The Push To Outlaw Beds

It was Sunday again and that meant going to church.

Pastor Wadd continued his series on "The Lusts of the Flesh," today being something around Part 40. It's amazing how he never runs out of things to say. But I guess as long as people are doing it, there'll always be something to talk about.

The guy definitely know about eye contact. If I were him, I think I'd be looking over everyone's heads so they wouldn't feel so bad about themselves. But that's not his style; he wants to make you squirm. Because if you're not actually guilty of something, he knows you wish you were. Not that guilt is any great experience. I know I hate it. But if you're going to have it, it may as well be for something actual and not just imagined. He might be pushing us into it!

I realize not everyone knows Pastor Wadd. But he holds down a corner in town here, advancing the cause of righteousness as much as he can. His whole specialty, what he does in counseling everyday, is battling sexual addiction. And since sex itself is like the gateway drug leading to addiction, he's interested in getting rid of it right at the root. At the very least, he wants to decrease the incidence of sex in society.

Like I was saying last week, right now he's on a push to outlaw beds, or get people to give them up voluntarily. That'd be good too. I'm involved in it only in the mildest way, certainly not in a leadership way (thank goodness; too many meetings), but at the grunt level, writing blog posts like this, raising people's awareness. Some of the others agitate on street corners, put up posters, etc. You might've seen one of them on the news: "GOD HATES BEDS."

As for myself, I actually haven't gone so far as to get rid of my bed. In fact, I've got an extra bed in my closet now, since one of the other guys from church wanted to get rid of his and asked me to hold it in case he changes his mind. I had to take the doors off the closet to get it in. It's all sticking out about halfway, and I've got the sliding closet doors laying on top of it. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to get the closet open, that's how big it is. The things I do for friends...

Whatever differences we may have, I definitely agree with Pastor that there's a clear connection between how many beds there are and how much sex people are having. But I don't agree (and I'm not so sure he's saying this) that people are going to quit having sex if they haven't got a bed. Since there will still be plenty of showers, couches, kitchen tables, etc. From the things I've heard, standing up is another way to do it. Which is at the root of the old joke about why Baptists don't have sex standing up, because it might lead to dancing.

Still, if you think it's worth doing, you have to start somewhere. Start with the most obvious culprit, the bed, then work your way down to showers, couches, and tables. And where you go from there is anyone's guess, probably the back seats of cars. Anything halfway comfortable could be a culprit, which is why the old monks always went with hair shirts and slept on slabs of stone.

You can see how a guy like Pastor could go on about this for so long. The possibilities are endless. As to where people are going to sleep if we get rid of beds, his opinion is that's their problem. They may experience some discomfort, but think of the rich payoff, better morals.

Anyway, if he can't get people to give up their beds voluntarily, like I said, he'd like to see some action on it from the government to make beds illegal. How that's ever going to happen -- with the powerful bed lobby -- is anyone's guess. Since "Politics makes strange bedfellows," everything's against us from the get go.