casanova as he shares his story and journey of wholeness.
As Associate Director of Desert Stream Ministries and coordinator of their Living Waters program, Marco brings a fresh perspective to one of our culture's most polarizing topics. Having left the Catholic seminary after eight years when he realized his same-sex attraction made him uncertain about celibacy, Marco shares how discovering Living Waters transformed his understanding of his sexuality and ultimately his destiny.
For anyone struggling with unwanted sexual attractions, addictions, or desires—or for those who love someone who does—this conversation offers both challenge and hope. The church, Marco suggests, should be a place where people have "the freedom to struggle" without shame but with a vision of who they're becoming in Christ.
Resources:
- Desert Stream Ministries
- Living Waters
- Our Bodies Tell God's Story by Christopher West
- Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body by John Paul II
- A Meditation on Givenness by John Paul II
Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole
👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)
Hey everyone, a special treat for you today, special treat for me today at least, and you'll be listening in, so I'm glad you're listening in. Today I'm going to be talking to Marco Casanova, and if that's not enough to draw you in and out of you, marco, that's right. You heard it correctly, casanova. What is that? Does it mean? House of love, marco, is that?
Speaker 2:what that?
Speaker 1:is New house.
Speaker 2:New house, I'm sorry, I wish Casano, wish casa, you know, house of love. That'd be awesome.
Speaker 1:No, it's just just new house actually, when we say it that way house of love it sounds a little bit uh, I don't know smarmy, almost like house of love I know I don't know how I feel with the last name of house of love, but I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1:With new house it's good yeah, new house, I love it, casanova it. I heard you once making it. I think we were at a living waters train or something you were making a joke about. Like like marco casanova sounds like like some I don't know, some kind of like very like muscular, something man or like yeah, and then you get this short mexican, you know marco casanova movie star or something you, you know you are.
Speaker 1:you're a movie star to me, marco. Okay, so everybody, marco Casanova is on staff. I don't even know your title anymore, but with Desert Stream Ministries if you don't know Desert Stream Ministries, we'll have a link in the show notes Wonderful, phenomenal ministry that has been around for 40 plus years and has a super, super, super important part in, uh, in my story and the freedom that Christ brought me. And you don't know what I'm talking about. Call me up, I'll tell you stories about desert stream and their living waters program that have just transformed my life. But, marco, tell us a little bit like, um, what is? So? Let me start with the basic. What is your title at desert stream? What do you do there? But um, but also like I'd love. Well, start there, and then I'm going to pepper you some other questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that sounds great. So I'm an associate director at Desert Stream, um, and I oversee living waters in the United States. That's my main gig, uh, here at Desert Stream. I also assist Andrew with certain things, um, we with certain things. We have a small but mighty staff here in Kansas City and, yeah, so it's been great. I came on as an intern in 2019, but then transitioned into this full-time role shortly after, so it's great to be on this team.
Speaker 1:Super. Okay, so give us the. Andrew. Is Andrew Comiskey, the author of, or founder of, desert Stream, the author of the Living Waters program? You mentioned Living Waters. How do you give?
Speaker 2:us an elevator pitch for Living Waters and some people might not know what that is. Yeah, living Waters is a group for men and women seeking more wholeness, or chastity is kind of the word that we use at Desert Stream, which is kind of an archaic, maybe a little misunderstood word, but we had to reclaim and reframe that word. But really, living water is this 20 week process oriented group for men and women saying hey, I want to grow in wholeness. So the starting points could be pornography, addiction, same-sex attraction, marital struggle. Whatever your starting point is, living waters is a way of integrating who we are as sexual beings and and learning how to give uh responsibly.
Speaker 2:that that actually dignifies self and others um so living waters is a way of of learning how to do that better in the context.
Speaker 1:So yeah, a couple couple things about living waters. Um, years years ago I remember sharing we were running a living waters program here and I was sharing with a local pastor living waters and I kind of gave a similar pitch to what you just said about. Like you know where your starting point is. It could be same subtraction, it could be pornography, it could be extramarital affairs, it could be this, maybe some residual stuff from past sexual abuse, and he, like almost scoffingly, was like huh, that sounds like a pretty you know broad program or pretty intense program. And I and I hung up a little bit embarrassed but I was, but it is. It is an incredibly deep, rich, broad program that that, in a, in a way that's fairly unique in the, in the scope of things, um, provide space for the for the body of Christ, broken ones in the body of Christ to come together under one roof.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um and experience the, the love, the transformation of Jesus, and I and I know from the years that we ran it here. One of the things we would constantly hear from the men and women afterwards was what a blessing it was to be together with our different elements of brokenness as we aspire towards wholeness, together in Jesus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. Honestly. I love that aspect of Living Waters because there is something integrating about the heterogeneity of it, that there's many brokennesses expressed, so it's not just so sectarian of, oh I have my abuse group or my same-sex attraction group. We can be like that in our brokenness, like, oh, my brokenness is special and unique, when in fact I think living water sort of creates a level ground for people just to come to the cross together. Yeah, the way that my brokenness shows itself may differ than my brother and my sister beside me, but yet the roots may actually be quite similar. So it's so helpful to be together in that and it breaks isolationism in a way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's one of the things I'm eternally grateful to you guys for, and I think that was so formative for me. So, marco, we've talked about your role and some of the ministry, but who are you? How did you get into this? I'm sure you went to college for this kind of ministry. How did you get into this? Give us a little bit of your story, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I encountered Desert Stream Living Waters when I was in the seminary. So I was studying to be a Catholic priest and I was in the seminary for about eight and a half years and I encountered Living Waters right at the eight and a half year mark and it was because I came with my own struggle with same-sex attraction and needing to really discern is God calling me to be a priest At this point when I had encountered Living Waters, calling me to be a priest At this point when I had encountered Living Waters? I was pretty good. I wasn't acting out homosexually like I was years prior, outside of the context of the seminary community. I was acting out homosexually, had a heavy addiction to pornography. Both of those things were kind of under control, you could say. However, I was still under a bit of a low ceiling of where do I actually land? Is same-sex attraction symptom of something deeper or is it my destiny Like? Is it just where I have to sort of I'm in celibacy because there's really nothing else for me to do with this sort of expression of the fall and this vulnerability of SSA?
Speaker 2:So this priest friend said hey, there's this guy named Andrew Comiskey out in Kansas City. He really believes Jesus can help persons on the level of deep stuff like this. So I thought, you know, I kind of I need it because I'm about to give my life as a deacon and which, you know, every priest is ordained to the diaconate and it's in the diaconate ceremony that this man promises to be a celibate for the kingdom of God. And I thought, man, I don't know if I'm ready to be a celibate because a celibate renounces the good of marriage and I don't even like the idea of marriage.
Speaker 2:So there were some hints that I had some more work of integration to do. So I came to this training, this Living Waters leadership training that we do a few times a year, and it really shifted my life, it really changed my life, and so I returned back to the seminary, left the seminary, came on as a, as an intern to Desert Stream and it was there that the Lord was doing more integrative work in my life, you know, through empowered discipleship, community like Living Waters. The community in Kansas City is pretty robust, a great Christian community, good therapy, so kind of all of the above. My history, obviously my familiar vulnerability is that of SSA and had been struggling with that for a long time, but mainly in the dark. I came to Jesus a real, profound encounter with the Lord while I was in the seminary, about five years into the seminary, which is less than optimal. You probably should be a Christian before you enter the seminary, but in many ways I wasn't a.
Speaker 2:Christian, I wasn't surrendered to Jesus in this area of my deepest self, my sexuality. Hello, that needs to be surrendered to the one. And I simply wasn't, until I was given this beautiful opportunity just to kind of open myself up to the mercy of God, which which put me on a wonderful trajectory of of becoming sober and coming to grips with who I am as a man. But a couple of years after that, living waters was that that which catapulted me into the more which I know we'll get to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so good. Okay, man, you dropped some hand grenades along there that are exploding in my mind. Let me rewind just a little bit because I want to press in and make sure that people didn't miss it and maybe hear more from you about it. But you said I'm getting ready to make this vow of celibacy, which is is, um, giving up the gift of marriage and to to give that up while not recognizing it as a gift. I've felt disingenuous or something like that. Like, can you, can you just kind of? Can we go back to that page and, yeah, some more from from your story about that yes.
Speaker 2:So John Paul II. I'm a big fan of John Paul II. We are at Desert Stream, but as a seminarian back in the day, I was becoming more familiar with this Polish pope who loved to write on human love honestly, to write on human love honestly. His whole curriculum vitae is stamped with these moments of writing, pretty significant works when it comes to what it means to be human and what it means to be a human to love with responsibility, with dignity, all of the above. So really a pivotal player when it comes to sexuality stuff, I think, today.
Speaker 2:So I'm reading TOB as a seminarian the theology of the body, which is a compilation of talks that John Paul II gave in the eighties as the Pope. Every Wednesday, the Pope gives a talk to the public, and so John Paul II gave a series of these talks on these consecutive Wednesdays for a matter of years, which then became a compilation called the Theology of the Body, so basically a biblical anthropology. That's what the Theology of the Body is. It's just an exposition of the Bible in which John Paul II is gleaning from the Word of God the principles of what it means to be human and what it means to become more human in light of brokenness. And so there's a section in the theology of the body where John Paul II speaks of celibacy for the kingdom of God, and he says that you can't become a celibate for the kingdom of God unless you renounce the good of marriage. So you can't be a celibate unless you renounce the good of marriage and in other words, you can't renounce something that you've never possessed or you've never wanted or you've never actually made peace with.
Speaker 2:So for me, I always disqualified myself on the basis that I have SSA, I have same-sex attraction, so therefore I'm not called to marriage. And when I was reading John Paul II, it was a challenge because it was as if he was saying well, wait a minute. The priesthood or any celibate calling for the sake of the kingdom of God is not a dodge of marriage or a hiding place from marriage, but rather you give that up for the sake of being fully identified with Jesus and his kingdom purposes. But for me, the priesthood had become a bit of a hiding place. So that's what that was kind of the conflict of wait a minute.
Speaker 2:I don't think I've made peace with the fact that as a man, I'm actually capable of fatherhood and I'm capable of being a married man Like those. Those are powers inherent in who I am as a human person I actually haven't made peace with. I've dodged them. I haven't reckoned with them, I haven't faced them. I've dodged them, I haven't reckoned with them, I haven't faced them, so they're. So I, I, I'm, I'm stunted in my ability to actually be a celibate. So that's what kind of propelled me.
Speaker 1:Yeah I want to come back to that. Yeah, what you're saying at the end. There's so much in there and some people listening are probably going like, honestly, I would imagine there's some people listening going like, what are you talking about? Like, yeah, no, like if you were, if you were a gay man, like you, you're not stunting anything. What does that mean? Like, what do you mean? We're going to come back to that, but, um, I mean, because I think it is such a powerful part of your story and it and it is, um, not spoken of enough and I think we'll unpack that in a minute.
Speaker 1:Um, just as an aside, listeners, if you, if you are not familiar with theology of the body, john Paul, the second theology of the body, uh, we'll have a couple accessible resources that begin you kind of taking a look at that. It is theology of the body. Training, at least part one of of, uh, kind of an introductory training to that is one of the things that I require for every staff member at regeneration. Um, it really ought to be required reading for any, any seminarian, protestant or catholic living today, and it, and it strikes me like john paul ii was giving those, um, those wednesday audiences in the, it was the 70s, right, the? Uh, some I think it was the 80s, 80s. Okay, I'm a young guy no, I no idea, not paying attention at all to that, and I think maybe much of the world is the same as me. But, um, man, like, just timely, so important for then and for now, maybe maybe now more than ever. Okay, marco, um, one of these I've I've heard you talk about, I've read you, you um writing about this before.
Speaker 1:Uh, and this, this too, I think will be new to some people in their own understanding of same-sex attraction, uh, same-sex sexual temptation. You've talked about, kind of like the, just the value of psychology, or the value of the, even the moment of temptation, as an informative moment for you when it comes to paying attention to areas of vulnerability or things like that can, um, and and. So I think you know what I'm talking about. Maybe you could just explain like, or maybe maybe let me frame the question like this so, uh, young man, young woman listening, uh, who has experienced, for as long as I can remember, some same-sex attraction, and they're doing their best to to abstain from pornography and abstain from lust, um, uh, how, how and and and when they experience this. I mean, I've talked to guys like this.
Speaker 1:All the time they experience a moment of, of same-sex sexual temptation and they're like crap, you know, there's that, you know there's that old thing. Again, I suck, I'm, you know whatever, and and feeling some shame about it. Or they're feeling like, hey, I really want to walk, uh, out of biblical sexual integrity. But there's also this kind of voice in the back of my head saying like, uh, when, especially when temptation hits of, am I trying to escape something that's just inevitably me? Um right, how did you deal with that? I mean, did you experience that? Does that resonate? And and what, and how do you respond to that attraction?
Speaker 2:it put me in a lot of conflict, like, oh, I want to be faithful to Jesus, but yet I have these attractions that are causing me a lot of anxiety layers of it. So what I have found in discovering that there's meaning behind my same-sex attraction, psychologically speaking, is that there's so much grace for those moments where you do feel same-sex attraction. So what I mean by that is I think SSA is an indicator of something. There's something subterranean, so to speak, there's something beneath the ssa, and so the same-sex attraction is almost like a check engine light, so to speak. There's something, there's something that you need or something off or something amiss, and it's not to shame you, it's it's never to say, oh, dang it. Here I am again, ren, get it out. I don't like that. It's more okay.
Speaker 2:I'm noticing that I'm vulnerable for some reason and I'm reaching outside of myself to secure what I actually already have. Why am I grasping after this guy that may be compelling to me, when in fact, I'm more like him than not? So why? Why do I see him as all of these things? So I think SSA is, is a, it can actually be a gift in that it can take us to what's beneath it what, what, what. What is underneath my experience of same-sex attraction? Now, those things are so dynamic and we can't say, oh, there's one reason why people experience SSA. That's ridiculous, and no one is trying to say that. I feel like people maybe brand Desert Stream Living Waters to want to sort of fit everybody into, oh, it's the father wound narrative or whatever. But really I think what we're saying is that there's some reason, psychologically speaking, there's some sort of wound underneath that experience of SSA that Jesus actually wants to get to, but also he wants to help me understand a little bit more of myself.
Speaker 2:So I'll give you an example, whenever I experienced same-sex attraction, there are a couple of things that I could ask myself. Why am I feeling diminished? Why am I feeling diminished? Sometimes, like in moments of heightened vulnerability to same-sex attraction, there is a feeling of diminishment that I feel, you know, like why. So, asking myself, why am I feeling this way? You know, it could be an anxiety of needing to face a challenge, I don't know. It could be something as simple as that facing a challenge at work, or a challenging interpersonal conflict, or the challenge of marriage and family life, I don't know. There could be many things that threaten, seems to threaten, my masculinity, my ability to be proactive, my ability to engender life and to provide form. So, whenever there's something that may be challenging that I tend to be more vulnerable to the same sex attractions, stuff, you know, and so that initial temptation, so to speak, is an opportunity for me to say what's going on, you know. So, in a way, it's actually, it's actually good, it's a, it's a helpful indicator, so to speak.
Speaker 2:Now, the origins, the cycle or psychogenesis of all of that are those goods in and of themselves. I think that needs more nuance and unpacking, but what I'm saying is that don't fear your temptations. You know, don't run away from your temptations. Actually face them and find the narrow way through them. Of course St Paul says, flee immorality. That's something else you know. Like when you're kind of in a circumstance where it's like, whoa, I can fall. Here I'm a, you know, I'm opening porn or I'm about to fall with this person, it's like, yeah, duh, flee. It's not like, oh, let me dialogue here and find the, the Colonel, you know, no flee. But in those moments where it's like Whoa, I'm, I'm feeling a heightened vulnerability, face it, find the narrow way through it and and there can be so much healing and integration that comes from from those moments.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so beautiful. I mean you, you remind me. I think you know Andrew has been writing about this for a long time. More recently, jay Stringer in his book Unwanted talks about this exact thing, with people wrestling with unwanted sexual behaviors of a variety of kinds. He does not write explicitly about same-sex attraction, but one of the things that he says in Unwanted, he encourages people. He says look a little bit of curiosity and kindness around the specifics of your temptations and the specifics of your story and how they might connect will take you much further than an evening of, like you know, remorseful, shameful prayer that this will just go away, yeah. And he advocates, you know, to people in, in those in the space of temptation or in the space of our vulnerabilities, to not swing wide the door to our temptations, say come on in, but to say, hey, you keep knocking here, why are you here? Yeah, what are you looking for? Like I always kind of picture for myself. Hey, you keep knocking here, why are you here? Yeah, what are you looking for? Like I always kind of picture for myself, like, hey, speaking of, of, of Casanova, like, like, if I'm a house and temptation keeps knocking at my door, I'm like what I want to go to the door and say, hey, like almost like the pizza guy, you know, like somebody, did somebody order you in the house, like do you know what room they're in? What's happening here, which is part of what I hear you saying Like I'm looking at something in me is looking for something, and I want to just be curious and kind of myself.
Speaker 1:Um, marco, again, just thinking about so many people wrestling with unwise sexual behaviors of any kinds and certainly some people not all people, but some people who really experience a lot of shame around just the recurrence of their particular kind of temptation, and the way you're talking about it is really like it's not shaming, like how did you get there? How did you get to a space where it's like, hey, I feel the temptation and it doesn't drag me to some place of feeling woefully inadequate or different or chronically unique or something? Um, but it's just, I'm a human being who feels, you know, all manner of or different manners of temptation. I mean, even you said, when you're describing living watch before you said, um, it's just level ground at the cross and we can all gather together, um, with our variety of of issues. So can you just? How did you get some freedom from the shame?
Speaker 2:yeah, I would say living waters. For sure, 100, 110. There is something about living waters that that has been a compass for me, or a guide to sexual wholeness. You know where I need. I need guides, I need, I need sort of road posts and people who have walked 20, 30, a hundred steps before me who can say, hey, this is how you navigate these circumstances, or this is how you read your wound, or learn how to read your wound, and so I need that. And so Living Waters really provided that for me, I would say too, coupled with facing reality, you know. So I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2:Uh, when I first moved to Kansas city, I was at, I was out of the seminary, and the seminary was actually, at that point, a really good community for me, the community of men, and it was in that community that I was starting to really feel like a man among men, which I honestly, I think is my, my wound per se is, it's a masculine wound.
Speaker 2:There is a, there is a desire for male friendship and at some point in my story, that desire, that good desire for male connection, became eroticized.
Speaker 2:And so there is in the SSA, there is an actual good desire to be connected with fellows, you know, and so I was starting to live with some guys here in Kansas city and that was so healing for me because being out of the seminary I was there was there was a bit more freedom, but also, like in this house that I was living with there was we were closer in quarters and so it was a good challenge. Of these men are my friends and I want to dignify them. They're not kind of phantoms of my pornography fantasy or they're these areas it can be like no, I need to live by myself because I struggle with SSA and I can't live with other guys, you know. But I think living with other guys was actually a good challenge where I learned how to be a man among men and how to face what may be a compelling temptation in a weak moment, but to say I don't have to do that.
Speaker 2:And on the basis of I want to dignify him and that doesn't dignify him and it doesn't dignify me, and there was something so integrating about that. So living waters, yes, the sort of this beautiful training ground of, of becoming more whole, but then actually facing um reality and growing through that, I think really diminished um the high octane, compulsive SSA thing, but also diminished a lot of shame where it's like okay, if I feel that, if I bump up against that desire to lust or to, to, to give into temptation of whatever kind, uh it's to say, uh, okay, I know this place, uh, I'm familiar with this, that I'm bumping up against, but I need not freak out, I can, um, I can kind of use the tools that I've, I've come to learn and find a narrow way through it yeah, that's great, it's such a it's.
Speaker 1:there's so much grace in the way you're describing it, um, so much invitation. So I want to, I want to shift gears because that, and I'm super excited to kind of press into this with you because but I think you're already pointing the way in in culturally, in our, in the secular culture and within churches throughout the United States and maybe all of the West, I don't know there's different characterizations of, of different approaches to for those who experienced same-sex attraction. There's the some folks who say look, it's not just same-sex attractions. God made me gay, this is who I am. I'm getting married, um, and more and more people saying, yep, that sounds good. Yeah, typically referred to as side a.
Speaker 1:Then there are christians say no, you know a solid, traditional reading of the scriptures and historic teaching the church that this is out, that acting out sexually with somebody of the same sex is is against god's will. I may not understand all the reasons I got here, but I can't act on this area of temptation for me, and so, in order to be consistent with what god wants for me, I'm going to remain celibate, um, and and some of those folks who would refer them refer themselves as, as as gay celibate Christians, some who might not, but that's typically been called side B. I don't know who. I don't know who came up with these names, like it's not the same people that do the generation names, but anyway, um, and then, and more recently, there's been like something called side X and side Y and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, um, and that's not the point of this podcast and that's not the point of this podcast. That's not part of my question either.
Speaker 1:But one thing I find missing in all of that is an area that I feel like Desert Stream does a wonderful job of articulating and I've heard you do it, I've heard Andrew Comiskey do it. That comes from John Paul II and it's a different perspective, because it's not even necessarily like how am I going to respond to this specific area of temptation or desire, but rather it's a look at who am I, who am I designed to become, and really thinking about the human person, including our sexuality, male and female, and what that means. So to me it's a very aspirational perspective and I wonder if you might just kind of share some of your, your perspective on that how you, um, how you, yeah, how you, how you, how you think about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know I don't like labels. Um, I don't think labels have been good to us, especially those of us who experience same-sex attraction. Labels aren't helpful. So letting go of gay or even straight or homosexual, heterosexual as adjectival qualifiers of who I am as a person, like, oh, I'm a heterosexual Christian, I think that's just as bad as saying I'm a homosexual Christian or or I'm a gay christian, I'm a straight christian.
Speaker 2:I think letting go, letting go of those, gives a little bit more space for the, the biblical reality of who we are as male and female. So I like the language of I'm a guy who struggles. I just think that's so much better than sort of tacking on all of these like these, these qualifiers that I think just confuses are becoming, you know, I think some of the side B Argument is that, well, me calling myself gay or queer is giving language to an experience, but it's more of like a secondary or tertiary identification. So it's not my primary identity but it's maybe my secondary or tertiary identity which I mean. That's so nuanced. I don't think people actually live in that type of nuance, nor is it equated often with oh, it's like being an American. You know, being an American is good but also has some bad qualities to it. So it's kind of like being queer it has good qualities and bad qualities. But I think just again, I think it's apples and oranges to compare that to being an American or a Mexican or something.
Speaker 2:But I do think that letting go of any sort of label is just helpful. I have found it helpful because I think what it opens me up to is who am I? You know what? What is, what is this body that I have? I mean, I have a design. There's something inherent to my very being that I actually want to come and make peace with.
Speaker 2:And so you mentioned male, female, the Imago Dei. I think that's the baseline let's just start there of I'm a man and just de facto of being a man with a male body and all of the male equipment, so to speak. I'm able, I'm being drawn, I'm directed to dignify her and she as a woman, with all of her equipment and her physicality, she's drawn and made for him. Now, what does that mean? I don't think that necessarily means that all of us are called to marriage. I'm not saying that. But all of us are called to be in right relationship with the opposite. And I think tacking on any sort of queer or gay identity inherently hinders the freedom to come out of myself for the sake of the other.
Speaker 1:I just think it does just think it does.
Speaker 2:I think it it sort of puts on another layer of of disqualification or or I'm special, or even a little pride of I'm kind of unique and maybe even a little bit better than those of my same sex but who don't struggle like me. I think there's I think those are very dynamic and maybe interesting motives, I think, in those tacking on of queer, gay, lgbtq language, but instead just kind of fling them off, I think gives us a freedom to enter into that sort of man-woman relating which I think is seminal to just becoming human. I mean to get back to John Paul II. Jp2 would say in order to become oneself, you have to learn how to give yourself. And so if you never actually come out of yourself and actually give yourself and he's speaking precisely about giving yourself to the opposite sex here it's not just sort of this esoteric philanthropy like oh, I'm just a giver, it's like I'm learning how to come out of myself and learn how to dignify her. It's then that I become myself.
Speaker 2:I was just speaking to Carl Truman, who I know both appreciate and admire, and he was speaking about how Adam is Adam by nature, but Adam didn't become Adam until he saw Eve. There's just something about him being awakened and actually becoming who he is only when he sees her. I mean, that's the basis of all of our humanity right, yes, and we have, okay, let's's.
Speaker 1:Just, if you're listening and you're like, what's going on here? What are we talking about? What does he mean by dignifying? It sounds he's talking about sex like yes, yes, yes, let's. We got to just kind of stay in those waters for a moment because, because this is um, there's such glory here, so I'm just going to reiterate what you just said. So carl truman says adam is adam, but he is. He is not fully Adam and certainly does not fully understand who Adam is until he sees Eve. Um, uh, I think it was.
Speaker 1:Dr Todd White, in his book mere sexuality, says this is just playing it and, matter of fact, it's plain. It is going back to a word you use early. It is, it is reality, and yet it is. It's plain. It is going back to a word you use early. It is, it is reality and yet it is. It's like we can't, can't see the reality, um, that there is, however many organs in the human person male and female, plenty of them but there's only one organ in man and only one organ in woman that cannot fulfill its purpose outside of union with another human person. My lungs do all they need to do within myself. You know my stomach likewise, my heart likewise, but it is male-female genitalia that you can't even understand what this organ is about without the other. When you say you're made to dignify the other, you're talking about this. This is something about where you're going with that.
Speaker 2:Yes, no, good question. I think it certainly includes that, but it's not just reduced to genital activity. I think there is, but there is a way in which my body is an emblem of my capacity to dignify her.
Speaker 2:So, I mean John Paul II. There's a wonderful uh article he wrote called a meditation on givenness, which is just brilliant. It's not very popular, but you can totally find it on Google. There's a free PDF, so definitely do that, um.
Speaker 2:But he says in this article that every man should bless every woman in his orbit. It's like the duty of every man to dignify every woman in his orbit. That's what he says in his orbit. It's kind of an interesting way to put it. And he says maybe it's you who is called by God to remind her of her inestimable worth and special beauty. To remind her of her inestimable worth and special beauty.
Speaker 2:Now, he's not speaking exclusively about, like a marriage or even sexually speaking, but he's saying there's something inherent in every man that has this incredible power, this incredible opportunity to bless and secure her. Now, of course, we have to do it responsibly, right, or you'll be called to human resources. You have to be responsible and appropriate according to the relationship. But I as a man, have actually a call to dignify and bless and secure the women that I work with. That's just a part of who I am. Yeah, it's sexual in that. It's intimately connected with who I am as a man. It's not genital, that's reserved for the marital bed. But there's something, certainly sexually speaking, about how I am and who I am with everybody around me, you know.
Speaker 2:And so I think it's more about that. Now, of course, there's a moment when it becomes so exclusive and so particular in the context of genital union in marriage, but outside of that, it's almost like this this gift giver, you know I'm, and I'm reminding people of their gift. I mean, that's kind of how John Paul II lived and that's why his writings are so challenging, cause it's like who does that? You know, at the grocery store, it's like that's the last thing you want to do, is like oh, I want to bless you. It's like we don't think like that. But John Paul II is like no, this is what it means to be in the dance of being human. This is how we ought to live. This is about making peace with who you are so that you can secure those outside of you of who they are, those outside of you of who they are, and and so, yeah, I. I think that the, the, the call is high.
Speaker 2:Now, obviously, for me as a guy, I had to make peace with my sexuality before I could even do that, you know. So, before coming to grips with my own need for healing and stuff, I thought I have no problem with blessing women. You know what I mean. Like I I'm friends with women. I like with blessing women. You know what I mean. Like I I'm friends with women, I like I like women enough. But there was a deeper allergy against woman that I wasn't necessarily paying attention to in my experience of same sex attraction. I just wrote her off as oh, woman in general is not really worthy of my pursuit, like I'm not attracted to her, so therefore I'm not gonna pursue her. In a way I think that's a subtle misogyny. I think there's like a subtle checking out of what I'm actually made for there. I'm not saying that everyone has to be so high octane sexually attracted to women, but I'm saying to sort of bypass her or to write her off as unworthy of my gift is actually it's not making peace with oneself. That makes sense, marco.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, one of the things I think that's that's kind of counter-cultural to what you're saying that maybe worth calling out a little bit is that, um, you are, you are necessarily proposing and I know this isn't original to you, but I'm just saying in this conversation that your identity is inherently, immutably connected to your body, that you are your body. So, as a man, your gift to woman you're relating to woman necessarily has something to do with your manhood and and you're relating with woman has something your manhood and and your relating with woman has something necessarily to do with her womanhood that those can't be extracted out. No one talks like that. I mean that like that's. That is so counter to, I think, what's in the airwaves right now. But so, if you're listening, listeners, I just want, I want to just encourage you for a moment, just by way of example, to consider and this maybe won't work for everybody, but just for a moment your mother and your father, if, if, uh it, you know wherever you are right now, and I'm assuming your parents are alive maybe they're not, but wherever you are right now, if, if, if, your your phone rang and it was your mom and you picked it up and she said you know, hey, I just, I was just thinking about you. I want to tell you I'm just so proud of you. Oh, mom, thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:You hang up the phone and then, uh, how does that feel? Where do you feel that in your body? What, what? What experience do you have If you're a man, listening? What experience do you have as yourself, as a man? If you're a woman, what experience do you have yourself as a woman in that context? In that context? And now imagine for a moment that same situation the phone rings and it's your father and you pick it up and it's your dad and he says um, hey, I was just thinking about you and I want to let you know I'm proud of you. How does that feel? Does it feel the same, does it feel different in your body? How does it if you're a man? How does it feel for you If you're a woman?
Speaker 1:And I think that's just an example, if you can even hover there for a moment in your own listening, I mean for me, for me, I'll just speak for me like there's a vast difference and it goes beyond just that. My mom and dad are different personalities and live in different places, what there is something about the depth of my dad's voice or the sound of my mother's voice that has to do with his maleness, her femaleness, that does impact me differently, and and so I just I wanted to kind of just shine a light on that piece of what you're saying because it, because that, I think, helps me make sense a little bit of what you're, what you're suggesting about, what John Paul II is suggesting about, um, uh, that that you are, with everyone you meet, designed to, to be giving your, your manhood. That manhood is designed to be a gift in a particular way in marriage, but but with everyone, and uh, so, yeah, just riff off that for a minute. Is that? Is that connected to what you're saying?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's so. You're right. I love that mother, mother, father example, because the the they're so different, but yet they, they. They bless us. Bless us in different ways, but it's so. There is something so vastly different about a woman versus a man speaking blessing to a son, for example, john Paul II would even go so far as to say inherent in every man is a capacity to be son, to be groom and to be father. And inherent in every woman is a capacity to be daughter, to be bride and to be mother. So you think about that like whoa, just by my nature, I have these powers, obviously to be son and daughter. That usually tends to be a little bit easier for us to comprehend, but for maybe those of us who are single and who don't want to be single, or maybe those of us who experience a lot of brokenness and disqualify ourselves based on that brokenness, to think that I'm actually made to be a groom and to be a father, or I'm made to be a bride and to be a mother.
Speaker 2:It's just a profound like whoa, and that that really helped me to make peace with the fact that I I can secure a woman in love and I actually wanted to do that, even though there was fear about that. But there was what do you, what do you mean? Actually wanted to do that even though there was fear about that.
Speaker 1:But there was what do you mean? You wanted to do that Like. What was that like for you? What was your experience of discovering like, oh wait, I actually want to.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it wasn't until I came to Living Waters that I heard these witnesses of men and women coming out of former gay lifestyles and who received an incredible healing from the Lord, but also their own process of becoming more chaste, and now they were married and these were like the first time. This was the first time that I was experiencing this type of witness, and so that awakened in me the reality that, oh my gosh, I I've, I've never thought of myself as a father, because I, as a, as a biological father, um, but I, I certainly, I certainly want to be a father, um, and that's honestly, that's what propelled me out of the seminary is because if God is calling me to be a biological father and to be a husband, naturally I have to search that out, you know.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I just never allowed myself to actually desire that because I always thought one, I can't because of SSA, but two, what woman is going to want me with this type of brokenness Like that's going to?
Speaker 1:be a strange.
Speaker 2:This is so interesting, but hearing the witnesses almost broke that disqualification. You know where it's like. Oh, I, I, yeah, I walk with a limp, so to speak, when it comes to my gift giving, but I can still be a gift and I can learn how to give it. And if God wants me to be married, he he's going to make it so. But I don't want to go my whole life thinking that I'm disqualified from it just based on this SSA, because it seems that JP two and these desert stream fellows say otherwise.
Speaker 1:A couple, a couple of things. One I'm 53.
Speaker 1:I've been married for 20, coming up in 25 years, Um, I walk with a limp, I walk with a limp in my ability to give myself as a good gift, and at 53, I'm discovering ways that, um, I have not believed I could be a good father and have not known myself as father. And so part of what I am so compelled by in JP2's teaching and the way that you guys help me understand it, is the aspirational vision of manhood. This is not about, and certainly the aspirational of the gift of my body, the gift of male and female. It is who I am and it is who I'm becoming. It is who we are and it is who we're becoming, and I think there's something about that, that a good man, if that's in my, in my makeup, in my DNA, then I, I can pursue that, I can go after it, um. So, with that in mind, I want to, I want to just want to play, uh, I want to push a button, um, in in what you just shared, because I I know some people listening will will have heard people say, like, oh wait, hold on, if Margo's got same sex drive, he has no right to marry a woman because he's just setting her up for, for devastation, like you know, that's, that's, that's deceititful, it's whatever, like, like I'm I'm not saying that but how like, how do you respond to that, that sentiment which is out there and which a lot of men and women doing the same-sex attraction feel put on them?
Speaker 1:Um, I mean, there there are wounds, certainly real, real wounds in marriages where someone with unresolved, unprocessed same-sex attraction stuff got into a marriage and maybe in a similar vein to how you described, getting into the priesthood, kind of like, you know, just trying to make this all work, and that ended up bringing a lot of heartache and wreckage. What would you say? Kind of people wrestling with some of those questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, those are great questions, I think. However, I think the presupposition in the question is that people are just immutably gay, like people are just gay by nature, which I just inherently disagree with. I think it's a faulty anthropology, it's a faulty presupposition of saying, oh well, people are just that way. There's no possibility of this man or this woman making peace with their sexuality, biologically speaking, and actually having a wherewithal and an ability to be in a covenant of marriage and to be faithful. So I just think that presupposition is false. Be faithful. So I just think that that presupposition is false. However, what I appreciate about Living Waters and my wife and I met on the basis of Living Waters is that both of us both felt inherently disqualified from the possibility of marriage for different reasons. My wife comes out of a sexual abuse background, I come out of same-sex attraction. So the Lord met us on this disqualification thing and there was something about his capacity to meet us in these areas where we thought we were just damaged goods and no one would necessarily want us because of these Um and and yet this, this mercy that God gives this, this kingdom, come, enabled us to actually trust Jesus in the healing process and it brought us together, and so there is a common ground that we have in our marriage to where it's like, oh no, jesus really helps, helps us, and so whenever we bump up against, we do, of course, I bump up against my stuff, she bumps up against her stuff and it's like Jesus, it's like we're desperate for Jesus in this marriage, and so that's just kind of the foundation of it, and I would never suggest to anybody that they never share this with their bride or their husband. I think this needs to be known. This is premarital. This is something you need to work out Now, of course, if you're married and you're like I've never brought this to the light, it's like okay, great, you need a contact desert stream. You need to allow people to walk with you, to do this responsibly, because there is a truth in the question of. You know, I want this to be good for both parties. I don't want someone to do this irresponsibly, and that's very true a pornography, addiction or affairs, or whatever your, your, your, you know sin du jour or your, your lust of choice might be. There needs to be a proper and a prudent exposition of that in in terms of, of, of in in the marital relationship. So, yeah, um, but I think the point of your question was more based on is this guy just immutably gay? And I would say no, I don't think anybody is. But again, this is where I think John Paul II is such a prophetic voice in speaking into these issues of sexuality and identity and just making a level ground of where we're male and female, male and female. He created them. Now we have to unpack that responsibly.
Speaker 2:Um, this is why I think I I really want to help communities become healing places for people, because how do you walk this out? You know what I mean? I mean, these are deep. This is deep stuff. This is like persistent brokenness. This is dynamic, deep stuff, whether it be homosexuality or sexual abuse or whatever it is. And so you know, youtube, you, youtube videos are only going to help so much. It's like where do I go? You know, yeah, and the queer thing is becoming more big and more compelling.
Speaker 2:You know, those of us who were queer, identified and in queer communities, there were reasons why we were in them and they weren't entirely bad. I mean, there was a sense of community, there was something compelling about the lifestyle. So then, when you meet Jesus and you pivot your life. Bad I mean, there was a sense of community. There was something compelling about the lifestyle. So then, when you meet Jesus and you pivot your life and you find good freedom and you're living in the light and you're forging good connections and relationships with people, you actually need an empowered community around you to help you do that.
Speaker 1:You can't do that in isolation, you know.
Speaker 2:So for those of us who come out of this stuff, all the more reason we need the church as an empowered healing space for us to continue to take steps forward. You know, oh, I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've, I've thought for for so many years that man, if, if, if those those in the church who do not wrestle with same-sex attraction, that's not their area of vulnerability, it's?
Speaker 1:It's pornography, it's, um, eating too much, it's alcohol, it's whatever, um, it's a temper. If that's the baggage they bring into marriage or that's the baggage they bring into church, or that's the bags they bring into adulthood, if, if we put a ceiling over them the way that culturally and and unfortunately, more and more, the church is putting a ceiling over them, the way that culturally and unfortunately, more and more the church is putting a ceiling over men and women who experienced a limp of same-sex attraction and said like this is who you are, this is a part of your identity, and I think I appreciate you calling that out as, like that way, that that's an anthropology that I do not accept. And Christianity there's. No, you don't find that in scripture. This is not a part of the historic teaching of the church. Like Christian anthropology, if there's a anything beyond beloved of God, it's male and female. Anything outside of child of God, it's male and female. And I think there's something about the ceiling, the that, that is restrictive, that's um and that and that's. And, with that said, even even with that said, I do think that there are so many of us who we still experience elements of our, of our own stories that maybe aren't as explicitly spoken of, as like this is just who you are, but we still carry around like this is just who I am, and they and those spaces go unexamined and we don't, we don't recognize that we're living under that.
Speaker 1:Uh, and I think that's that's another element of why this kind of aspirational vision of what does it mean to be a man, what does it mean to be a woman? And inherent in our, in our bodies, bodies and and I love that word dignify. Like that I dignify myself and dignify another when I recognize that I, by God's design as the, as an element of the Imago Dei, I'm designed to be a good gift, to be generous with my, with my, my person, with my personhood and um, and I think you guys, in a very articulate, uh, sometimes graduate school level, uh, to my, to my, in my elementary school years, like um, hold on to and it's one, it's one of the reasons that I, I, uh, I do not subscribe to many newsletters anymore. I, I need a simpler kind of email space than that. But, um, but, but I, I do, uh, re, remain in touch with you guys because of of you.
Speaker 1:Are you provide a clarion call, a prophetic voice, um, in this day and age around this stuff that I, I, I so value. So, marco, let me give you the last word. Anything else that you didn't say, we didn't get into, you're like, well, it would be a mess if we stopped here. I'd love to just hear any final thoughts from you, and then we'll wrap.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the final thought that I keep having in my mind is just the freedom to struggle I think is important today, you know. So being a Christian and coming to Jesus and having amazing experiences of conversion doesn't mean that you're not going to experience some temptations that you'd rather not have, or does that negate or cancel out those experiences of real conversion. But I think the church can become a wonderful place for people to allow the Lord to meet them in their process, and so I want the church to become that more. I don't think that I don't think she's there quite yet. You know, I don't think we do that very well In some circles.
Speaker 2:It's like I don't even struggle anymore with SSA and I'm like, well, I mean, maybe for you that's wonderful, it's not the case for me, it's not the case for a lot of people that I walk with, and so I want there to be how I am another opposite end of the spectrum, obviously. But I think we as Christians can become much better as as as healing caregivers to people, when we just give them the space to speak that out without any shame, but with a vision. So the vision of God is is redeeming something so personal in you, and what that is is who you are as a man or who you are as a woman, and he's, he's redeeming that and this, this struggle that maybe you hate right now, for, for various reasons, he's actually using it as a, as a way in, as an avenue into the, into the depths beneath the fracture, so as to rediscover a lost fullness. And so I just want the members of the church to catch something of that fire, because I know for me, early on, that would have been so transformative.
Speaker 1:And so yeah, let's speak that out, I love that that's a great note to close on, marco, thank you, thank you just for your faithfulness in your own personal journey that you know. By the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony, they overcame the evil one and I think, just thank you. Thank you for the testimony of of becoming, of being on the way, and and thank you for the work that you guys do at Desert Stream. So grateful for you Again. Those of you want to hear more or learn more about Desert Stream, those of you want to take the deep dive into Living Waters Training we'll have a link in the show notes below. We'll also have a link to some introductory material about Theology of the Body and that article by JP2 that Marco mentioned, a meditation on givenness. We'll have all those in the show notes. So, marco, thanks again for being here. Brother, thank you so much Josh.
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