Love, Sex and Worship
“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
On December 1st, I was very tired. I kept zoning out in my Homosexuality in World Religions class, since it’s my last class of the day and I was just looking forward to getting home and resting. But then we got onto a topic that I found very interesting.
The above quote wasn’t mentioned in class, it’s something I remembered and did a search for after the fact. What caught my attention was when my professor was talking about early Anglican marriage vows tended to include the vow “with my body, I will worship thee”.
This was the springboard for his line of thought, in which sex isn’t a by-product of love between two people (be they gay or straight was the point, since it is a homosexuality in world religions course) but sex acts as the communion of two wondrous selves. Sexual intimacy is the bond, not the “love”. I feel like the idea of “love” tends to be changed into something that society deems appropriate rather than love being sought for Love’s sake.
You’ll get notions of True Love™ as if the idea of marriage was created to support that idea in itself. Needless to say that marriage for a long time was a political tool in which families/tribes/groups made alliances and secured their survival through their heirs.
That’s not the point though, I’ll try not to veer off topic too far.
The point which brought me to write out this post, was about sex being the point of worship. My professor put forth the notion that maybe an erection is a “salute to the wondrous other”. Not something shameful or carnal, but a physical manifestation of desire towards a certain other. Granted, there can be less than savory emotions behind such things, but the point was to figure out what made sex and love be so similar yet so different in value.
Ask almost anyone, and they’ll place love at a higher value than sex, because it’s become a norm to have sex with someone you like, but make love to someone you love. But both these things should be the same, shouldn’t they?
Spiritual love, I believe is powerful and eternal. But this language doesn’t lend itself to these times, because so often we hear eternal and we think never ending in a linear progression. The “True Love” so to speak, one person falling madly in love with that one person forever. But for me, eternal holds a kind of depth to it, rather than a linear progression, after all, couldn’t anyone of us get lost in a moment of passion that feels like it goes on forever in that moment? To feel the depth of the present and how eternal can truly be.
I know I’m not quite Augustinian in my thinking, but I see sex as an act in which these things are revealed to anyone. Sex as an act of honoring one another, intimacy and love springing from that divine meeting of two wondrous selves.
If I ever get married, you can be sure that I’m putting that “with my body I shall worship thee” back in there, because otherwise, why do we feel? Physical reactions belie our inner selves through little nuances, goosebumps, shivers, flushes, quickened breath, etc. The more I see how the human body works, the more I have to smile to myself and be amazed at the patterns and the order. Never mind the idea of creation or intelligent design, even if complete and utter chaos created these forms, what a lucky roll of the dice, wouldn’t you say?
Finally, bringing it back to Corinthians, that pretty much speaks my point back to me. Granted there can be many interpretations of anything, but it’s not so heretical to think that sex is a powerful and spiritual thing; or at least it could be, if people’s preconceptions were to change.
Society makes a powerful enemy, but oh how we love it. Oh how we need it. Myself included. Oh well. Here’s to hope, here’s to love, and most of all, here’s to sex! I know I salute you!
Originally published at Stressmintery. You can comment here or there.