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Pure
Singleness
Consider the postage
stamp: Its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it
gets there.
Josh Billings.
When I was a boy
my
father
a baker
introduced me to the wonders of song
tenor Luciano Pavarotti
relates. He urged me to work very hard to develop my voice. Arrigo Pola
a
professional tenor in my hometown of Modena
Italy
took me as a pupil. I also
enrolled in a teachers college. On graduating
I asked my father
"Shall I
be a teacher or a singer?" "Luciano
" my father replied
"if you try to sit on two chairs
you will fall between them. For life
you must choose one chair." I chose one. It took seven years of study and
frustration before I made my first professional appearance. It took another
seven to reach the Metropolitan Opera. And now I think whether it's laying
bricks
writing a book--whatever we choose--we should give ourselves to it.
Commitment
that's the key. Choose one chair.
Guideposts.
Elisabeth Elliot tells of
Gladys Akword
a London parlour maid
who went to China as a missionary. Spent
7 years there
single
happy. Then an English couple came to work nearby. She
saw what she'd been missing out on. So she prayed that God would choose a man
in England
call him
send him out to China and have him propose. "I
believe God answers prayer. He called him
but he never came."
Urbana 1976.
At a party: "I like
being single. I'm always there when I need me."
Art Leo
quoted by Ron
Hudspeth in Atlanta Journal.
There is only one thing
harder than living alone
and that is to live with another person.
Ingrid Trobisch.
Single through no fault or
choice of my own
I am unable to express my sexuality in the beauty and
intimacy of Christian marriage
as God intended...To seek to do this outside of
marriage is
by the clear teaching of Scripture
to sin against God and my own
nature. I have no alternative but to live a life of voluntary celibacy...chaste
not only in body
but in mind and spirit...I want to go on record as having
proved that for those who are committed to do God's will
His commands are His
enablings.
Margaret Clarkson in Homemade
December 1989.
Demographers predict that
10% of young men and women today will never marry
and that half of those who
do will divorce. Some 37% of adults over 18 are single
and roughly one-fourth
of all households consist of just one person. Moreover
one child in four is
born out of wedlock
and one-fourth of all children now live with a single
parent. Are these changes in American living patterns affecting the nation's
health? Health experts have long observed that married people are healthier
than unmarried people
and that death rates (from all causes) are consistently
higher among single and socially isolated people. More recent studies have
suggested that mortality rates are about 100% to 300% higher for socially
isolated men
and 50% to 150% higher for socially isolated women
than for
their socially integrated counterparts.
Resource
March/April
1990.