This Valentines Day an article about romantic love hit the BBC website, and attracted over 500 comments in the two days the comments were live. Buried near the end of the article was this statement that caught my eye:

“There is a spiritual dimension to this romantic addiction too. The philosopher Simon May has proposed that while many have given up on God in the West, we still long for the unconditional love that God used to offer.

Every one of us has a family history. The place we come from and people who had large influences on our lives as we grew up. Even as adults, our early experiences continue to affect the way we relate today. While most of these are good, some were not, but they continue to have an impact.

Yet most of us do not take the time to review our relationships. How, and why, do I relate to others the way I do? What about my relationship with myself? And what about God?

A popular belief culturally is that only the sexually active can be happy. This is portrayed in films, music and literature. It is a message constantly pushed at young people, even more so by readily available pornography. Indeed, many doctors and social scientists that often teens begin drug use and sexual activity to deal with depression.

However, a recent study would indicate that the reverse may be true.

For many, 'Accountability' sounds like a threatening term. To share with another what is going on with ourselves can be quite difficult. However, we have found that for many people struggling with pornography use or other forms of inappropriate sexual behaviour this can be a powerful tool to help break shame and be known.

At the centre of the universe is a Relationship. This is the most fundamental truth I know; everything else I know emerges from it and returns to it. By this Relationship we were made; for this Relationship we were made. By this Relationship we were redeemed; for this Relationship we were redeemed. By this Relationship we are being healed and transformed; for this relationship we are being healed and transformed. This for me is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news the Relationship longs for the world to know and experience.

There is no single anti-pornography system guaranteed to protect households from exposure to all sexual content. Historically people have only been able to use filtering programmes that run on individual computers. These are obviously limited to the individual machine they are installed on. A new layer of protection has become available in the last couple of years, the Network Level Filter. These work by filtering out sexual content at the network level and thus provides a layer of protection for anyone accessing your home network, whether wireless or wired in.

Chapter 1

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost… I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.