What is exceedingly lacking in our culture is not so much the attitude of courage, but rather, the essential virtue of humility (or courage based on humility). Human pride, our most dangerous inner venom, is the reason that the conceptions formulated of ourselves and the eternal verity are severely distorted and misinterpreted, not only because pride allows us to regard our viewpoints too highly, but also disallows us (to a significant extent) to re-examine reality not carefully enough, and thus not unerringly enough. There is great danger in thinking of ourselves to be more highly evolved than we in actually are, since then, mere opinions and assumptions have effects or purpose. Polish-born - Nobelist in literature, Czeslaw Milosz, would say that innocence ends as soon as the "I" appears, which is the old pride of the Fall: "You shall be as God knowing good and evil." G.K. Chesterton likewise stated that there are falsifications of facts by the "introduction of self." In order to acquire any dependable wisdom at all, a person must of necessity be liberated from the illusory "I" or the illusory "self." For everything (including our self-knowledge), which is understood solely by using our natural abilities, that is, without the illuminating and omnipotent power of the Holy Spirit, is inescapably speculative and conditional. It is just theoretical and imaginary or distorted at best - not related fully to changeless actualities and obligations. Again, there cannot be reliable and unfailing instruction or guidance in a secular or non-religious view. What a person is able to grasp (to some minute extent) of him/herself is merely what is granted by environment, context and circumstances, and even this information is distorted by sin, imperfections and human intellective limitations.

     The authenticity of our being or existing is not dependent on fulfilling only proximate goals, but on having continually under consideration the ultimate end. It is not dependent on worldly inferences alone, changeless, distorted or false interpretations, but on wisdom given with perspective of eternity. The true "I" is out of sight, for it is immutably found as a result of the deepest intimacy with God; it is in God; it is what God intended for each individual to become. In essence, being away from the Author of Love is the same as being away from oneself. Thus, humility can be defined as "the refusal to exist outside of God" (e.g. Simone Weil). In other words, humility is the unconditional surrender to live in accord with divine will. Wisdom is reachable therefore, with the recognition of our intellectual and other limitations, when there exists this indispensable awareness that "We know nothing until we know nothing" (G.K. Chesterton). So long as the soul is not completely emptied of itself, it is neither capable of knowing the Highest Good - God, nor can reason prudently or unerringly. And, so long as the human person does not consent to become nothing in order to become real, he/she needs idols. It is unfortunate that human nature is easily dominated by the senses and their gratification. Choosing transitory sensual contentment or deceitful pleasures to bar the road to eternal bliss, becomes inevitably worse than lunacy. Death or chronic physical illness would be far more favored. In the habit of manifest sensualism and disorderly sexual activity, the soul remains enormously tardy in cleansing itself from such unchaste elements, being gravely deceived even while wishfully striving for greater religious enlightenment. One is drawn to such lawless pleasures, since one believes that they are gratifying, and by the attitude of unchecked morality gradually comes to be imprisoned by them because in one's judgment they become quite necessary.

     The problem with diseased attachments of this type, is that they are not only wildly fertile in fabricating perilous in their effects illusions but by degrees can destroy one's soul. Yet, the act of choosing is genuinely free only if it is not subjected to, or oppressed by, such guilty acts. It is infinitely more provident to acknowledge one's blamable faults, sinfulness and defects here and now, than to discover them at the most unsuitable time - when it is too late to repent from them. The admonition in Leviticus 18:22 is unambiguous: "You shall not lie with a man as one lies with a woman, it is an abomination." The Bible, as the supreme advisement and communication of God's thinking about human beings has incontrovertible authority in dictating the fundamental moral tenets designed to prevent societal moral dissolution and final societal breakdown. Historically speaking, the Canaanites conducted (among other prohibited sexual practices) same-sex intimacy and same-sex "marriages," which in consequence brought about their final moral collapse. It was precisely on account of such practices, that God punished them by expelling them from the holy land: "Do not become contaminated through any of these [acts]; for through all of these the nations that I expel before you became contaminated. The land became contaminated and I recalled its iniquity upon it; and the land disgorged its inhabitants" (from the marasmic book Sifra vv. 24-25). On account of their defiance of God's wisdom and perverting of the laws of nature fashioned ingeniously by God for human highest spiritual benefits, they suffered degradation, invasion and the resultant downfall of their civilization - ultimately becoming extinct entirely from history.

     A culture that disregards given by the Author of Love (and Truth) a detailed plan of edifying action in a set of unchanging rules and Eternal Word created to safeguard the goodness of human beings, shall at the end undergo calamitous fate - the same "disgorgement" from its place in the world as the Canaanites did. And, unavoidably, through bodily appearance and carnal degraded action, human beings are doomed to never discover real love, marking themselves out for spiritual destruction, and being attached through disorderly affections to imaginary beings; this is truly and sadly a death knell. Certainly, the body has not been intended for moral turpitude and perversion, but for offering worship and giving glory to its Creator. And, thus every orderless, diseased or pathological use of the procreative ability entails an undeniable misdirection of worship due to God. Yet, when the Holy Spirit is present, purity and chastity reign, since "With the Spirit, the flesh is crucified, one tastes the delight of an immortal life, one has a pledge of future resurrection and advances rapidly on the path of virtue" (Hom. on Rom. 13). The realm of discovering true love is dependent on human will to conform fully to divine wisdom, that is, when human minds are guided by gallant demands of chastity; when they do not trust their senses but the Unchangeable Word and Love of God. For this reason, St. Peter Chrysologus declared that, "The man who does not do what the Lord has commanded hopes without reason for what the Lord has promised," (Sermon 38). Authentic love has the obligatory, inherent or distinguishing characteristic of directing others to the One who has the exclusive possession of good, losing interest in any form of self-indulgence and our own gratification in order to crown God's wishes alone. Indeed, the greatest failure, non-fulfillment and tragedy is to - by will - refuse to unreservedly accept what and how we were destined to love.

     The potential for sound thinking and judgment is to a considerable extent shattered, primarily on account of immoral actions, for they deprive of the light and as such they deprive of the faculty of right discernment. The Eternal Word of God emphatically reminds us that divine wisdom, that is, the Holy Spirit is given to those who obey God (Acts 5:32). Without the indispensable and unconditional disposition of obedience to divine precepts, one can neither acknowledge that one truly loves God nor that one's reasoning is unimpaired for again, what can be comprehended by human natural faculty alone without the aid of the Spirit of Truth is merely hypothetical and always to some degree, distorted or entirely false. St. Chrysostom affirms that, "The Law is good because it is a gift from God, it is directed towards Him, it reveals the right order established by divine wisdom, it prohibits all evil, it helps man to see where his duty lies and, above all, it prepares the way for the coming of the Redeemer," concluding that, "one is much more at fault when one sins not only against the light of reason but also against that light and against the Law." St. Augustine stated that, "The Law was given so that grace must be sought; and grace was given so that the Law might be obeyed." Humility, Donald DeMarco affirmed, keeps human beings from being damaged or injured by the toxicity from within while the inseparably interconnected virtue of innocence keeps human beings safe from the toxicity from without. Being innocent is being free from harmful effects of sin. And, having unpolluted by sin, mind and heart, or having sincere attention to the divine, allows human beings to have unobstructed and definite vision of what is timelessly spiritually profitable. Humility, at the same time, makes it impossible for human beings to pervert that which is of eternal value or misuse and abuse it for human self-seeking reasons. Authentic self-knowledge invariably shows the way to humility, surrendering ourselves to the will and authority of God, while those individuals "... who refuse to be subject to the law of God are surely reputed the enemies of God" (St. Anselm). Since the humble spirit is fully aware that it does not deserve anything, and hence anticipates nothing, it is properly equipped to appreciate any destined station in life. It needs to be emphasized that it is not a transgression against the divine Law to have certain innate characteristics or inclinations but it is - in all seriousness - a grave sin to engage in impure homosexual ideations and homosexual activity. St. Chrysostom stated that, "It is certainly a crime to sin against one's conscience, but it is an even greater crime to praise the guilty" (Hom. on Rom, 5). Genuine neighborly love calls for correcting the misguided or gravely erring and gravely sinning person.

     It would be far more prudent on the part of mortal creatures to be extraordinarily careful while voicing their opinions, which often dictate their actions that inescapably have timeless consequences - can be eternally ruinous to their souls. In reference to habitual sinfulness, St. Catherine of Siena had declared, "To sin is human, but to keep on sinning is devilish." Truly farsighted individuals therefore, often stand in fear of their own thoughts rather than remain complacent or hardened about their views, recognizing that by breaking the sacred Laws, they dishonor ineffably the Author of these redeeming Laws. And, "... he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him" (Jn 3:36). It needs to be reaffirmed repeatedly, that the Author of Salvation never forsakes evildoers unless they unrepentantly and persistently forsake Him - His Love and Grace. It is also irreligious attitude and wickedness that lead to forgetfulness of favors, total ingratitude and rejection or desecration of divine Laws. Those who are involved in gravely disordered activity, deprive themselves of the divine Spirit, and whenever the Holy Spirit is not present, spiritual death and spiritual dying hold sway and with it comes divine retribution for sin, for defiance to redeeming Laws, separation from the Redeemer and "expulsion of our Guest." The Holy Scriptures pointedly declare that "...wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in the body subject to sin" (Wisdom 1:4). Prudent individuals always have in mind this propounded question: "Will the Son of man when He comes find faith on earth?" (Luke 18:8). It is therefore, the earnest task of the follower of Christ to changelessly defend the highest duties given by the Author of Love; our obligation is not so much to denigrate the defective civic authority or to combat a form of government, which through baseless permissiveness contributes to moral degradation of society, but rather to unswervingly safeguard the untouchable and sacred work of our Redeemer.