Sexuality and the spiritual thinker
Lois Carlson
In today’s mental climate, provocative images in advertising and the mass media promise satisfaction and happiness. But instead of helping us understand the depth and purity of a loving relationship with another human being, sexual images can manipulate us into thinking that the demands of the body define our romantic relationships and even our own identity.
But they don’t. And you can turn away from them to something far better—the joy and peace of life in Spirit.
In this chat, Christian Science teacher and practitioner Lois Carlson shares experiences from her own spiritual journey and discusses with site visitors how trust in God, and an understanding of spiritual reality, lead to true, lasting happiness and fulfillment.
spirituality.com host: Hello everyone! Welcome to another spirituality.com live question and answer audio event. Our topic is “Sexuality and the spiritual thinker” and our guest is Lois Carlson who’s going to be speaking with us from Chicago, Illinois. Lois has been a teacher of Christian Science since 1991, and has been in the full-time healing ministry of Christian Science since 1975.
And because of the nature of this subject, I’d like to say a few things that will help to frame our discussion. First, we never collect the e-mail addresses of people who participate in the chat, so you can feel assured that your question will be treated anonymously.
Second, let’s think of this as a conversation with friends around the kitchen table. We’re not trying to condemn anyone or even outline a specific course of action. Each of us has our own relation with God and is able to hear His guidance. And that’s a sacred fact that you can rely on. But at the same time, our hope is that through this chat, we’ll be able to convey some ideas that will help everyone in thinking about this very important subject.
There aren’t any canned answers or fake questions; that’s why your participation is so important. Lois, do you have some comments you’d like to make in order to get us started?
Lois Carlson: It’s a real privilege to be here today, and thank you for inviting me. I think spirituality.com is to be commended for really tackling the harder subjects, and, on behalf of the listeners, I would encourage you not to let this be the one and only conversation that you have on the website in terms of sex and the spiritual thinker. That’s a protection to us, as well, because we’re not going to have the final word on the topic.
Perhaps we could best think about this broadcast as a catalyst for parents and children and spouses and Sunday School teachers and pupils and church families to really feel the freedom to talk about sex within the context of our spiritual values, because there’s no question that the world desperately needs this kind of conversation right now.
I was interested in participating in this chat, but not because I’m an expert on the topic. These are things that have been close to my heart for a long time. I’m a wife and a mother, and I’ve also had an extended period of my adult life when I’ve been single. So I’ve felt firsthand the push and pull of sexuality in my life. But the main reason I came to the discussion was because I want to join with the audience members as healers. You know, we can expect that because of this broadcast the weight of sensuality will be lifted off the shoulders of mankind.
When I talk about the weight of sex, what I’m really talking about is lifting it out of the extremes of self-indulgence and that harshness of self-condemnation. I know a lot of our listeners today are committed to the practice of spiritual healing. A spiritual healer is someone who treats the body with tenderness and with responsibility. It’s natural that this discussion would be gentle and not harsh. It would be thoughtful and not accusatory. We expect to uplift and heal, not to condemn.
And that being said, the world doesn’t give us a very easy environment to have a discussion about sex. It’s a time when the commercialization of sex is producing a very distorted and exaggerated view. Sex sells almost everything from clothes to cars to hair color, and it’s unsettling to feel like our self-image has to conform to some preconceived model of what it is to be sexually attractive.
When relationships get initiated and disposed of based on sexual compatibility, everybody is reduced. We miss out on the substance of true relationship. And it’s not helpful either when the media have that peculiar fascination with the sex lives of the rich and famous. As much as we need to talk about sex in helpful ways, there’s an uncanny amount of conversation about sex that is just plain dull and idle and destructive.
I can’t emphasize enough the importance of having this conversation within the context of the global community. Because as much as each of us wants to be able to sort through the issue of sex in our personal lives, we have to think about it in the context that many of the major issues facing civilization today are issues surrounding sex. You look at the incredible statistics about domestic violence in this country, and its resulting homelessness for women and children; the bane of child pornography; and the sexual abuse that keeps coming to the surface.
More and more, we’re being sensitized to the AIDS epidemic, which is crossing continents. And the international sex trade is something that The Christian Science Monitor has really pioneered our awareness of. I don’t know if any of our listeners noticed the story last week about the upcoming World Cup soccer match in Germany, where it’s expected that 40,000 prostitutes will be brought in to service a million men.
It’s tragic to think of women being put in those situations, being manipulated in ways that endanger not only their health, but their lives. These are all things that point to the fact that there’s a great need for spiritual thinkers to be clear about what sexuality is, and what it is not.
But I can only say I hope that our discussion will be one that helps and heals within the broader context as much as we would want it to bless the individual.
I’ll stop talking now and hear what our listeners are asking.
spirituality.com host: We have a lot of questions, and we thank you for those opening remarks. Alan in Ottawa, Canada, is asking the keynote question in some ways: “In order to be a spiritual thinker, must one completely deny all sexual feelings?”
Lois: I think everybody’s saying, Thank goodness somebody asked the question. For me, what we have to sort through is the difference between a desire for companionship and the pull to sensuality. I think those are two very different things. A spiritual thinker is someone who is striving to bring all their thoughts into line with their understanding of God.
The wonderful thing about Christianity is that it says our spirituality can be lived, and it gives us the opportunity to think of ourselves in ways other than physicality. For myself, I’ve been trying to displace a physical sense of my body, which is what appears to be the catalyst for the sensual pull, and to keep thinking about the embodiment of Christly qualities, that my substance is in my joy and in my peace and gentleness, that substance is in love and compassion and gentleness.
And so sexual feelings that are outside the context of a marriage commitment are things that we’re always going to have to be alert to, because they would only reinforce a physical sense of our body, which is exactly the thing we’re trying to let go of, especially in our practice of healing.
I think the desire for companionship tries to get mixed up with that pull to the body. And yet there’s such a simple way to think about sex as just part of the conversation between a husband and wife.
When you see it in that context, and you admit to yourself that you’re looking for a marriage commitment, then when those feelings come, you have to be clear whether you’re thinking about the desire for companionship or is it just the small-minded, self-indulgent pull to the body?
Because that pull to the body is not going to be useful for anything. It’s not even going to help you prepare to find a right marriage partner. It’s a form of physicality that really reduces and undervalues what it is that an individual would bring to a relationship.
spirituality.com host: And you experienced this somewhat during the time when you were a widow, didn’t you?
Lois: Yes. I was married for 14 years and lost my husband early, and then I had 16 years of singlehood before I married again. Actually, I just got married last summer, and it’s been a very sweet and happy thing.
That period of singlehood, as a widow with young children, was probably the hardest time in my life in terms of dealing with sensuality. For one thing, I was always feeling inadequate, always on the brink of whether I could really keep things together. And there was always that suggestion in the back of my mind that if I just had a man around, things would be so much easier.
As much as that sounds logical, I had to see that, from a spiritual standpoint, all of those feelings of inadequacy were really a form of evil trying to suggest that God was absent from my life. I couldn’t deny my desire to be married again, but I did have to learn how to trust it to God, so that the desire to be married didn’t become a corrosive influence in my day. Am I saying that clearly?
spirituality.com host: I think so.
Lois: From a spiritual standpoint, we have to find the completeness of expressing both the masculine and the feminine qualities of God. The bigger view, the sense of leadership, the authority that we associate with masculinity—that is just as much part of our own spiritual identity as the tenderness and the nurturing and the intuition that we associate with feminine qualities.
There’s not a question of one group being more heavily weighted than another in our individuality. From a spiritual standpoint, there’s a perfect endowment from Father-Mother God of the balance of masculine and feminine qualities.
And frankly, as I persisted with that prayer for myself, really asking God to help me not think of myself in terms of the circumstance I was in, there was an increasing sense of good humor. I dated in the first couple of years of my widowhood, and it was disastrous. It was a big mistake.
Then once my youngest son started to drive, I started to date again, and those were very constructive and happy conversations. I didn’t always have somebody to go out with. But even if I didn’t have somebody to go out with, I really was striving to demonstrate companionship and take initiative with my friends to do things, and to have people over.
spirituality.com host: A Concerned Mom in Jacksonville, Florida, says, “This chat is perfect timing for me. Two days ago, I found some explicit magazines under my son’s mattress. He’s 17 years old. I’m a single mom, and his dad is not around to help with this kind of question. I’ve not said anything to him yet, and I don’t know what I should say or how best to talk to him about this. I’m still very upset.” And since you’ve been a single mom, maybe you can help us out.
Lois: And also a single mom with two boys that are grown now. I know that heartache, and I know that probably there’s not a parent listening that doesn’t wonder if in some way in light of the world’s culture, we’re not going to find that challenge coming up.
Frankly, I think the thing I can say to my sister listener there is that not only do you have the authority to do something about it, you are perfectly appointed to this child. But it may take some quiet listening, and especially some healing of the fear before you talk to him about it.
The reason that you’re perfectly appointed is because you know this child better than anybody on the globe. You’ve seen the best qualities in him. The whole nature of parenthood is preparing the child to give what they have to give in the world, that God has endowed them with talents, God has expressed their individuality in ways that are essential.
As much as we feel the press, as parents, to produce human beings who are perfect in every way, it lightens that intensity—or, I should say, it transforms that intensity—to realize that this child is not only a gift to you as a parent; this child is a gift to mankind.
And the problem with the sensuality, or the pull of the sensuality, isn’t the ickiness of it; it’s that it’s too small a framework for that child to go forward and to give what he has to give to relationships with women—whether it’s in an office situation or in a college situation or just in a going-to-the-prom situation. He wants to be careful not to think about women from that purely physical standpoint, because he’s going to miss out on the significance of what he has to give.
I always mentioned to my boys that sensuality was like putting on shoes that were too small for you—you may be able to stand up in them, but you’ll never be able to walk in them.
The conviction that the mom wants to bring to her son is that he’s a gold mine: that he is the best thing that ever happened to her, and that her great joy in thinking about him is thinking about what he’s going to have to give to others. I know as a single mom, that takes a fair amount of unselfishness. I’m the mom who cried for almost two weeks when her son went off to camp, so I understand that bond.
But the bottom line is that we want children who are free to enter into relationships that are constructive with others, and that’s going to require some pulling back on our part. I’m not saying that the mom should back off, because she has an opportunity here to really share with her son her conviction about the best of what he has to give.
spirituality.com host: We’ve got quite a few questions stacked up for us, so we’ll move on to Gracie in Los Angeles. She’s asking, “Isn’t sex part of the problem in striving for salvation from the belief of life in matter? I’ve been reading a lot about what Mrs. Eddy calls a partnership between material pleasure and pain, and that material sensations are foundational to the belief of life in matter. Can the activity of sex be redeemed so it doesn’t ultimately result in pain and perpetuate the dream of life in matter?”
Lois: I think the question is posed in a really good way—“Is there a way that sex can be redeemed?” And when you think about the spiritual qualities that a husband and wife want to bring to each other, it’s qualities like welcome and tenderness and delight and a wholehearted commitment to each other’s life purpose.
Regardless of how much sex a couple has in their marriage—and it does come and go—there’s nothing about a sexual relationship that guarantees communication in a couple. It needs to be thought of in a small way instead of a big way, because the substance of the relationship is never going to be the physical communication. The substance of the relationship is those qualities of welcome, delight, and tenderness. The substance of a relationship is the commitment to the other person’s life purpose.
And one of the things that I think is always a mistake is thinking that somehow the other person in the marriage is responsible for somebody else’s satisfaction. I think that we need to find a way to bring satisfaction to all our relationships and bring a sense of peace and joy. And certainly as couples keep those spiritual qualities first and foremost, sex is put in the right perspective that redeems it out of being some sort of guarantee of communication, which it isn’t.
spirituality.com host: That was really helpful, especially the part about communication. Lewis is asking a similar question. He’s in Long Island, and he says, “I’ve noticed that I’m looking more and more at pretty girls in the street. I was married, but my dear wife passed away two years ago. Is this equivalent to looking at pornography? Should I work with prayer to overcome what I think are probably unhealthy urges?” This seems to tie in with both of the questions you’ve just been answering.
Lois: I remember my dad—and it may be that Lewis is a similar generation—but he used that word pretty a lot. He enjoyed looking at anything that was beautiful. He had a happy response to the seasons and to flowers and to pretty girls. But there was never a longing in it. It was more in a sense of respect.
One of his favorite passages is in Mary Baker Eddy’s Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896. Mrs. Eddy asked the question—or somebody asked her—“Is it correct to say of material objects, that they are nothing and exist only in imagination?” And she has a very, very tender answer. In it she says, “My sense of the beauty of the universe is, that beauty typifies holiness, and is something to be desired.…
“… It is more than imagination. It is next to divine beauty and the grandeur of Spirit.” And then she says, “In our immature sense of spiritual things, let us say of the beauties of the sensuous universe: ‘I love your promise; and shall know, some time, the beauty, the spiritual reality and substance of form, light, and color, of what I now through you discern dimly; and knowing this, I shall be satisfied. …’” (p. 86.) It’s a beautiful passage, isn’t it?
spirituality.com host: Yes, it is.
Lois: And when we see something that’s beautiful, it should be an affirmation of God’s presence. That’s what we’re designed to be as the image and likeness of God. And that’s a very different thing than looking at someone and thinking about their sexuality.
There’s a natural recognition of beauty that needs to happen every single day, because, frankly, the goodness of life is where we understand the spirit of God best. One of the unique things in Mary Baker Eddy’s writings is she correlates Spirit and goodness. And we don’t want to dismiss the good, because it points to the kingdom of heaven that Jesus said is here and now.
One of the things that Lewis might want to be thinking about is that he may well indeed have companionship to offer. The good substance that he experienced with his wife is something that hasn’t been lost, and he can build on that. Whether or not it leads to a committed marriage relationship is secondary to the fact that he is a member of God’s family, and it’s natural for us as a member of God’s family to want to enter into a relationship with each other.
spirituality.com host: True, from California, is asking specifically, “Based on Mrs. Eddy’s writings, how can I really reconcile sex within marriage if I’m not trying to get pregnant? Just for the pure pleasure of it? I’m having problems with this in my own thought and experience.”
Lois: I think the thing that Mrs. Eddy does in her article “Wedlock” [See Miscellaneous Writingss 1883–1896, pp. 285–290], is really give couples the permission to work these things out alone with God. When couples have made a marriage commitment based on the assumption that they would have a sexual relationship, it’s hard to change the terms of the contract.
I don’t think spirituality can be used as an excuse to stop having sex with your spouse, because the New Testament and Mrs. Eddy’s writings point to the unselfishness of marriage, and a desire to support and to honor and cherish your spouse’s point of demonstration. And the intensity that keeps trying to say that sex is only a physical sensation is what probably makes sex feel like it’s such a sharp contrast to spirituality.
But the more that you can think about sex as a confirmation of the qualities that you want to bring to your marriage, the more it becomes a much smaller thing, and something that is easier to work out with your spouse.
I’ve seen happy couples that don’t have sex in their life, but I’ve never seen a happy couple that doesn’t have a sense of welcome and celebration and delight, and a wholehearted sense of each other’s mission. The more you focus on the substance of the relationship, the simpler the physical communication issues will be.
spirituality.com host: That’s great, because an email from a couple in Marion, Ohio, is continuing this theme. They say, “This is a delicate question. My husband is sitting here with me as I type this, and we’d both be grateful for your thoughts. We are now both in our late 60s, and I still think we have a good relationship physically, but my husband thinks we are now old enough that we don’t need to continue to be physical. He loves me very much, but is not as interested in those things as he once was. This is causing some friction in our home that we would like to resolve. Can you suggest some ideas we can work with? Thank you very much.”
Lois: Oh, I’m sure the couples that are listening are saying, Thank you very much for writing in. All I can tell you, dear couple, is that this is a very precious and tender time for the two of you. I think one thing that is so amazing about human relationships is that they are very dynamic entities. And the reason they are, is because each individual is growing in a naturally progressive way that has to be accommodated as relationships change.
But the thing that I’ve found is that every time the question of sex comes up in a marriage relationship, it’s really not about sex at all. It’s about, Is my thought about this relationship big enough to accommodate the infinite expression of God that each of us is? That’s not a small question when you’re dealing with the laundry and the checkbook and questions about where you live and how you make decisions together.
The intimacy of marriage, of the day-to-day life of living together, get us a little bit too over-involved in each other’s human quirks and idiosyncrasies. Mrs. Eddy uses the termmental malpractice for the thought patterns that keep trying to reduce our view of ourselves and reduce our view of others. And in order to lift off the mental malpractice on someone’s marriage that keeps trying to say, We’re at odds, or, We have different opinions about each other—to lift that off to find the natural communication of the children of God, that’s a precious time for you to really celebrate each other.
I know one time I’d had a particularly demanding day and my husband was picking me up for dinner. I really felt mentally like I had nothing to say to him at all. Not that I didn’t want to, it’s just that I just felt that I couldn’t deal with one more thing. So I was praying to ask God to show me what to talk to him about or how to be a good companion to him, and the message came very simply. It said, Just adore him.
I was so startled, because I didn’t think you were supposed to adore your spouse. I thought you were supposed to adore Jesus and adore God. But I was just amazed that God was asking me to adore my husband. I didn’t really even know what it meant. But I did commit to it and asked Him to show me how I could cherish this wonderful man who had wanted to support me at the end of my busy day.
I can’t tell you what we talked about, it must have been so small and insignificant, because we were just like teenagers spooning over each other. We were so happy to see each other and just enjoy each other’s company. And what was weird was that I found myself just able to adore everybody in the restaurant, able to adore the waiter. It was like in yielding to the love that God had given me in this gift of my husband, I was just being expanded in my love.
And that, to me, is the great usefulness of marriage. It allows us to discover just how unselfish we can be, because eventually we’re going to know and love as many people as God knows and loves.
I’m convinced of it, because God is the great Mind, the source of all conscious thought. He’s expressing in us His infinite view of the universe. And these close relationships that we have are really for the purpose of prying open our hearts so that we can find the freedom to delight in each other and celebrate each other and to be blessed by each other’s expression of goodness that is so natural in His family.
spirituality.com host: Earlier when you were talking about going from intimacy to infinity, I was wondering how you would describe that, and I think you just have. You’ve just covered the way that feeling of adoring spread out from your husband to encompass everyone there. I think that’s a wonderful example of the intimate adoration going toward infinity.
Lois: There’s a passage in Mary Baker Eddy’s writings where she says, “We live in an age of Love’s divine adventure to be All-in-all” [The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 158]. That is such a redefinition of life. It’s what the Psalmist says when he says, “Great is thy merciful kindness to us, O God.”
Instead of feeling like we’re struggling through relationships or struggling through a life history that’s difficult, what we’re really discovering is how steadfast God’s merciful kindness is. And what makes relationships sweet and wonderful, is that they reflect that infinite love of God.
spirituality.com host: This question is heading in a slightly different direction from the way we’ve been going. It’s from Smith, on the West Coast, who is asking, “How can men, especially, overcome sexual desires, thinking, lusting?” Women, of course, never have those ….
Lois: And I think, in some ways, we have to apologize to the audience that it’s two women on this show today. I know the world says that it’s harder for men, but I know that the pull to sensuality has been a pernicious one in my life. I can only share with you the way that I was able to work out of it.
I don’t think it’s something that you can ever stop being alert to, because as long as we have a physical sense of body, we’re going to be dealing with the world’s physical senses, and especially in terms of the advertising campaigns that are foisted on us every day.
One of the things that was helpful to me was when I realized that there was nothing about the intensity of sexual feelings that could separate me from God. Even though it feels like matter is so all-consuming, within each of us is this stillness of our oneness with God. In many ways, it’s similar to the practice of healing in any other context.
When I was in acute pain physically, I had always had the belief I couldn’t pray at those times. I could deal with almost anything unless I was in a lot of pain. But when I discovered that the pain couldn’t displace that stillness of my oneness with God, even though that felt like sort of an intellectual premise, I just would humbly thank God for the quiet—that the quiet of my relationship was there.
I think it’s the same thing when the intensity of physical pleasure tries to assert itself. The stillness of the relationship with God is right there. And one of the questions that used to help me a lot—I mean once I got used to the fact that I could pray during the physical pull—one of the questions that helped me a lot was, Father, if You don’t want me to be preoccupied with sex, what would You like me to be thinking about right now?
Just with that expectancy there would be a new thought, or there would be a direction for reading, or there would be some unselfish deed that I could think about or commit myself to doing. There’s a way to break that spell, because God never stops being God.
One of the things that I think comes up, especially if somebody has chronic sensual feelings, is you start to wonder if somehow you have a greater dose of physicality than others. That’s the same thing that tries to say that men have it more than women.
But I think what we have to realize is that the agitation isn’t primarily in relation to our own metabolism; that what we’re dealing with in strong sexual feelings is a pull to the premise that says that we began in an egg and a sperm, that somehow that was the beginning of our existence. And if that’s the beginning of our existence, then I don’t think there’s much hope for overcoming the pull to physicality.
But the great promise that Christian Science teaches is that man has a preexistent relationship to God, and that the security of being loved and being comforted and being at peace was established long before we ever met our human parents.
When we strive as spiritual thinkers to understand our origin in Spirit rather than in matter, then the intensity about human conception and birth and human heredity and the psychology of human development is reduced, so that we can understand what our true beginning was.
Each of us began with the knowledge of being loved and celebrated of God. Each of us has this foundation of satisfaction and peace. And just admitting that was the first thing known about us, gave me the freedom from somehow associating my identity with the physical pull.
spirituality.com host: That’s very, very helpful. And relating to that is this question from Helen in Boston. She says, “It seems like people my age, in their early 20s, are looking for gratification through sex. How does one begin to see past the lustful feelings that seem to have a hypnotizing, paralyzing effect, in that all attention is focused on the physical body?”
Lois: I think, Helen, that the thing that was really important for me was to see that there wasn’t any foundation to sex outside the context of a lifelong marriage commitment. I think the only reason it has a safe place within marriage is because the lifelong commitment says, I’m going to see you in terms that are bigger than how I relate to you physically.
Even when you think of the amount of time and the decision-making that a couple make together, sex is just a small part of that, compared to the bigger issues of how to support somebody’s education or career or motherhood or parenthood, fatherhood, as well. That bigger context is what, I think, provides a perspective that protects sex from getting too big in somebody’s thought.
I had an experience at the seacoast that was very powerful to me, and I’d just love to share it here. I was climbing on the rocks—it was actually on the coast of Massachusetts, and this was by Rockport. The boulders are very dramatic, and they drop down to the water’s edge.
I was with my son, and he wanted to go out and talk to the fishermen, and I found myself crawling down to the other end, probably a couple hundred yards away, because I was so hot. It was summertime, and I wanted to get down to the water’s edge, hoping there was some beach there. But there wasn’t any beach, there were only these tidal pools.
I found one that had a like a six-foot drop, so I went down there, and I had my sandals on. The pool was full of gravel at the bottom. I have to say that was truly one of the most pleasurable experiences, not only the coolness of the water, but I was getting a foot massage with the gravel, and it was really a beautiful moment, until I realized that the tide was coming in.
At first I didn’t realize the significance of it. But the more water that came into the pool, the less foundation there was underneath my feet. What initially felt so pleasurable, quickly became dangerous, because I didn’t have any way of getting a grip to crawl out of the rock face that was surrounding it.
The worst part was that the waves were crashing in so that I could see that I was going to be beat up on the rocks before I was lifted up out of the pool. It was definitely a very intense moment of prayer and guidance. The problem was I had a long skirt on as well, so it was billowing around me. I had great difficulty getting out, but eventually I did get myself out.
Standing on the rock, I was really grateful for my deliverance, but I knew that there was another lesson to be learned. I started to walk on the rock with great gratitude, and I could feel my feet in the cork sandals conforming to the rock as I walked. I just wanted to understand the metaphor more, because I knew it was important.
As I sat down and prayed, it was clearly a metaphor for me that the Christ rock was the only foundation to my life. It had always been the foundation of my life, even though my life had very much been a soap opera of difficult relationships and some fairly painful disappointments with sensuality.
But I could see that the issue with sensuality is that no matter what the temporary pleasure, like in the tidal pool, the gravel will never give you enough of a foundation to be safe, especially when the winds and waves of human life crash upon you.
I know that the discipline of keeping sex within marriage is one that is mocked by the world and belittled, and yet, ultimately, it’s going to show us the greatest freedom to walk forward with strength and confidence and a sense of identity that is not based in a material view of life.
spirituality.com host: It’s almost as though you have read the next question, Lois, because this one leads us a little bit further forward in that line. It’s from Avery in Elsah, Illinois, who says, “I am a college student abstaining from sex, but my boyfriend and I think often about where sexual relations should fit in any relationship that is striving to be growing spiritually. Can you speak to the way that one should think about sexual relations if they are aspiring to think spiritually at the same time?”
Lois: Avery, I’m going to say something that might sound kind of strange, because I have a feeling your boyfriend is probably one of your best friends, if not your best friend. I counsel couples to be careful about having sexual discussions when there’s no clear direction about marriage. And I know that may sound pretty strange in light of the world’s view of it. But the conversation between you right now doesn’t need to be about sex. That’s a conversation that needs to happen before marriage, but after engagement.
What I would encourage you to do is to really find venues and topics of conversation that allow you to engage in life as God’s children, and just feel the freedom to really cultivate an appreciation of each other’s qualities without having to try to resolve the issues of sex.
I hope that doesn’t feel like a rebuke. But it was a huge change for me, especially when I was dating, to realize that the conversation God was giving me was not about sexuality; that if, indeed, I was going to appreciate the place of marriage and family, and the role of sex within that, I had to learn as a single person to live my womanhood and to celebrate the manhood of the guy I was dating without having to be encumbered about resolving sexual issues.
The simplicity of sex is something that can be resolved after marriage. I mean, you do have to be clear about whether you expect to have sex or not. But I think the kind of communication that takes place within a marriage covenant is the safest place to have those conversations, and meanwhile, you can just enjoy your singlehood.
spirituality.com host: Erin in Seattle, Washington, is continuing us down the road here, because she’s asking, “Sometimes people who abstain from sex, claiming that they do so for moral reasons, actually do so for reasons related to fear of closeness or to trauma resulting from sexual abuse. How can we determine whether our abstinence is healthy and moral rather than trauma- or fear-based?”
Lois: I think the standard for me was always my joy level. The issue is the joy. I know exactly what she’s talking about, because as a teenager, I was painfully aware of how many kids were on the pill and how many were not and the fact that I felt a strong religious commitment not to engage in sex. And that was a self-righteousness that did not serve me well. I ended up having a child out of wedlock.
It was not just a shock to me. The guy that I had dated, I just was not aware of what he was really looking for, and I ended the relationship very quickly after the third date. But it was sobering to find myself in that situation. My family ended up being supportive, and we decided that the child should be adopted.
So I think the question that’s being raised here is a very important one. We can’t practice the standard of sexuality based on fear, and it can’t be a standard that clubs somebody else over the head, because the thing that would make you condemn someone else will eventually turn around and condemn you.
The freedom to engage in relationships based on our highest sense of right is really the unselfishness of wanting to support somebody else’s progress. But it’s also a desire to learn from them. When I started dating again as an adult, I found that the conversations I had with people were just so instructive, in that these were peers I could learn from. I was sensitive as to whether our conversation was really supporting my progress as well as theirs.
But I think the issues in all relationships are our willingness to do what Jesus said and wash each other’s feet. You wouldn’t bother to wash somebody’s feet if you thought the dirt was embedded. In all relationships, there’s a quality of forgiveness that’s needed so that you can forgive the stuff that’s not good, and really cherish the gold of the person’s real spiritual individuality.
There’ll always be a foundation of respect when we look at each other that way. I think especially in today’s climate when there’s a great debate about standards of sexual behavior, collectively, I think we have to be sure that whatever point someone’s demonstration is with sex, we don’t let our own standard be a way of condemning them. The compassion and the willingness to honor a life that is moving forward is always the basis of right relationships.
spirituality.com host: This question is a sort of a sensitive one. It’s from June in Montana, and I’m not sure how well we’ll be able to answer it, but she says, “I began attending the Christian Science church just a month ago. I’m a lesbian and have not come out to the members, because I have found nothing regarding my sexual orientation in my readings. Where do gays and lesbians stand within the church?”
Lois: There’s nothing in our church that would keep anybody away because of their sexual orientation. I feel like Church is this laboratory of Christian fellowship that teaches us how to love and cherish each other regardless of our point of demonstration. The Biblical standard of sexual morality is very specific, and it isn’t one that accommodates easily a homosexual practice. But at the same time, I think the Biblical standard can never be used as a weapon. It can never be used to exclude or to condemn.
Just as we’ve been talking in these wonderful questions, but very difficult answers, we’re each working out of a material view of ourselves. Somebody sent me a card recently. I saved it, because I just love the quote that’s on the front of it. It says, “Flowers unfold slowly and gently, bit by bit in the sunshine. And a soul, too, must never be punished or driven, but unfolds in its own perfect timing to reveal its true wonder and beauty.”
The fact that this person has been drawn to Christian Science, been drawn to its comfort, been drawn to the spiritual sense of identity—there has to be a way that we can say, Welcome, and I want to support you as much as I would want you to support me. And there may be a need to agree to disagree about a lifestyle choice, but it never could be used to separate us.
I think the key to a relationship in that situation with the members is that the individual would never find their sense of identity in their sexual practice. I think that’s what’s problematic all the way around. The thing that keeps trying to divide us is the thing that says that somehow our sexual practice is the source of our identity. And from a Christian Science standpoint, it won’t ever be based in that. It will always be based in the reflection of God.
spirituality.com host: And that would be true for everyone.
Lois: And it’s true for everyone. And it’s a relationship in Christ rather than a relationship in an opinion.
spirituality.com host: That leads us to this question, which is a little hard also. It’s from someone in the Midwest who says, “How can one be freed from a past of negative sexual experiences that may prevent one from having the healthy relationships they desire now?”
Lois: In my case, what it involved was working steadfastly to understand that my life did not begin with my parents’ sperm and egg—that I had that preexistent foundation of being loved and cared for and celebrated by God, because my Creator never left me, even in the middle of the difficult experiences. There’s a foundation for our sense of identity in that oneness with God rather than a sense of identity based on a long history.
That’s a little bit tricky because I think the nature of the human mind is to take pride in its past, whether it’s education or social status or accomplishment or your income level, how you handle yourself. And yet the humility that really bows before Christ says that the only model for my love is the life of Christ Jesus.
The thing that’s so wonderful about those gospel stories is that Jesus’ life is distilled in these essential qualities of compassion and forgiveness and delight and authority. Those qualities have to displace both a positive and a negative view of ourselves.
The qualities affirm the positive part of ourselves, but we’re never going to be the source of our own goodness. When you’ve had a lousy experience in your childhood growing up, the temptation is to always think there are people who didn’t have to deal with it.
spirituality.com host: Right.
Lois: And they may not have had to deal with the specifics of what your particular tragedy is, but everybody has the same assignment: to let go of a limited view of ourselves so that we can accept the Godlikeness that is really unlimited in its potential. And this is because the foundation was never in human procreation. The foundation was never in history.
There are some very poignant ads running in Chicago right now, and the question on the ad is, How do you help somebody be able to trust again? That’s not an easy question to answer. But I know that the great wonder of our relationship to God is that it gives us a basis of worth.
No matter how many times somebody has been abused or manipulated or discarded or belittled, never do they lose their worth in God’s view. And when we learn to trust God’s view of us more than we trust the human dream and all of its condemnations, we can distinguish more clearly between the accuser’s voice, which is that evil influence, and the voice of Father-Mother God that adores and celebrates.
spirituality.com host: That was a beautiful and very moving answer. I think we’re running out of time now, but we’ll do two more questions. This one is from Spain: “When you’ve been single for a long time and dedicated to a high moral standard, have you found it easier to enter late into a marriage relationship? The world is telling us that it’s harder. What is your point of view?”
Lois: I don’t think my new husband would mind me saying this, but he married me when he was 55 years old and had never been married before. And he was ready and enthusiastic and free to go forward. I think the quality that is so compelling about him and others that I’ve seen that have married late is their quality of childlikeness.
Remember how Jesus celebrated the children, because he said you’re never going to figure life out unless you exercise childlikeness. With each passing year, if we’re living in the “age of Love’s divine adventure to be All-in-all,” then it makes sense that we become more relaxed and more grateful and more celebratory, and more eager to engage in life as God’s kingdom. That produces a resilience. It doesn’t produce a rigidity.
We sort of laugh at each other, because we can still see habits of singlehood that we’re both having to overcome, but they pale before this childlikeness that really celebrates God’s gift.
I think in all relationships, even if you’re not involved in a committed relationship that may end up in marriage—I mean, what if we could treat each other as church members that way? What if we could treat our neighbors with eagerness and delight? I mean that in the highest sense of seeing their spiritual qualities and honoring them to have their source in God. I think that promises that our passing decades give us more freedom to enter relationships, not less.
spirituality.com host: I’m going to change my mind, and ask you to answer two last questions. This one has come in from someone who’s responding to an answer you gave earlier, and I thought we should do this one to clarify it. The writer is from New York and says, “I’m wondering about Lois’s reply to the girlfriend and boyfriend talking about sex with one another. I speak to my daughter, who’s a preteen, about sex. Don’t you think it’s important to discuss these things openly, when they’re obviously in thought?”
Lois: Oh, I’m glad that the person asked that question. He’s asking as a parent with a child, though, isn’t he?”
spirituality.com host: Yes.
Lois: I think that’s a very different thing than a young couple who are dating and not sure where they’re going in a relationship. I think that part of what we’re trying to do in this conversation is to open up the topic, but understand that it has to be within appropriate context.
The parent-child foundation at home is a natural place for sex to be discussed. Despite a lot of early confusion about sex myself, I still remember a girlfriend that I wanted to talk to about sex. And she said, “You know, I think this is something that you need to talk to your mom about.” She was 13 and I was 11 or something.
I was so struck that she really felt like it belonged within the sanctity of a family relationship. One of the things I hope we’re going to learn to do is to simplify sex within marriage and family rather than letting it sort of be idle conversation, or something that isn’t appropriate to someone’s point of development.
spirituality.com host: Or such a focus of life that you don’t even know what the rest of your life is about.
Lois: That’s exactly right. We were driving along Lake Shore Drive, and they were having a kite festival, and I just felt so happy for the young couples who were out flying kites together. It just had an innocence and a freedom to it. But thank you for giving us the opportunity to clarify that question.
spirituality.com host: This is the last question, and it’s a hard one. It’s from Anonymous in Texas, who says, “What a lovely way you have of approaching this issue. Having been sexually active as a young adult, having been raped by a stranger who broke into my home, having been cheated on many times by my ex-husband, I have ‘been there, done that.’
“Now I feel washed, clean of all sensual desires. I love being pure as a child in thought and deed, yet I don’t want to appear holier-than-thou when people talk with me about their problems in this area. Do you have any suggestions for what to say when people ask me how I can be so happy in my singlehood, not at all desirous of a physical relationship, not needing the companionship of marriage? I don’t want to turn anyone off from exploring Christian Science by sounding too off-the-charts.”
Lois: I know what she’s talking about because I was so surprised that I was asked to marry again, because I had found that peace with my singlehood too, and the joy of it. I love the fact that purity has come into this conversation, because I’m not sure purity is a word that many people would put on their list of desirable companions. It almost sounds like an archaic word, and yet one of the definitions that I love of pure is, “free from foreign agents,” that it’s true to its individuality.
One thing I think we have to be careful of is not pretending to know what our future is going to be, because when God has given somebody an understanding of their purity—and actually we’re going to learn that everybody has that foundation of purity—it has infinite implications in terms of serving and entering into relationships.
I don’t think marriage is an issue of desiring it always. Sometimes you’re given the gift of it—that was the case in my life. I mean, I had this burning desire for marriage all through my widowhood, and then it just quietly left. And so, it was a surprise when Michael came into my life. But I think the humility that goes with the purity says that you defend purity for everyone, that it isn’t something that excludes the possibilities at all. It’s something that confirms the innocence of who we are.
There’s a wonderful beatitude, “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”Mercy is a word about God’s steadfast love, and when we express that love and that freedom, it makes us the most useful people on earth. And the consequence is that we will not be condemned.
For this sister to have found her purity means that she has an invincible foundation for not being condemned again, not being put into situations that are cruel or afflictive or dangerous. To me, that’s the foundation of a wonderful healing practice, to be able to defend that freedom for others; to let her purity honor other people’s purity, so that it doesn’t seem so exceptional. It is a wonderful and remarkable healing, and I am so glad that our listeners can know about it, because there’s a lot of garbage that needs to be cleaned out of a lot of lives.
But the bottom line is that we all began innocent, and that innocence is not disposable. Innocence is what prevails. It’s what tells us about that quiet place of relationship with God. It’s what keeps opening the doors of infinite possibility, because when we understand it to be something more than just the rescue from a difficult past history, when we understand it to be the preexistent reality of our own being, then we’re going to let God move and shape our lives in the way that is of greatest service to Him. I can’t help but feel like that.
I want to emphasize that the gift that she has to offer could never separate her from her fellow man, and the purity that Christian Science upholds as man’s natural relationship to God can never be an offense to the child of God. Yes, it may rebuke a lot of small-minded habits that we need to let go of, but what she’s appealing to, in her friends and her family and her church members, is something that has been forever. And it’s a sure basis of all relationships.
spirituality.com host: And that purity is available to all of us.
Lois: Exactly. And the struggle she went through is not to be belittled in any way. But the reason she prevailed was because that was her origin, and it couldn’t continue to be mocked.
spirituality.com host: We’ve gone well over our time. Lois, do you have any further thoughts you’d like to share? You’ve certainly been wonderful in speaking with us on all these many different aspects of the subject.
Lois: I found a verse in Psalms last week that has been just speaking very loudly to me. It says, “I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy.” So many times when I enter into my prayer closet, the temptation is to take with me the multitude of my demands. And to realize, “We live in an age of Love’s divine adventure to be All-in-all”; we live in the atmosphere of the kingdom of God, where it is His divine intention to cause us to know how we’re loved, and that includes God’s divine intention to help us understand that origin, that pure and perfect origin.
And because it’s a fixed fact, this love of God is shepherding us into the awareness of it. What we’re going to find is that the delight and the joy of our relationship to God is going to bring the light and joy to all our human relationships in a way that can be constructive and a great blessing.
spirituality.com host: Thank you, Lois. And thank all of you for these wonderful questions. We got to as many as we could, and some of them were a little bit duplicates, so I hope we answered everyone’s question even if we didn’t read your specific one.
Lois also finds inspiration in these ideas from Miscellaneous Writings:
"We live in an age of Love's divine adventure to be All-in-all. This day is the natal hour of my lone earth life; and for all mankind to-day hath its gloom and glory: it endureth all things; it points to the new birth, heaven here, the struggle over; it profits by the past and joys in the present--to-day lends a new-born beauty to holiness, patience, charity, love." (p.158)
"Is it correct to say of material objects, that they are nothing and exist only in imagination? My sense of the beauty of the universe is, that beauty typifies holiness, and is something to be desired...Even the human conception of beauty, grandeur, and utility is something that defies a sneer. It is more than imagination. It is next to divine beauty and the grandeur of Spirit. It lives with our earth-life, and is the subjective state of high thoughts...To take all earth's beauty into one gulp of vacuity and label beauty nothing, is ignorantly to caricature God's creation, which is unjust to human sense and to the divine realism. In our immature sense of spiritual things, let us say of the beauties of the sensuous universe: "I love your promise; and shall know, some time, the spiritual reality and substance of form, light, and color, of what I now through you discern dimly; and knowing this, I shall be satisfied." (pp 86-87)
"We all must find shelter from the storm and tempest in the tabernacle of Spirit." (p. 362)
"Rights that are bargained away must not be retaken by the contractors, except by mutual consent." (p 289)
"When asked by a wife or a husband important questions concerning their happiness, the substance of my reply is: God will guide you. Be faithful over home relations; they lead to higher joys: obey the Golden Rule for human life, and it will spare you much bitterness." (p. 287)
Citations used in this chat
Science and Health
King James Bible