Fidelity and Fecundity

Success, productivity, achievement and efficiency are all good values, in their proper place, but are vastly overrated, even idolized, in our culture that is sick with meritocracy (the competent are inordinately rewarded, the slow or disabled are neglected and even despised), careerism (we value people by their achievements), and techno-idolatry (obsession with control and production; dismissal of contemplation as resting in beauty and meaning.) The ugliest word in the English language is "reproductive" as applied to sexuality and conception. When I taught high school girls, a "liberated" feminist colleague asked me: "Doesn't it scare you that our students could be reproductive agents?" I was quiet and then asked: "Do you mean mothers?" What scared her I didn't know; for my part I was in awe of the mysterious endowment of  maternity these young women already enjoyed in potential.  "Reproduction" to me means xeroxing copies of some form; or an assembly line that cranks out 750 widgets an hour, all identical and therefore "reproduced."  To apply this mechanical term to the Mystery of conjugal love and human conception is sacrilegious  and blasphemous. Anyone who can speak this word with a straight face is already lost in a world bereft of depth, enchantment, purpose or splendor! By contrast with the empty, stark, dismal world of "reproduction" is the luminous Mystery of conjugal communion, fidelity, intimacy and fecundity (fruitfulness). These indwell each other in an enchanting and awesome manner. Fidelity, communion and intimacy (emotional, intellectual, and spiritual as well as physical) entail a mutuality in rest and deep interaction between the Lovers, be they married, friends or family members. These are not actions, externally, against objects as in the production process, but a mysticism of profound, active-and-receptive inter-communion. And out of this, there emerges...surprisingly, mysteriously, wondrously,..fecundity or fruitfulness. The epitome of this is, of course, the union of man and woman which is blessed by the procreation of an utterly new and distinct and infinitely valuable person. But something similar happens between friends and family members and marvelously so in any genuine spiritual friendship, that is any relationship of affection and respect in which the two, or more, open up to the True, the Beautiful and the Good. Imagine the fecundity of a garden: it is not a production or achievement but a serendipitous synchronocity that involves seed, soil, nutrients, water, sunshine and a greater directing hand that we can refer to as nature or God. Something wonderful, ineffable, and inexplicable is at work...beyond even the sum total of the elements. And so, let's ease up on efficiency, achievement and productivity! Let's surrender ourselves, in fidelity, to each other, and our purposes, and our communities/families, and our God! Let's rest with each other and in each other...inefficiently...in affection, reverence, tenderness...and hope for the fecundity that comes only as gift!