Looking For A Good Time?

Sunday evening I had to travel to Western PA, and was thankful to be able to stay at a local monastery's guest house overnight to break up the trip a little. I went to mass on campus and joined the monks in morning prayer before I headed out after breakfast. When I am traveling for work, as I was earlier this week, I do my best to stay with friends I've made in the area just to have some company.

Whereas women may feel physically vulnerable when lodging in unfamiliar places, as a man I don't really think about that. But I do feel spiritually vulnerable when I have to stay in hotel rooms by myself. I am pretty comfortable being alone most of the time in most places, but there is something about hotel rooms that holds an air of loneliness, corporate blahness...and temptation.

Like any predator, the devil operates by drawing us away from the pack, to get us alone. For men (married or single) who seek to maintain chastity and be responsible for their sexual integrity, it really is a kind of test, and I always wrestle spiritually when I am in the somewhat precarious situation of being alone in a hotel room away from my family and anyone who can hold me accountable. Temptations seem to increase in intensity in these situations, whereas on a day-to-day basis I might not think much about them, esp if you have been away for a while from your spouse.

Finding oneself in any kind of compromised situation, as innocent as intentions might be, is dangerous. I tend not to drink when I am on the road and out at a restaurant or at a conference for work and other colleagues are staying in the same hotel, especially female colleagues. Friendliness, loneliness, and lack of accountability can be a volatile mixture, and while I have never been in that kind of situation personally while at conferences, the drunk hookups of work associates at other colleges is not all that uncommon. Strict boundaries and common sense are essential.

The most obvious threat, in my mind (and I think most Christian men would agree), is access to entertainment that would compromise one's sexual integrity right at your fingertips--whether on the hotel TV or on one's ipad, computer, or phone. A man must stay absolutely vigilant in these situations because the devil will exploit the situation and try to get a wedge in any crack in resolve. Obviously, prayer is the weapon of choice--scripture (esp the Psalms), the rosary, etc. Cold showers or a run if needed.

When I was wrestling with this the other night, I did something uber-Catholicnerdy...I whipped out my ipad, connected to wifi, and started watching "The Journey Home" interviews with Marcus Grodi on the EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network) Youtube channel. If you haven't seen it, the guests are converts to the Faith who have been invited on the show for an hour to share their faith journey, their life story, and how they found their home in the Catholic Church. It is my new favorite program. As a convert myself, I love love love hearing stories of how people came to Christ. It never gets tiring to hear. This was one of the ones I watched Sunday evening:

So, in the theme of the book I read on "The Power of Habit"--the cue, the behavior, and the reward--the cue is a sudden desire to sexual self-gratification; the behavior--which usually comes in the form of viewing pornography and/or masturbation, is changed by prayer and viewing some nerdy Catholic thing on youtube instead of that, so you are still watching a video, but it's not porn; and finally, the reward is self-respect/mastery, satisfaction and entertainment (albeit, hearing about someone's journey to faith), and an absence of guilt (which tends to perpetuate cycles of unhealthy/sinful patterns).

Whatever temptations we are faced with, it's important to remember the devil as the "Father of Lies" has no power over us in Christ, but works through trickery and deception to lead us into sin. Free will is one of our greatest gifts bestowed on us by God. The best tactic is sometimes to use that free will to flee rather than go head to head.

Fighting temptation requires strategy, since we are literally in a battle and no one goes into a battle without a strategy to win. We can't be forever surrounded by people and distractions--there will come those times when we are alone and the devil takes notice. When you are working on submitting yourself to the lordship of Christ, you better expect the devil's temptations to be expected rather than the exception.

Christ has won the war; Satan has no power over us. Whatever you need to do to avoid sin, do it. Even if it's watching nerdy Catholic videos on YouTube.