Love By "The Book", Human Intimacy and Courting
The Creator has told us that intimate relations are forbidden under nearly all circumstances and yet required under the specific circumstance of marriage. This article is directed to those who may be trying to sort this out. Here are the relevant facts:
1. We are spiritual beings having our first physical experience in this earth life.
2. A soul is a union of a spirit and the body it inhabits.
3. Our bodies were designed so that the sexes attract and can fulfill one another.
4. Our souls were designed so that expressions like kissing, hugging, petting, etc. will bond the two souls together in a powerful and satisfying way.
5. These sacred moments are an integral part of the plan of exaltation.
6. We were trained in heaven and have been reminded on earth that intimate sexual expression is only to be experienced within the bonds of marriage.
7. This article is an attempt to help us understand why it is so unusually important for us to heed both the forbidden and the required aspects of this commandment.Since this is about the most personal and intimate parts of our bodies and the most sacred experiences of our souls, I want to use a metaphor to talk about it: "the love machine'. I apologize for this cold, mechanical allegory, but I haven't found a better one to illustrate what I am trying to say. Besides, the author is an engineer with degrees in mathematics and physics, so -
The love machine is primarily a spiritual device. It was created by God for the blessing of his children, for the bonding of man and wife in eternal unity, harmony and love. It was even designed for the creation of physical bodies for the eternal dwelling place for his spirit children. It is at once the most powerful machine on the earth and the most dangerous machine in the world.
Again, the love machine is primarily a spiritual device. It bonds and then blends two spirits into a wondrous union having all the attributes, intelligence, feelings, perceptions, and powers of both spiritual individuals and unites them in such a way that the beautiful and sacred presidency it creates is much greater than the simple sum of its individuals. But it can only do this if the two are compatible and dedicated to the success of the process.
Because we are primarily spiritual beings and the love machine is primarily a spiritual device but we are in a physical world, God has provided a physical interface to the machine. We approach, switch on, and, for want of a better espression, we "crank' this spiritual machine by using our physical bodies. It only requires a few thoughts to approach this marvelous machine. It is, in fact, built into our spirits, and when a man and woman are near one another, the lights on the indicator panel of the love machine begin to come on. They don't even have to be in the same room for this to happen, but that is usually the case.
There are some extremely important characteristics of this device that I want to talk about:
1. It has no off or on button. Because it is an integral part of our spirits it is always aware of our thoughts and feelings and actions. It is fully automatic. We can only control it by controlling our thoughts and our actions.
2. The love machine is put into full motion by physical expressions of love and affection and once in full motion it is almost impossible to stop. In fact it is only rarely stopped before it has taken its full course. It is important to understand that this is the way God planned it. This aspect of the love machine is what makes it so powerful. It completely overwhelms the couple, first their minds and then their bodies. Just as the Holy Ghost enters our bodies and when we allow it, overwhelms our spirits, changes our hearts and makes us into new and better people, this spiritual device created by God has the same kind of power to change our very spiritual nature and meld us into something more and more like He is.
3. When it is used properly, it leads to all the blessings God created it to produce: unity, selflessness, dedication, loyalty, charity, forgiveness, and love. Notice that these blessings produce the ideal environment into which God would like to place his children as they come to earth. The love machine lends great assistance in the production of an ideal home and blesses it with children.
4. Misuse of the machine is a form of extortion. It produces the bonding, satisfies some needs for love and affection, and produces much pleasure while the machine is running. But there are profound consequences. There are two major problems here:A. If people who are not eternally compatible use it, it bonds them together nonetheless and they become inseparable. This is a disaster. Now you have a couple who is stuck together and yet they spend much of their time in discontent, fighting, and even loathing. The powerful, negative feelings these situations create lead to other negative behaviors such as verbal and physical abuse. It is imperative that people know whether they are truly compatible well before they even begin to turn on the machine.
B. If it is used illegally, outside the bonds of marriage, it is very destructive. It causes loss of self respect, poignant feelings of guilt, anger, frustration, heartache and even hatred for one's self and the partner. These destructive feelings affect not only the two but the whole circle of their influence, and especially those they love and who love them. These are marriages where the couple and their children live in sorrow and fear. It is a severe blow to a family to have one of its members involved in such a way. Worse yet, these fractured families often produce children who in turn create more fractured families.Youth often get themselves and their loved ones into profound trouble and heartache because they do not understand the power of this fourth fact. Fact three causes them to be drawn to each other and they want to express those strong feelings but by doing so they set in motion the system which God designed to bond married partners for eternity.
When we follow the procedure for sexual intimacy, we kiss and hug and pet and it always leads toward the final, ultimate act of love. We cannot blame ourselves or God that this machine works so well. We must rather recognize that when we turn the crank on the love machine we will be bonding and that bonding experience is so strong that at some point the machine begins to run on its own and draws us through the entire experience. Where the blame really lies is in the fact that we did not follow counsel and we began to engage too much in those expressions of attraction - kissing, hugging, petting, etc.
The only safe course is to severely limit and control kissing and completely abstain from any form of petting. (I taught all my children to draw an imaginary line around their wrists and ankles and neck, and to never let anyone touch them inside those lines in an affectionate way until they were married.) To build an eternal home of love, happiness and peace, it is necessary that those who build it to intimately involve their Heavenly Father in the process. Couples need to begin every date with prayer and expressions of pure love and respect for God and for his children (each other). During their time alone together they must be constantly aware of their feelings, not only toward each other, but toward their own actions. As soon as one is aware, for example, that his behavior would not meet his mother's approval, then he can be sure he already has the love machine turning too fast - it is time to look at one another with the pure love of Christ, to respect one anther's eternal value and to reaffirm and re-establish correct behavior. Those who do this will find eternal joy. Those who don't are in imminent danger, for themselves, for their families, and for their own children, and their children's children. These are high stakes and worth every momentary sacrifice to assure the eternal joy and satisfaction that can only come from heeding wise counsel and obeying the commandments.
Now if that were the entire truth about the love machine, it would seem to be a trap, set up by God himself, that tends to lead us into trouble. Such, of course, is not the case. There is another, higher mode of operation of this marvelous machine. This mode is established by approaching the machine from a higher, more spiritual level. Let me see if I can describe it in its complete, divine operation, the way, I think the Lord intends it to operate and to be operated.
If, while we are courting, we are careful to invite the Lord and the Holy Spirit into our relationship; first of all this will help us to maintain our physical distance while we become thoroughly acquainted intellectually and emotionally and spiritually. In that way we can, through our own experience and through the whisperings of the Spirit come to know if the relationship is founded sufficiently on things that will establish a strong, lasting and compatible union where both of us can grow and flourish, where we will love and respect and nourish and trust one another so that we can create a home where our Heavenly Father can gladly send our brothers and sisters, his children, into a safe harbor. When we are careful to follow good counsel to do these things, there will grow up between us a profound sense of mutual respect and pure love, even the pure love of Christ. This is love unmingled with the selfish agenda of physical passion, unsullied by the natural man, unspoiled by personal desire for physical gratification. When we put these first things first, the pure love will grow first, and we will find ourselves propelled along by this higher mode of the love machine.
In this higher mode, we will find that our pure love and mutual respect causes us to regard each other with a sense of awe. We find ourselves almost feeling unworthy of the companionship of the other. We find deep and powerful feelings of pure pride in the very being and personality of our companion. We feel very protective of this one we have come to love so much, protective to the point that we would do whatever might be required of us to shield our companion from danger, from the deceit or jealousy of others, from physical dangers of disease or accidents or attack from any quarter. We place our companion on a pedestal where we almost worship them - this is the effect of the pure love of Christ, of the awakening of the divine love machine that God has created in our bosoms. It is in this higher mode that the machine acts not only to draw us together, but to do so in the purest and therefore safest way.
When we are careful to completely follow the instructions that came with this machine, it will elevate and purify us, both during courting and during the marriage that will surely ensue if all is right with us and our relationship. And this is the main point that I want to stress to those who are courting: If we are careful to follow the instructions that came with the machine, that is, to follow the counsel to maintain our physical distance until this great feeling of love and mutual respect can grow up between us, then the machine will protect us from our natural selves and help us to nourish and maintain that pure love and respect that has grown up between us. Then those feelings of respect and mutual protection will be so strong that we would never allow anyone, even on the threat of the safety of our mortal life, to endanger our loved one. We would never permit anyone to take advantage of our loved one or to violate their purity or chastity or to even consider actually doing such an evil thing ourselves. We would be the last to allow yourself to sully or degrade or even to consider an act that would in the very least rob this precious companion of their virtue and purity in any way. We would be so repelled at the thought, so enraged against anyone who would think to harm our companion that when temptations come to gratify our physical desires we would be repulsed by our own thoughts, enraged as it were against ourselves and driven to immediately abandon and forsake such selfish desires. You see, in this godly mode, we are not in the mode of the natural man; in fact, in this divine mode, the love machine makes it easy for us, I want to say it even makes it "natural" for us, to be divine, to be motivated by the pure love of Christ to cherish, love, and respect each other in the most wonderful and exalting way we can imagine.
Forgive me while I tell you a short, personal story. When I left on my mission to Sweden, I was deeply in love with a lovely girl. During the next year and a half, the intensity of our relationship waned a bit. At that point in my mission I received a letter from a sweet girl from my home Stake. She had gotten my name and address from the bulletin board at the Stake center. We began a correspondence that eventually took us to the alters of the temple and to the building of a strong home where we raised ten wonderful children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. But here is the point; this sweet girl and I had both prayed often that we would find someone we could love and that would love us, and with whom we would be compatible and happy and that we could accompany to the temple. Here is how the Lord answered our prayer. We fell in love in the mail. We kept our physical distance (of about 8 thousand miles) while there grew up between us a deep feeling of love and respect and a profound desire to nourish and protect one another. We when finally met, several months later, our respect had already been deeply established: we were pretty safe together. Oh, we had moments of temptation, but our purer feelings of love and respect had been established sufficiently strong that we were able to retreat a few paces, as it were, and we never, to this very day have violated one another's virtue. I don't know how to say this strongly enough, but I know that this is the way that a merciful God in heaven heard and answered the sincere prayers of two young converts to the restored Gospel. He placed us 8 thousand miles apart before be brought us together and gave us a full year (my mission was two and a half years long) to let grow up between us that divine, pure love of Christ that, when we finally were together and could date normally, protected us from each other and from our natural desires so that it was relatively easy for us to stay clean and to go to the temple and be sealed under the power of the Holy Priesthood of God and raise our children in covenant and to enjoy the most wonderful, profound bonding of the working of this divine love that has elevated and nourished us these forty years.
Finally, a speck of advice looking at this from another viewpoint. If you are careful to maintain your physical distance and this pure love does not grow up freely between you, you may know that all is not right with your relationship. You need to spend more time on your knees and seek to know the will of the Lord more fully, trusting that he will lead you and your wonderful friend into paths of great joy and fulfillment, whether that will be with the two of you together or not. Seek what is best and you will both have the best.
Some Relevant Scriptures:
2 Cor 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together ...
D&C 130: 20-22 There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before ...
D&C 93:33, D&C 138:17 For man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit ...
D&C 59:20 And it pleaseth God that he hath given all these things unto man; for unto ...Jackson Pemberton
January 29, 2001
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