I ventured to project Gutenberg’s website for at least a couple of reasons. My love of reading being the primary one, but there is yet another shoulder to shoulder with this motivation.
I had read a series of books in the detective murder mystery genre, by the same author, and there always had to be very graphic sexual scenes described.
Jamie, my oldest son, comes to mind here
LOL
We were chatting one day on the topic of the inner life and the person we are in public. How in moments of weakness, like when somebody cuts me off in traffic, my true self comes out. It is a moment of truth, and often I don’t like what I see. Jamie referred to a verse he and his pastor had been meditating on in their weekly sessions together.
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”
Philippians 4:8-9
Inner turmoil comes from not being in agreement with one’s self. In all my reading this keeps being expressed by so many. This is the very crux of psychological illness: Inner conflict.
I have yet to see a better description of it than in Tolstoy’s,“The Awakening”
The Sex Scene I’m referring to is in Chapter XVII.
This scene is foreshadowed in the following portrait of the protagonist, Nekhludoff. Tolstoy contrasts the young and innocent man he was, with the man of the world he had become. It also foreshadows the precursor to Nekhludoff’s inner conflict. I believe it is what we all face. A natural propensity or pull in the direction of the sin that so easily overtakes us, yet is not doing us any good, it’s harming who we truly are.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,”
Hebrews 12:1 NIV
Running Down Vimy 