REVIEW: “The Thrill of the Chaste”

Thank God, not many of my journals have survived prior to 1992. It’s a bit disappointing, even shocking, to look back and mourn the naiveté, lack of discernment, sins of youth, and things that hindsight whispers are best left undone. Preserve them for posterity? Fuhgetaboutit!

Reading The Thrill of the Chaste – Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On is like a clandestine encounter with a gutsy gal’s diary. The gal is Dawn Eden, and she’s got a story to tell. It’s not always a pretty one, but she twists each chapter’s end toward Beauty.

It helps that she knows how to tell a story. Like St Augustine before her, she can sin and write. For this alone, be thankful. But be warned. Her story might just be your story.

Thanks to the popularity of The Dawn Patrol, Miss Eden is on a first name basis with thousands in the blogosphere. Forgive me if I skip formalities here; to me, she’s Dawn.

As a young man, a kid really, I was smitten with Doris Day. She was sexy before sexy was dirty; virtuous when virtue was cool. Dawn quotes Oscar Levant as saying: “I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.” She notes: “Yet, audiences didn’t want her any other way. Women adored how Day appeared bold, independent, willing to take risks, and totally in control of herself. Men simply adored her.”

When she writes such things as these, I think: “Hey, that’s my journal!” But for us grown kids, boys and girls from a certain age, Dawn’s writing our story – if not in deed, in word.

“Kids learn what they see in grown-ups – and today’s adults are only too glad to abdicate moral responsibility. Doris Day’s celebrated chastity was the fruit of thousands of years of Judeo-Christian tradition.”

“Chaste” has become laughably arcane because its definition has been twisted. It has come to mean naïve, inexperienced, and prudishly void of pleasure. Truly, if snakes on trees could talk this sounds like what they’d say.

In truth, however, chastity refers not only to abstinence from sexual sin, but to faithfulness in all things. Thus, “Chastity is the name which is common to all the virtues,” writes St John of the Ladder. This Virtue is best pursued by keeping vigil both in church and in personal spiritual warfare (and, of course, in keeping your clothes on).

Chastity is also a byproduct of humility.

Offer to the Lord the weakness of your nature, fully acknowledge your own powerlessness, and imperceptibly you will receive the gift of chastity (St John of the Ladder).

Here’s an example of this truth according to Dawn: “Instead of defining herself by what she lacks – a relationship with a man – she defines herself by what she has: a relationship with God.”

And, you might ask, what made her so smart?

“I spent years grasping at straws, trying to become the kind of person I wanted to be and meet the man I wanted to meet by doing all the wrong things. How did I come to suspect they were the wrong things? Well, for one thing, they didn’t work …”

As you can see, she shoots pretty straight – and she can preach, too:

“Are you in a position today where, like a plant on a windowsill at high noon, you’re able to receive God’s direct sunlight? Or are you approaching God at an angle, letting His light hit you in some places while guarding the rest of yourself jealously in shadow?”

“It’s hard to release our shadows, partly because we’re comfortable the way we are – maybe not happy, but comfortable. More than that, we may not trust that God could enlighten our darkness if we asked Him – and the thought of being disappointed by Him deters us from taking the chance.”

“It’s not about how you meet men. It’s about who you are when you meet men. Take care of the ‘who,’ and the ‘how’ will take care of itself.”

“Being tempted, in and of itself, is not wrong; only acting on it is. Moreover, even if you do act on temptation, you have much to gain by stopping yourself – no matter how far you’ve gone.”

“It’s when you feel most confident in your ability to resist temptation, and when you feel least susceptible to loneliness, that you have to be on your guard for what is spiritually the most dangerous challenge to chastity: the unexpected, utterly embarrassing, seemingly irrational obsession.”

And, yes, there’s diary dirt in the book, too.

The Thrill of the Chaste offers something for every body. But I wouldn’t recommend the book to just anyone. For some, some things are better left unread. For others, her story’s your story; you might share pasts and, God-willing, future paths.

Then there’s the one sentence that she wrote that shocked me. I will not repeat it in this review because it might not be your sentence. It was the one that jumped out at me. I thought she was quoting one of my old journals. I read it several times. I wish she hadn’t written it. I’m glad she did. You might discover it, too. But, the sentence you find won’t be mine. It’ll be yours; and, in some ways, ours.

The end of our rope often resembles that first bitter fruit. Let’s face it: We all have a deep-seated longing for God not only because we fail and miss the mark – but, essentially, because we miss Eden.

Through repentance, trusting in God’s inexhaustible mercy may we all struggle toward Paradise. As Dawn will tell you, it’s never too early to start – and never too late to be chaste.