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WEDDINGS

We tackled gluttony before Thanksgiving, greed before Christmas, envy last month, and now for Valentine’s Day– lust. This is another in a continuing series on what has traditionally been known as the seven deadly sins.

People who are interested in spiritual and religious depth are interested in mastering their desires– in not letting the limbic part of their brain rule their behavior. We find life more worthwhile for the long haul when we steer our appetites rather than letting them rule us.

Lust is tied to sexual desire. Sexual desire is an appetite. It is neither good nor bad. It is how we respond or react to our appetite that is good or bad. Our sexual appetite can be a good thing because it can give pleasure, and because it is the basis for all life.

Some response to sexual appetite is bad. A distorted or malicious response leads to rape, molestation, incest, sexually transmitted diseases, unhappy marriages, divorce, and other social ills. There is the damage to children– direct & indirect, jealous lovers, manipulation, and all the sexual violence against women, children, and men. That kind of lust is damaging.

Is any lust– just? Perhaps some lust is okay, alright, even to be celebrated. When two people, committed to each other, view each other with sexual longing and desire– that is a good thing. What newlywed does not remember with fondness when their new spouse looked upon them with great desire and the promise of what was about to happen?

Some lust is just. Sometimes we want our partner to look upon us as an object of desire and great worth, and that we can be the god or goddess to them. When two human beings merge and lose themselves in each other– there can be moments of transcendence which pass all understanding and attempts to talk about them.

So, some lust is just. Some lust is fine, good, and in any event, that’s they way life is. Appetites, in general are not bad. Some lust is just, but some lust is just lust– that is it is only lust, what looks like an attractive package turns out to be an empty bottle with an instant hangover.

Mostly we seek moderation in all things– halting anger before it becomes murder; circumventing envy & greed before it poisons gratitude; avoiding gluttony to head off disease & early death.

And for many of us, one or more of the seven deadly sins is much harder to deal with than the others. As an adolescent, pride wasn't much of an issue for me, since I was surrounded by those of quick-wit; being a glutton was boring, and so on. But all of us have to come to terms with lust at some point in our lives. For many of us, the first time lust plays a big part in our life is at puberty.

It is pretty tough when you are going through puberty. It is then that we learning new meanings for old things. Our hymnal quotes Kahlil Gibran as saying we do not own our children– they are life's longing for itself. That's a great phrase: life's longing for itself. We may strive to think with our intellectual apparatus most of the time, but there can be times when we think with something else.

We are reminded that we are an animal– a human animal– but an animal which yearns to be part of life's longing for itself.

One slightly warm day, many years ago, and the year before my parents divorced, my father decided to take our family to a nude beach. It was to be our family and another couple from his work. We were on a sabbatical year in Palo Alto, California. And this couple was a physics couple, meaning that they guy part of the couple was a physicist like my dad..

This was in the mid-1970s. So we went to this California nude beach. Everyone had their clothes off except my mother. She went along, but reluctantly. My younger brother and sister and me were skinny as reeds, as was my dad and the guy of the physics couple.

However, the lady of the physics couple was very shapely, very well endowed. My eighth grade boy’s body instantly responded to that shapely woman, and being a nude beach, and me being nude, I quickly realized I had something to hide.

So, I had to lay down on my stomach for a half an hour. I tried not looking around but I couldn’t help it. Finally, I dove into the ice cold ocean hoping that would take care of things, but if you’re a young man and your body has been very warm, and you jump into a very cold ocean, well– you discover new, unpleasant sensations.

There's no question my teenage self desired that woman. If an invitation had been extended to me in the right circumstances, and if I hadn't been otherwise petrified with fear, I would not have had the psychological structure to resist her. This is one of the reasons we have age of consent laws, because we recognize that before a certain age, we can't really give our informed consent.

Was I experiencing Lust on that California nude beach? Or was it simply desire? What’s the difference?

If we go with the Catholic Encyclopedia definition of lust– which is "the inordinate craving for, or indulgence of, the carnal pleasure," then I'm not sure that would have applied to my teenage self. The sexual desire a young heterosexual man would feel in the situation of being close to and in full view of a naked, sexually desirable woman would be normal, not inordinate– which means excessive.

Remember, nature endows most of us with the capacity to produce children after about the age of 13. This is probably the reason for marking this time with coming of age ceremonies in various cultures.

The Jews have the bar mitzvah for boys and the bat mitzvah for girls. It's a way of reminding the adults– oh yeah, these "children" are now at an age where they can make children of their own!

World religions have different things to say about lust.

"Greek myths abound in stories of lust and sexual jealousy. There are all the stories of Zeus turning himself into a satyr, a shepherd, a bull, a swan, a golden shower for the purposes of seduction.

Early philosophers thought lust was voluntary and could be overcome by reason.

The Hebrew bible's sexual prohibitions mainly have to do with property rights, preserving ritual purity and avoiding the orgies of the Canaanites. Still, there is the Song of Solomon and that line from Proverbs....."May her breasts satisfy you always" (Proverbs 5:19).

The King James Bible says:

"For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." King James Bible, Galatians 5:17.

Roman Catholic theologians said the sexual impulse was evil: even heterosexual intercourse between spouses was impure.

And we are reminded that "lust," according to the Talmud, is a "small organ which when constantly fed is hungry but when deprived is full." (132)

From the Hindu scriptures, the Bhagavad-Gita, we get: Hell has three gates: lust, anger, and greed. In Buddhism, the three roots of evil are lust, hatred, and delusion.

Some religions say the seven deadly sins are to be avoided all the time at all costs.

What does Unitarian Universalism have to say? I think our religions says: moderation. Some lust is just lust and nothing more. Other lust– that which naturally arises in an ethically coherent manner– is fine, it is dandy, it is sweeter than candy.

I think we have to say that some lust is just, other lust is only lust, and there is damaging lust, too. When lust becomes dehumanizing or worse.

Unitarian Universalists have the Our Whole Lives curriculum. When I was a youth, I went through an earlier version of this. So as a young UU I grew up without the idea that sex was sinful and inherently bad. Gays and lesbians were okay just as they were. Those two things alone made my education about sex through my church very, very different than all the other kids I knew who went to other kinds of churches.

Here at Eliot, Reverend Bonnie and Tim Gardner have a 4 hour class on Sundays through March with 25 teenagers. Can you imagine talking about sex with 25 junior high kids for 4 hours? Giggling, and blushing, and words not normally used in polite conversation, and Omigod!

Yes, we are animals after all, despite our clothing, our good manners, our commitment to peace & justice, and everything else. There is something deep inside us that wants to bark at the moon– and more.

Some animals take life long lovers– ducks mate for life. Others are less choosy. As I understand it, Squid have underwater orgies. I guess that makes up for having to be a squid.

Has the nature of lust changed over the years? The sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s changed what society thought of as acceptable sexual behavior. Then came AIDs which changed things again. There are some folks now who say it is okay to be polyamorous.

According to one source, (http://www.polyamorysociety.org/page6.html):

"Polyamory is the non-possessive, honest, responsible and ethical philosophy and practice of loving multiple people simultaneously. Polyamory emphasizes consciously choosing how many partners one wishes to be involved with rather than accepting social norms which dictate loving only one person at a time."

You may be interested to know that this is an issue for some Unitarians because there is a UU affiliate group for poly people and apparently some poly UU ministerial candidates have come before the UU Ministerial Fellowship Committee in order to be accepted as UU ministers.

Some UUs see polyamory as a good thing. They think the idea of people who want to love multiple people simultaneously makes sense, providing these people take responsibility, and are honest and ethical in their dealings with one another.

Other UUs see polyamory as an excuse for institutionalizing lust.

Some who are allies in the gay, lesbian, and transgender community see polyamory as a political hot potato because those who fear gay union or wedding ceremonies will say– what's next? Multiple partners?

For myself, I am reminded of the King of Bhutan. A story came out this week about him. He is a dedicated smoker whose largely Buddhist country has banned the sale of all tobacco products. "King Jigme Singye Wangchuck said he wanted to give up the vice, but found it too difficult. He said his four wives were nagging him to stop" (The Week, 2/11/2005, 6).

Now, I'm not saying I have ever experienced a nagging spouse. I certainly would not say that, but if a person has ever experienced one nagging spouse, they sure as shooting wouldn't want to experience four spouses simultaneously nagging them, of that I am quite sure.

During puberty or thereafter, there may come a time when we– at least for young men I think– are consumed with lust. Anything seems possible.

At a certain age, we sympathize with Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman when he said: "My sexuality struck me like a clap of thunder, incomprehensible, hostile, and tormenting" (The Magic Lantern, Joan Tate, tr.)

We should make no apology for it, it simply is the way things are. We experience an inordinate craving for carnal pleasure. It may be excessive but it is in our nature, it courses through our veins, it keeps us up at night. This is just part of our genetics.

There is an old TV program some of you will remember called Star Trek. I'm talking about the original one with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. And in this program was a space alien from the planet Vulcan. And his name was Mr. Spock.

And Mr. Spock was of a race that was known for its almost exclusive preoccupation with the intellectual. These people played 3-dimensional chess, they spent time thinking great thoughts. They avoided emotional display of any kind.

But every 7 years or so, the story goes, a Vulcan undergoes pon farr, the time of mating, which consists of "an extreme and erratic physical and psychological imbalance, which can be fatal if the mating ritual is not carried out." (Retrieved on February 10, 2005 from http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/library/science/article/2238.html).

I have to tell you– that as an adolescent male– that was exactly how it felt: I was undergoing pon farr, an extreme and erratic physical and psychological imbalance, which could be fatal if the mating ritual was not carried out.

Surprisingly, as a young man encountering these almost overpowering feelings the first time, despite the fact that the ritual wasn't carried out, I didn't die– but it sure felt as if I would.

So on the one hand, we have life's longing for itself boiling our brains, at times inducing a kind of trance to which little else can enter or exit. But on the other hand, we must live with the consequences of our actions, and stay in control of our animal impulses– strange and strong as they may be. Because people who can't or won't control their animal impulses end up dead, or in prison, or hurting themselves or people they care about.

The summer before my senior year in high school, I went to a youth conference in Michigan in August. I had a steady girlfriend of almost a year, who because of traveling, I hadn't seen for a long time.

One day at the conference, I was walking back from a workshop with a couple other kids, and one by one, they dropped off to go to their cabins before dinner time. Finally, it was just me and this girl I had noticed, maybe flirted with a little. She stopped and looked at me for a moment.

I realized we were alone and we were half way between one end of the camp and the other, and not all that close to any building or people. And she said something to me. I don't remember the words exactly after all these years, but the way she began talking, it was as if she didn't need any actual words.

My body responded. It was as if I had been hit from behind with a pon farr stick. My body had aa mind of its own. My body knew what her body was saying– even if she hadn't spoken in English.

Her words came tumbling out. She too, seemed to be gripped with pon farr. She said that she was attracted to me, that she wanted to "get together with me right then and there in the tall grass," and that my girlfriend would never have to know.

Instantly, I was enslaved. My body sent the unmistakable signal that I would die if the ritual was not carried out. I was apparently incapable of thinking rationally, I couldn't really hear or see anything but her. Whamo!

Afterwords, I felt guilty. To relieve my guilt, I told my best friend about it. This was a big mistake.

It turned out he lusted after my girlfriend, so he told me he didn't think he could prevent himself from telling my girlfriend what I had just shared with him.

Until that time in my life, it had never occurred to me to say "no" to a woman who desired me. I suppose I expected the women to set the boundaries on my advances to them. I was far more familiar with Woody Allen's line: I want to tell you a terrific story about oral contraception. I asked this girl to sleep with me and she said "no."

Frankly, it wasn't something we teenage boys thought about– all the women we might turn down. It didn't enter my head until that moment, that I was the one who had to be responsible for my own sexuality. It didn't occur to me until that summer that lust could ruin your relationships or your life.

Mostly I learned my lesson. Of course, there was that time in college where I woke up and wanted to flee in terror. I wanted to saw my arm off in order to avoid waking the woman sleeping on it.

But we make mistakes, and then we try and do better the next time. Petronius Arbiter of the 1^st century CE said, Delight of lust is gross and brief / And weariness treads on desire.

In other words, Lust is short lived. The morning after is seldom pleasant. If lust doesn’t travel with love or affection, it has a pretty short half-life. It is either consummated or it isn't.

Lust is an attractive flower, but it is not rooted in soil. It may be beckoning to us from a crystal vase, exuding its hypnotizing scent, but it's life is short. Eventually, it must either be transformed into something deeper or it will die.

One of the things that came up when we were doing the Welcoming Congregation program in Danbury, Connecticut was someone made a comment about how they thought all gay men were interested in was sex, and multiple sexual partners. They were surprised to find out some gay men had been part of a couple for 14 years or longer. What did that mean?

And one man said it meant he wanted to be with someone who "knew him when." Someone who was more of a soul mate than just a bed mate; someone who had been with him for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health, in gladness and in sadness.

Relationships based only on lust never last long enough for those things. But sometimes carnal desire leads us to a soul mate we might otherwise not have found.

You may be interested to know that this is supported in the Jewish scriptures. According to one commentary, on the Sabbath, Jews are expected to

Go to synagogue and read the Torah. But the holiness of the Sabbath is also made manifest in the joy people expect to experience on that day. It is a good deed for married couples to have sexual intercourse on Shabbat.

So there you have it. Committed couples, you have your spiritual homework all cut out for you. And for those of you not yet committed, well I have it on good authority that a church is one of the best places to meet a like minded person. Alleluia and Amen!

For the Earth Forever Turning, #163

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