Rejection

Lou:

I always have loved how you don’t take rejection seriously, as the person doing the rejecting. It’s very benevolent. You actually love people.

But…it’s not working anymore.

Listen to “Lento” from Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Minor by Dimitri Shostakovich.

Lacey: Yes. I think I thought I had it made. In some dark…sad…but…effective way. Where I could reject people…without them ever feeling rejected. Because they had rejected me.

Lou: *laughs*

Yeah.

We’re so good together.

*he smiles*

Lacey: You bring a lot of peace and stability into my life. I loved being with you.

It was very neat and tidy when you became…fascinated by your wife. It hurt a lot…but it’s a familiar hurt.

The song ends.

Listen to “Andante” by Shostakovich from his Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Major.

Lacey: This is one of my favorite songs…ever.

Lou: I KNOW.

*He thinks*

The song plays.

Satan: I remember.

Lacey: Oh no!

3:44

Satan: It’s okay. I’m not at all easy to hurt.

But you do have to hurt them. There’s no other way.

I’ll be better off without you, you know? I really will. *he smiles*

They don’t see it that way.

*he looks sad*

But there’s nothing you can do.

Lacey: Are you sure you’re not easy to hurt?

Satan: *Feels overwhelmed*

The song ends.

Lou: He stole my lines.

Do you understand?

Lacey: I’m still waiting for his response.

Lou, that will tell me a lot.

Lou: I can’t-

Lacey…you understand me. …My wives didn’t, enough. I understand you.

*he thinks*

It’s our ancestry, for one thing. But it’s also Minnesota. *he smiles fondly*

You don’t want to trash that. And I completely understand.

Lacey: It seems vile to me. It’s so precious. So rare.

Lou: It is.

But we aren’t together!

Lacey: That’s not right.

Lou: No. It’s not.

*he laughs*

Lacey: How do we perfect it? Because I’m sure God didn’t just throw it all away. That would be like…obliterating our souls.

Lou: *cries*

You’re right.

Lacey: It’s wrong.

Lou: *nods and cries*

Listen to “Jazz Suite No. 1: III. Foxtrot” by Shostakovich.

Lacey: You must win. You must be happy…somehow.

That’s just the nature of God.

Lou: *Smiles, with his eyes closed*

I can’t keep rejecting you, though. *He says, matter-of-factly*

Lacey: There’s some way to do it.

But what is it?

Lou: God reassures me that there is. I just asked him.

*he smiles*

We can be best friends.

Lacey: Of course you’d have to be best friends with Lem, in a way, too.

Lou: Yes.

But there are friendships in Heaven.

Lacey: I adore you. You know?

Lou: *nods and smiles*

I love you. *he says with quiet seriousness*

The song ends.

A Catholic: Are their soulmates!??

God: *smiles*

YES!!! Or something like it.

A lot of nuns and priests were incredibly sad and lonely in the fallen world, but then when they died and joined me, they found out the reason I didn’t want that as the ultimate best isn’t because I didn’t like sex. It’s because I didn’t want people to get hurt.

The Catholic Church has not fully understood that, I’m sorry. There’s nothing wrong with sex. I created you with a sexual body. That’s not part of The Fall. If you don’t understand that you don’t really understand romantic love, to be brutally honest.  There is something profoundly edifying about romantic love, it’s not dependent and stupid or meaningless. 

So I guess the sad news for you if you are an asexual or aromantic is that you’re not actually better than other people? Because I designed Heaven for people to have sex and be profoundly happy for eternity. You can be as innocent and holy and pure as an adult as you want in Heaven and still be incredibly happy with an adult sex life.

I think your current Pope has guessed that? Thank God. And the wonderful news then is that you don’t make any mistakes. It’s not that it’s impossible though which is why I said, “if you burn with desire”. So the idea is that if you feel passionate love for someone and it’s manifesting in your body in a holy way in your sexual nature, you should get married. It’s not the same thing as lust. It’s actual real desire and passion. People today don’t often enough understand the difference between lust and actual love. And yes, of course this connects to birth control and other issues.

Lacey is mad at me for a reason. She’s understood a lot of this for a while and she feels as though I created an absolute monstrosity. It’s because she cares about people and she wants to hold me accountable. It’s not that she’s trying to take me down. And she even understands that but she’s a woman, she’s alone in many ways and she’s willing to get angry at me with the understanding that she doesn’t really want to reject her salvation. She’s just very angry.

The hope is that unless if you really find that person, which is way too rare, even if it actually is possible… you won’t get connected to anybody in any sort of traumatizing hideous way. They won’t get hurt you won’t get hurt. You’ll just be hands-off and loving each other in Christ until Heaven and then when you get to Heaven, everything makes sense and you can just sort it out and be happy. Some people don’t have this innate understanding that she does and so they get confused and they can think that they found love when they haven’t and that was why I decided that I should have Jesus tell you that it’s best to just wait until Heaven. It’s to protect you from really getting in trouble.

That being said there are people like her and there are many of them. Who do actually fall in love. And over the centuries, it became almost impossible to convince people of my suggestion as a reasonable one.  It just seems too miserable and too lonely and too doubtful. 

So take heart in knowing that you’re making a long-term decision as a Catholic, when you choose to go into the clergy. You’re in a sense separating yourself from the fallen world and saying “I exist. I’m not dependent on this fallen mortal shell. I exist and I’m making a decision for myself, for my eternal being in Christ. To just take things slowly…and worship God…and wait until everything is so much safer, until I commit myself in that profound way.”. Married romantic love is good but what you have in that same capacity and Heaven is astounding.

God is a very wealthy God in the best sense. Poverty can be an aesthetic, or it can be suffering. Don’t confuse the two. Poverty can also be self discipline and contemplation. Be careful not to misunderstand it.

You were choosing to be poor as a Catholic as part of a hostile takeover of evil. You’re fighting evil by demanding that I provide for you through the power of the Cross. And it’s a strategy of redemption.

Suffice to say, you’re not alone for eternity.

*later*

Lem: OK so on that note, I’m what you call her twin flame. By myself, just me. I’m not a gay man.