Article August 28, 1971 Issue

An Outspoken Question

ROSE M. HENNIKER-HEATON

How can someone, committed to demonstrating that existence is primarily spiritual, reconcile this commitment with the physical aspect of human love? And yet, if he loves, he may feel that he must love fully, without reservation. In the matter of eating, for instance, which to him seems just as material a fulfillment of need, he finds no difficulty. But he may be told that this need is different from that of sex because, while one can live without sex, one cannot live without food.

This is, of course, entirely true. Many of the world's finest characters have so lived. Christ Jesus, having partly transcended the human ways of birth, had no need of that which produces birth. But his first miracle in Cana of Galilee was to turn the water into wine at a marriage. And Mrs. Eddy, writing of this, says, "May Christ, Truth, be present at every bridal altar to turn the water into wine and to give to human life an inspiration by which man's spiritual and eternal existence may be discerned." Science and Health, p. 65;

Many people, however, feel that the experience of sex is as necessary to the fulfillment of their affections in marriage as is food to the life of the body. They are honest in saying this. But at the same time, they may long to have the experience held within the bounds of their spiritual sense, to have, as it were, the water turned to wine.

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