letters from barabbas

I have a friend who has been called to a life of celibacy. It makes perfect sense, once you hear his story and see his ministry. But wow, the human in me smarts to think about it.
I've been pondering the physical realm lately, that whole Soul/Body conflict, what is spiritual and what is carnal and what will last when the earth burns up. I've been thinking about bodies and places and how we interact with them:
How a special place can be so permanent, and we can speak of our homestead with such certain terms, and assign it mental images and link to them indelible impressions, and never have to explain their significance to understand them. And then how a coating of paint or uprooting of tree can destroy the whole feeling of home in an instant. There's something in the image that we need. Even though it's all passing away and even though it isn't our real home at all, we cling to it, and I think we're supposed to.
And I want to tell my friend to drink deep of Jesus and that'll be all that he needs. It's something that always comes out of me, before I can stop myself, "All we need is God. We shouldn't try to fulfill ourselves with other people." But that isn't strictly accurate, is it?
True: we can never be fulfilled without the Lord's presence. But He said of Adam, "It is not good that he should be alone." Like we need an earthly home, we need an earthly helpmate.
And so what of the eunuchs? They forge on without. They hug their brothers. They sleep with Jesus. It's not quite the same, but they know their treasure lies in another place.
Not coincidentally, they are often the nomads of the Church, wandering the nations without much of family or home. They live within the Spirit. They deny their flesh. They walk on. They see God use them in ways most of us could never dream.
They, too, earn that term we sometimes seem to think so paltry: joy.
And so my celibate friend sometime gets lonely and cries and prays. And he understands that this pain is God's way of keeping him grounded to the misery of humanity, who is doomed to unfulfillment for lacking the prerequisite engagement to the Son of Man. And he thanks his Father for writing this story, for providing the means, for never leaving him, and for giving him friends to hug him when he's cold.