On chastity

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/09/08/im-a-32-year-old-virgin-and-im-living-the-feminist-dream/

I’m a 32-year-old virgin, and I’m living the feminist dream

By Kate Bryan

September 8

Kate Bryan, the author of this piece, believes in waiting for marriage to have sex. (Courtesy of Kate Bryan)

My name is Kate. I’m 32 years old. I’ve never had sex.

When I was young, I always imagined I would be married by 25 and have a brood of kids. Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew to “make disciples,” and I thought it would be cool to take that verse literally and have 12 kids. I wanted enough kids to fill a baseball team, a hockey bench and a big house full of love.

That obviously didn’t happen. Or it hasn’t happened yet. But I love my life. I spent last weekend learning how to scull on the Potomac River. I have good friends, a great family, hobbies and one of the best jobs I’ve ever had.

Do I feel a void because I’m not married and I don’t have children yet? Sure. Do I wish I were having sex? Of course. 

But I believe that I’m living a fuller, better life because of my commitment to sexual integrity. I spend all day, every day doing the things that I want to do, because I’m not wasting my time worrying about waking up next to a stranger, contracting a sexually transmitted infection or missing a period.

The truth is, I am able to live the feminist dream because I’m not stressing over the things that sex outside of marriage often brings. And I’m not alone.

The sex lives of millennials

A recent study in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior showed that young people — specifically millennials – are now more than twice as likely to be sexually inactive than the previous generation. Although there are many possible causes for this shift, it’s quite reasonable to believe that this generation doesn’t want the stresses that sex outside of marriage brings — unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, to name a few.

Maybe they realize that a condom doesn’t protect the heart, and that true love is something worth waiting for and fighting for.

Celibacy and chastity, as I have come to understand as a Catholic, are virtues that are practiced with a purpose. Chastity isn’t simply the restraining of one’s desires, nor is it something you just practice before marriage and then disregard after the wedding. Chastity is a lifestyle, centered on freedom and love, that challenges all people to love themselves and to love others in the most perfect way possible.

As a teenager, I read Joshua Harris’s book “I Kissed Dating Goodbye.” I was enthralled by the view of purity that Harris proposed and decided I would save every act of affection, including kissing, until my wedding day.

Then when this interpretation of chastity was challenged in a “Christian Marriage” course I took in college, I began to understand that chastity goes much deeper than a long list of do’s and don’ts. I started researching the topic in more depth. The result was my college thesis, “Chastity in the Modern World and the Fulfillment of Chastity Within the Catholic Church.”

My thesis was based on the book “Love and Responsibility” by Karol Wojtyla, who would later become Saint John Paul II. In this book, Wojtyla explained that every human being is a sexual being, but that we’re also rational — which means we don’t have to be mastered by our physical desires.

In the case of the single person, chastity does mean not having sex before marriage, but it also means striving toward the perfection of love. We must all aim to love ourselves and to love others in the most perfect way possible — this is chastity in its fullness.

Virtues, including chastity, must be practiced like a new sport or skill. I didn’t just decide to be a master rower and naturally row down the Potomac. I took an intense sculling course and then spent hours upon hours practicing on the water — and I’m still only in the beginner stages. There wasn’t a single Olympian who simply showed up in Rio and won gold. Like sports, virtue takes practice, failure and perseverance.

With chastity, there are days you will struggle and fail. Some days, it will seem simply impossible. But you must always remain faithful and persevere, especially in the difficult moments.

As a Christian, I believe that all things are possible with God, and that has been the bedrock of my journey with chastity. I’ve also surrounded myself with good friends who support me and my beliefs, which has made my journey easier.

While I didn’t get my early marriage or my 12 kids or my big house with a white picket fence, my commitment to sexual integrity has allowed me the freedom to live the life that I want. I am living the life that feminists throughout history fought for.

Through the virtue of chastity — true freedom and the perfection of love — I am living the feminist dream.

Kate Bryan is a writer in Washington, D.C., who has worked for conservative and anti-abortion organizations. Follow her on Twitter @katembryan.

Are bikinis immodest?

This was an interesting video.  I remember something from a sociology class, or maybe somewhere else, I just don't remember where, about objectification of women.  It's fascinating that when men are showed pictures of women in bikinis, they are more likely to view them as objects than as persons, as compared to women in modest bathing suits.  I'd like to find this guy's article on the subject...

The youtube page had a link to a site on chastity, called (coincidentally) http://www.chastity.com/

This was a favorite on the mission. As I re-read it, I don't know how much is applicable to non-missionaries, but I still love the message.

Lock Your Heart

Elder Spencer W. Kimball
Latin American Mission Tour, 1968

 
If there are problems in the mission that you can give me light on so that I can help your President and help you, that's what I'd like. if there are situations that are difficult, if there are problems that are unknown - let me give you one example:

In one of the missions I found a bad situation. One or two missionaries had been breaking rules (as the President has talked about this morning). They began to break some rules. All they did was go over to a certain home every Sunday night for a dinner. The President didn't know anything about it. It wasn't very serious; they should have been home studying, but it was a regular thing every week. After a little while these missionaries were bringing others and pretty soon they were dancing on Sunday night, a few of them. Then they were doing a little flirting and then a few of them  got to playing cards there every Sunday night. And then they were dancing in the dark with some of the Saint's girls!

The next thing we knew there was an excommunication. I came there and the things were revealed. I found that where there was only one boy who had actually gone to the extreme where he had to be excommunicated, there were about eighteen missionaries in this area who had followed like sheep over the ledge. They had not intended to do anything wrong, but they had just kind of followed the leadership. They had gone there to the meals - and they had gotten into little flirtations - not too deeply, but the thing is that there were eighteen missionaries who knew that this boy had gone too far. They knew that he was necking and petting but not one of them would ever tell! When I interviewed them and visited with them I said, "Why didn't you tell the President that conditions were bad?" One of them said, "Well, That's none of my business! This Elder can do as he pleases! If he wants to wreck his mission, that's okay with me, it's his business, it's his mission! If he wants to ruin his life that's up to him. It's his-life!!"

And then I said to these Elders, "Well what about your missions? Isn't this your mission, too? Isn't this your church, too? Are you willing that one person nullify all that you've done here? You've spent 20 months down here, Elder, and you have been working reasonably hard and at times you have done remarkably good work. Are you willing that one scandal - one scandal in this out-of-the-world place - will neutralize all that you've done? All of your efforts? That's what happens! Are you willing to do that?" He said, "Well I hadn't thought of it like that."   Well, but that's what happened, isn't it, Elders? This is your mission!  This is your Church! One scandal in a community is enough to annihilate the work of all of you, maybe all the work you do cumulatively- for all your two years - neutralized by one scandal in the community! Do you think that you have a loyalty? Where are your loyalties? Are you loyal to yourself? Are you loyal-to your companion? Are you willing to let him go on, and on, and on, and on, until he breaks his neck?

When he was excommunicated it was a sad day in that mission because he was a fine young man and all the missionaries loved him, and some of them were weeping that day. I remember! Some of them were weeping tears! Their brother was being excommunicated from the Church and sent home in disgrace!

And then I said to them, "Elders! Do you know who excommunicated this boy? Not me; not your President; not the Elder's court. It was you!! You excommunicated your brother! How? Well, if you'd have said, 'Elder, lets  not do that! That disturbs our whole program. We lose spirituality, all of us, when things like this happen.' Now suppose that he didn't yield and you said to him again, 'Elder, you shouldn't do that! We can't be doing those kinds of things!' And then suppose you'd gone a third time and said, 'Elder, I'm sorry, if you don't desist I'm going to have to report to the Mission President because I'm not going to have you destroy my work! I've worked too hard to have it all go to the wind! I'm going to tell the President, not as a tattletale, but I'm going to report to the President so that he can protect the whole program, if you don't desist!'"

You see there is nothing ugly about that, is there? That's the way it should be because our loyalty is first to the Lord, to the Church, to the mission, to the World, isn't it?

One more little incident that is connected: In one United States mission one day a neighbor came into the home of a new member. The neighbor was not a member, but she came and she was used to just walking in through the door- you know, she didn't always knock! So she came over to this home this day and she saw her friend, the Latter-day Saint sister, sitting on a chair here and an Elder at her feet- this will shock you- trimming her toe-nails or painting her toe-nails, or something! Well, now that isn't an unpardonable sin, but it was indiscreet, wasn't it? Even if there was nothing else that happened, just the fact that he was sitting on the floor and that he didn't have on his tie and coat, and here was a woman partly dressed, and here he was painting her toe-nails or doing something! Anyway. that city was closed, absolutely closed to missionary work for 20 years! Do you think missionaries could go in that city? Why of course they couldn't! Because there was still the memory of this indiscretion! They hadn't committed sin; at least, I'm quite sure he had never committed immorality. I think it wasn't any more than an ugly indiscretion. It was ugly enough, wasn't it? It was what it led to, you see?

That's why I say this mission belongs to you. There are 150 of you and this mission belongs to all of you. If anything happens to any part of this mission it gets a black eye! It makes it more difficult to do anything! And it makes it more difficult for you to go into the homes where they have heard ugly things about the Church. That's why one Elder isn't by himself. He can't be a loner, He has got to fit into the program, hasn't he? And everyone of you is interested. Everyone!! And you can't afford to let your companion, or anyone you know, do anything very serious because it all brings trouble to you and to the whole program, Well, think about that a little, because some people say, "I'm not going to be a stool pigeon! I'm not going to tattle! I'm not going to be telling on people!" It isn't that at all! It's a reporting just like if you saw a couple of robbers going into your neighbor's home. Would you say, "Well, it's up to them! It's up to my neighbors!" No! ! We'd become involved! We'd rush to the telephone, we'd call the police! In every case, wouldn't we?

If we saw somebody being injured, being killed - like in New York sometime ago, a girl was stabbed and cut all to pieces by some maniac, and there were many people who saw it and did nothing about it! She yelled for help, screamed for help, said, "He's killing me!!" But nobody would move!  They didn't even call the police and there she lay, finally dead, on the street! Nobody would involve themselves. It's time we would begin to get involved when involvement is proper. And when any missionary in any mission begins to break mission rules, it's time that all his companions should become involved! It doesn't mean that they take over. It doesn't mean that they get ugly and mean. It just means that they are interested and involved. There is a nice way to do it! I tell you there wouldn't be very many broken rules if one missionary would just say to the other, "Brother, lets not do that! Let's don't do that! 'Let's don't stand there and talk to those girls! That isn't good!"  And if we stop it when it's fresh - when it's young you can stop it - but when it gets deeply entrenched, that sin is awfully hard to dig out. And many times we have to send missionaries home to their families in disgrace, with excommunication frequently, because maybe their companions didn't love them enough! Maybe their companions weren't helpful enough to say, "Well, now, you're getting off the line just a little here! Let's don't do that! Let's get busy and do this, and this, and this!"

This is one program and we are all concerned about it. These mission rules, you see, are very important. We've had 137 years of experience. Now that ought to be enough experience to prove something, shouldn't it?

Through 137 years we have come to the conclusion that if two people will stay together the chances for sin or serious trouble are reduced about 98%. Once in a great while two companions will both go sour at the same time, but it isn't the usual thing. If missionaries will, when they leave Salt Lake City, the Mission Home - the day they are set apart - if they will just lock their hearts! If they've got a girl in there that's all right, lock her in! But if you haven't got one in, then lock it against all other girls of every description! And the same applies for young women, too. I am talking mainly to you Elders. You lock your heart and leave the key at home. And you never open it here! It's impossible to fall in love with someone unless you open your heart! Your heart is the only organ that has any ability to get into love, you see, and when a missionary says, "I just fell in love with a girl!" Well, that's as silly as it can be! Nobody does, nobody ever did!

So we just don't fall in love unless we are fooling around. We never fall in a crater unless we are somewhere near the edge of it. I have been up to Vesuvius and on a number of craters and volcanoes and I know you just don't ever fall in a crater, unless you are on the edge of it. And so you just keep your hearts locked! I said lock them in Salt Lake when you leave the Mission Home and don't give a thought to it. But if you go around say, "Well, she is kind of a pretty girl! She surely is a sweet little thing! She's a nice girl! I'd like to talk to her- I'd just like to visit with her!" Well, you are in for trouble and that trouble can bring you a lifetime of trouble and a lifetime of regrets if you continue on with it.

So, can I impress that again? LOCK YOUR HEARTS and leave the key at home! Wherever you live, leave the key home with your folks. And your heart - it's only that part of it that deals with people generally that you open up. We just can't tolerate it, can we? We can't individually; we can't totally. Someone said, "Well, is there any harm to marry a Mexican girl if you are working in Mexico! "No, that isn't any crime, but it proves that some missionary has had his heart open! He has unlocked it! Is it wrong to marry a German girl when you have been on a German mission? Why no, there is no crime in that, if you met her some other way. But when you meet her in the mission field and you have opened your heart, I tell you it isn't right, and you have shortchanged your mission! Just keep your hearts locked. Your whole thought should be missionary work. How can I make it more plain and more important than that? I'd like to because there is no reason whatever for any missionary to ever become involved, not even in a decent way, with any girl in the mission field. It isn't the place! You guaranteed, you promised! You went through the Temple! You remember what you did in the Temple? Remember you promised you'd do all the things the brethren request of you, to live the commandments. That's one of the commandments when you go into the mission field: "Thou shalt not flirt! Thou shalt not associate with young women in the mission field - or anyone else for that matter - on any other basis than the proselyting basis." You promised, and you would not want to break a promise you made before the Lord in the Holy Temple of the Lord. And when you wrote, the letter of acceptance to President McKay that was implied in it. You knew of course - every missionary knows - that he isn't going out to court, that he isn't going out to find a wife! He's got plenty of opportunity when he gets home, and the mission field isn't the place.

Sometimes we find a young man who has not been popular at home; he has been very, very backward at home and he hasn't had many dates. So when he gets out into the mission field and somebody flatters him a little- some girl shows a lot of interest in him - why he's flattered. He thinks all at once, "Well, that's whom I should marry!" Well, I say this once more by repetition and for emphasis, you LOCK YOUR HEARTS and if you haven't done so, do it now and send the key back! You will not permit any impression, no romantic thought or impression in your mind. For two years you have given yourself to the Lord, totally, to teach the Gospel to the world.  When you have done this perfectly for two years and then you go home, you are infinitely more attractive, more able, more dignified, more mature to make those important decisions for your life in the matter of personages to enjoy eternity with you.

Well, I didn't intend to get on to that, either, but I've been on it, and I hope I have not been offensive in it at all. I hope you got the spirit of it. Should you know of any problems that are aborning, problems that are beginning to develop, some missionary who is getting off the track, some group that is getting a little careless about mission rules, you can talk to them in a sweet kindly way. If they persist, then there is something else to do and you have a loyalty to it.

God bless you missionaries and I hope to visit with you a little longer later.

Virtue

A quote from this talk appeared in my "Gems" email this morning, and I pulled up the talk and read it. Sister Dalton does a remarkable job explaining virtue and chastity.  I loved it. 

Come Let Us Go Up to the Mountain of the Lord

Elaine S. Dalton Young Women General President

Elaine S. Dalton, “Come Let Us Go Up to the Mountain of the Lord,” Ensign, May 2009, 120–23

Your personal virtue will … enable you to make the decisions that will help you be worthy to enter the temple.

One of the most frequent questions I am asked is, “How does a mother of five sons and only one daughter qualify to be the Young Women general president?” My reply is always the same: “It’s because I have one perfect daughter, and I know all the boy secrets!” Tonight my sons have given me permission to reveal one of those secrets to you. It is this: virtuous young men are attracted to virtuous young women.

Before young men go on their missions, if you asked them the number one quality they were looking for in a young woman, they might mention a quality that is based on worldly standards, like looks. But after two years in the mission field, these same young men return home, and they have changed—their focus has changed—and the number one quality they are looking for in an eternal companion changed without your even knowing it! A virtuous returned missionary is attracted to a virtuous young woman—one who has a testimony of Jesus Christ and is committed to a life of purity.

What has caused this mighty change of heart? These young men understand their identity and role in the plan of happiness. They have purified their lives so that they can be guided by the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. They are worthy to enter the Lord’s holy temples. They are virtuous. No wonder the scriptures tell us to “add to [our] faith virtue” (2 Peter 1:5). For it is true: “virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light” (D&C 88:40). Just as Paul advised his young friend Timothy to be “an example of the believers … in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12), tonight I would like to echo Paul’s words to you, for virtue is purity.

As you remember, almost one year ago our presidency climbed a mountain and unfurled a gold banner calling for “a return to virtue.” We called for young women and women across the world to arise and shine forth as a standard to the nations (see D&C 115:5). As a result, the value of virtue has been added to the Young Women theme and to Personal Progress so that it may be “written in [your] hearts” (Romans 2:15). This is an addition for you and your day that has been inspired by the words and teachings of prophets, seers, and revelators. President Boyd K. Packer has said that “nothing in the history of the Church or in the history of the world … compare[s] with our present circumstances. Nothing … exceeds in wickedness and depravity that which surrounds us now” (“The One Pure Defense” [address to CES religious educators, Feb. 6, 2004], 4). Never before has there been a greater need for virtue and purity in the world.

The value of virtue has been given a symbolic color, like the other values. The color of virtue is gold because gold is pure. It shines. It is soft, not harsh or brash. It is precious. Gold must be refined. As you live a pure and virtuous life, you will be refined by your life’s experiences, and as you “trust in the Lord” (Proverbs 3:5) and draw closer to Him, He will “make [your] hearts as gold” (Roger Hoffman, “Consider the Lilies”).

What does it mean to return to virtue? We are calling for a return to moral purity and chastity. Virtue is purity. Virtue is chastity. The word virtue has also been defined as “integrity and moral excellence, power and strength” (Guide to the Scriptures, “Virtue,” at scriptures.lds.org; see also Luke 8:46). The core of a virtuous life is sexual purity, and yet this definition has almost been erased by the world. The prophet Mormon taught that chastity and virtue are “most dear and precious above all things” (Moroni 9:9). They go together. You cannot have one without the other, and “we believe in being … virtuous” (Articles of Faith 1:13).

In order to be virtuous and remain virtuous, you must be true to your divine identity and establish patterns of thought and behavior based on high moral standards (see Preach My Gospel [2004], 118–19). These standards are eternal, and they do not change. They have been taught by prophets of God. In a world filled with relative truth, the Lord’s standards are absolute. They are given to each of us to keep us on the path leading back to the presence of our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.

In Doctrine and Covenants section 25, the Lord counsels each of His beloved daughters, you and me, to “walk in the paths of virtue” (v. 2). You are not common. You are not ordinary. You are daughters of God. You carry within yourselves the sacred power to create life. It is one of God’s greatest gifts to His precious daughters, and you must safeguard that power by living the standards and remaining virtuous. You must safeguard your power through purity of thought and action. By so doing, you, your family, and the generations that follow will be strengthened and blessed. President Brigham Young taught that “the strength of Zion is in the virtue of her sons and daughters” (Letters of Brigham Young to His Sons, ed. Dean C. Jesse [1974], 221).

You must guard your own virtue and help others rise to the divinity that is within. In every sense, you are a guardian of virtue. President David O. McKay taught that “a woman should be queen of her own body” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1952, 86). “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). My question to each of you is, If we don’t stand for virtue, who will?

Recently I heard of a group of young women in Peru who climbed a mountain and unfurled their banner to the world. Another group of Young Women and their leaders in Virginia wrote their testimonies and, like those in Peru, unfurled their banners to the world. I have received pictures of so many of you from California to Costa Rica who have made a commitment to remain virtuous and who are leading the world in a return to virtue.

When I was a young woman, my Young Women leaders had each of us choose a symbol that would represent the life that we would live and what we would strive to become as daughters of God. We then stitched these symbols onto our bandlos—which were fabric sashes that we wore. These bandlos were our personal banners to the world! I chose the symbol of a white rose because roses become more and more beautiful as they grow and blossom, and I chose the color white for purity. I encourage each of you to ponder what your personal banner would be if you could give one message to the world.

A few years ago my daughter and I, along with two other friends, were backpacking in the Teton Range. Looking for an adventure, we asked the ranger if there was a path that not very many people knew about. He told us about a trail-less hike that would take us through meadows, streams, boulder fields, then to a pristine lake, and eventually to our destination—The Wall. We were in! He gave us instructions on the basic directions and said, “Stay high on the mountain. Don’t go down in the willows because that is where the bears are; watch for the cairns that will show you the way.” Cairns are rocks stacked on top of each other to form an eco-friendly trail marker.

We began early the next morning. For a time we were down in the willows, which made me very nervous. Then we saw our first cairn up on the side of the hill, and we went to it. We hiked from cairn to cairn. At times it seemed we were lost because we would go so long without seeing another cairn, but then to our relief we would see one again and all was well. We reached a huge field of boulders and had to hoist each other and our packs to the top of each boulder. This was challenging, but by evening we reached the beautiful pristine lake. This is where we pitched our tents. We had exquisite views in every direction. The strenuous hike was worth it!

Early the next morning, however, I awoke to the sound of howling wind. A fog had descended on the lake, making it almost impossible to see in any direction. We packed our tents and sleeping bags and started out navigating around the lake, beginning our ascent to our destination, The Wall. I was never so happy as to arrive at The Wall—in fact, we all were! We went up to the huge granite wall and kissed it! We had arrived.

As I stand before you this evening and call upon the young women of the Church to arise in a return to virtue, I say, in the words of Isaiah, “Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, … and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths” (Isaiah 2:3). The path of virtue is “less traveled” (see “The Road Not Taken,” in The Poetry of Robert Frost, ed. Edward Connery Lathem [1969], 105); it will take us through life’s meadows and streams and pristine lakes—and even boulder fields! We will need to lift and hoist each other up! The path may be strenuous, but if we are willing, the rewards will be eternal.

As you climb, don’t allow yourself to descend into the willows. Stay high on the mountain. You are God’s precious daughters! Because of the knowledge of our divine identity, everything must be different for us: our dress, our language, our priorities, and our focus. We must not seek guidance from the world, and if our true identity has been clouded by mistakes or sins, we can change. We can turn around and repent and return to virtue. We can climb above the willows. The Savior’s Atonement is for you and for me. He invites each of us to come unto Him.

As you live a virtuous life, you will have the confidence, power, and strength necessary to climb. You will also be blessed with the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. Follow the promptings that you receive. Act upon them. Like the cairns on a trail less traveled, the Holy Ghost will show you all things you should do (see 2 Nephi 32:5). He will teach and testify of Christ, who has “marked the path and led the way” (“How Great the Wisdom and the Love,” Hymns, no. 195).

Your personal virtue will not only enable you to have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, but it will also enable you to make the decisions that will help you be worthy to enter the temple and there make and keep sacred covenants and receive the blessings of exaltation. Prepare yourselves spiritually, and qualify to enter into our Heavenly Father’s presence. Prepare now for the temple, the mountain of the Lord. Never allow the goal of the temple to be out of your sight. Walk into His presence in purity and virtue, and receive His blessings—even “all that he hath” (Luke 12:44). Within His holy house you will be cleansed, taught, and endowed with power, and His “angels [will] have charge over [you]” (D&C 109:22).

We must know and realize that, just as Winston Churchill said in a critical hour during World War II, “to every man [and young woman] there comes … that special moment when [they are] figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a special thing unique to [them]. … What a tragedy if that moment finds [them] unprepared or unqualified for [that] which [could have been their] finest hour” (see Jeffrey R. Holland, “Sanctify Yourselves,” Liahona, Jan. 2001, 49; Ensign, Nov. 2000, 40). This is a critical time. You are being tapped on the shoulder. You are preparing now for that work which will be your finest hour. You are preparing for eternity.

Last year when I was called to be the Young Women general president, as I was leaving President Monson’s office, he reached over to a bouquet of white roses, took one from the vase, and handed it to me. The moment he handed me that beautiful white rose, I knew why. I went back to the time when, as a young woman, I chose the white rose as my symbol of purity—my personal banner. How did President Monson know? I took that precious rose home, put it in a beautiful crystal vase, and placed it on a table where I could see it every day. Every day that rose reminded me of the importance of my own personal purity and virtue, and it reminded me of you. As you grow and blossom, your personal purity will enable you to become a force for good and an influence for righteousness in the world. I truly believe that one virtuous young woman, led by the Spirit, can change the world.

May this be your goal and heart’s desire. May you be blessed as you strive to remain virtuous is my prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

This talk is perhaps the greatest talk ever with respect to human intimacy.  Elder Holland, who was President of BYU at the time, and he provides a marvelous insight that the act of intimacy between a husband and wife is a type of sacrament.  He gave a version of the talk again in conference, but this one is the best.

Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments

by Jeffrey R. Holland

Jeffrey R. Holland was president of Brigham Young University when this devotional address was delivered on 12 January 1988 in the Marriott Center.

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©1989 by Brigham Young University. All rights reserved.

For further information write Speeches, 218 University Press Building, Provo, Utah 84602.
(801) 378-4711
E-mail:speeches@byu.edu

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This responsibility to speak to you never gets any easier for me. I think it gets more difficult as the years go by. I grow a little older, the world and its litany of problems get a little more complex, and your hopes and dreams become evermore important to me the longer I am at BYU. Indeed, your growth and happiness and development in the life you are now living and in the life you will be living in the days and decades ahead are the central and most compelling motivation in my daily professional life. I care very much about you now and forever. Everything I know to do at BYU is being done with an eye toward who and what you are, and who and what you can become. The future of this world's history will be quite fully in your hands very soon--at least your portion of it will be--and an education at an institution sponsored and guided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the greatest academic advantage I can imagine in preparation for such a serious and significant responsibility.

But that future, at least any qualitative aspect of it, must be vigorously fought for. It won't "just happen" to your advantage. Someone said once that the future is waiting to be seized, and if we do not grasp it firmly, then other hands, more determined and bloody than our own, will wrench it from us and follow a different course.

It is with an eye to that future--your future--and an awareness of this immense sense of responsibility I feel for you, that I approach this annual midyear devotional message. I always need the help and sustaining Spirit of the Lord to succeed at such times, but I especially feel the need for that spiritual help today.

Human Intimacy

My topic is that of human intimacy, a topic as sacred as any I know and more sacred than anything I have ever addressed from this podium. If I am not careful and you are not supportive, this subject can slide quickly from the sacred into the merely sensational, and I would be devastated if that happened. It would be better not to address the topic at all than to damage it with casualness or carelessness. Indeed, it is against such casualness and carelessness that I wish to speak. So I ask for your faith and your prayers and your respect.

You may feel this is a topic you hear addressed too frequently at this time in your life, but given the world in which we live, you may not be hearing it enough. All of the prophets, past and present, have spoken on it, and President Benson himself addressed this very subject in his annual message to this student body last fall.

I am thrilled that most of you are doing wonderfully well in the matter of personal purity. There isn't as worthy and faithful a group of university students anywhere else on the face of the earth. You are an inspiration to me. I acknowledge your devotion to the gospel and applaud it. Like Jacob of old, I would prefer for the sake of the innocent not to need to discuss such topics. But a few of you are not doing so well, and much of the world around us is not doing well at all.

The national press recently noted,

In America 3,000 adolescents become pregnant each day. A million a year. Four out of five are unmarried. More than half get abortions. "Babies having babies."[Babies] killing [babies]. ["What's Gone Wrong with Teen Sex," People,13 April 1987, p. 111]

That same national poll indicated nearly 60 percent of high school students in "mainstream" America had lost their virginity, and 80 percent of college students had. The Wall Street Journal (hardly in a class with the National Enquirer) recently wrote,

AIDS [appears to be reaching] plague[like] proportions. Even now it is claiming innocent victims: newborn babies and recipients of blood transfusions. It is only a matter of time before it becomes widespread among heterosexuals. . . .

AIDS should remind us that ours is a hostile world. . . . The more we pass ourselves around, the larger the likelihood of our picking something up. . . .

Whether on clinical or moral grounds, it seems clear that promiscuity has its price. [Wall Street Journal, 21 May 1987, p. 28]

Of course, more widespread in our society than the indulgence of personal sexual activity are the printed and photographed descriptions of those who do. Of that lustful environment a contemporary observer says,

We live in an age in which voyeurism is no longer the side line of the solitary deviate, but rather a national pastime, fully institutionalized and [circularized] in the mass media. [William F. May, quoted by Henry Fairlie, The Seven Deadly Sins Today (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978), p. 178]

In fact, the rise of civilization seems, ironically enough, to have made actual or fantasized promiscuity a greater, not a lesser, problem. Edward Gibbon, the distinguished British historian of the eighteenth century who wrote one of the most intimidating works of history in our language (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire), said simply,

Although the progress of civilisation has undoubtedly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favourable to the virtue of chastity. . . . The refinements of life [seem to] corrupt, [even as] they polish the [relationship] of the sexes. [Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 40 of Great Books of the Western World, 1952, p. 92]

I do not wish us to spend this hour documenting social problems nor wringing our hands over the dangers that such outside influences may hold for us. As serious as such contemporary realities are, I wish to discuss this topic in quite a different way, discuss it specifically for Latter-day Saints--primarily young, unmarried Latter-day Saints, even those attending Brigham Young University. So I conspicuously set aside the horrors of AIDS and national statistics on illegitimate pregnancies and speak rather to a gospel-based view of personal purity.

Indeed, I wish to do something even a bit more difficult than listing the do's and don'ts of personal purity. I wish to speak, to the best of my ability, on why we should be clean, on why moral discipline is such a significant matter in God's eyes. I know that may sound presumptuous, but a philosopher once said, tell me sufficiently why a thing should be done, and I will move heaven and earth to do it. Hoping you will feel the same way as he and fully recognizing my limitations, I wish to try to give at least a partial answer to "Why be morally clean?" I will need first to pose briefly what I see as the doctrinal seriousness of the matter before then offering just three reasons for such seriousness.

The Significance and Sanctity

May I begin with half of a nine-line poem by Robert Frost. (The other half is worth a sermon also, but it will have to wait for another day.) Here are the first four lines of Frost's "Fire and Ice."

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.

A second, less poetic but more specific opinion is offered by the writer of Proverbs:

Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?

Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? . . .

But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.

A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away. [Proverbs 6:27-33]

In getting at the doctrinal seriousness, why is this matter of sexual relationships so severe that fire is almost always the metaphor, with passion pictured vividly in flames? What is there in the potentially hurtful heat of this that leaves one's soul--or perhaps the whole world, according to Frost--destroyed, if that flame is left unchecked and those passions unrestrained? What is there in all of this that prompts Alma to warn his son Corianton that sexual transgression is "an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost" (Alma 39:5; emphasis added)?

Setting aside sins against the Holy Ghost for a moment as a special category unto themselves, it is LDS doctrine that sexual transgression is second only to murder in the Lord's list of life's most serious sins. By assigning such rank to a physical appetite so conspicuously evident in all of us, what is God trying to tell us about its place in his plan for all men and women in mortality? I submit to you he is doing precisely that--commenting about the very plan of life itself. Clearly God's greatest concerns regarding mortality are how one gets into this world and how one gets out of it. These two most important issues in our very personal and carefully supervised progress are the two issues that he as our Creator and Father and Guide wishes most to reserve to himself. These are the two matters that he has repeatedly told us he wants us never to take illegally, illicitly, unfaithfully, without sanction.

As for the taking of life, we are generally quite responsible. Most people, it seems to me, readily sense the sanctity of life and as a rule do not run up to friends, put a loaded revolver to their heads, and cavalierly pull the trigger. Furthermore, when there is a click of the hammer rather than an explosion of lead, and a possible tragedy seems to have been averted, no one in such a circumstance would be so stupid as to sigh, "Oh, good. I didn't go all the way."

No, "all the way" or not, the insanity of such action with fatal powder and steel is obvious on the face of it. Such a person running about this campus with an arsenal of loaded handguns or military weaponry aimed at fellow students would be apprehended, prosecuted, and institutionalized if in fact such a lunatic would not himself have been killed in all the pandemonium. After such a fictitious moment of horror on this campus (and you are too young to remember my college years when the sniper wasn't fictitious, killing twelve of his fellow students at the University of Texas), we would undoubtedly sit in our dorms or classrooms with terror on our minds for many months to come, wondering how such a thing could possibly happen--especially here at BYU.

No, fortunately, in the case of how life is taken, I think we seem to be quite responsible. The seriousness of that does not often have to be spelled out, and not many sermons need to be devoted to it.

But in the significance and sanctity of giving life, some of us are not so responsible, and in the larger world swirling around us we find near criminal irresponsibility. What would in the case of taking life bring absolute horror and demand grim justice, in the case of giving life brings dirty jokes and four-letter lyrics and crass carnality on the silver screen, home-owned or downtown.

Is such moral turpitude so wrong? That question has always been asked, usually by the guilty. "Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness" (Proverbs 30:20). No murder here. Well, maybe not. But sexual transgression? "He that doeth it destroyeth his own soul." Sounds near fatal to me.

So much for the doctrinal seriousness. Now, with a desire to prevent such painful moments, to avoid what Alma called the "inexpressible horror" of standing in the presence of God unworthily, and to permit the intimacy it is your right and privilege and delight to enjoy in marriage to be untainted by such crushing remorse and guilt--I wish to give those three reasons I mentioned earlier as to why I believe this is an issue of such magnitude and consequence.

The Doctrine of the Soul

First, we simply must understand the revealed, restored Latter-day Saint doctrine of the soul, and the high and inextricable part the body plays in that doctrine. One of the "plain and precious" truths restored to this dispensation is that "the spirit and the body are the soul of man" (D&C88:15; emphasis added) and that when the spirit and body are separated, men and women "cannot receive a fulness of joy" (D&C93:34). Certainly that suggests something of the reason why obtaining a body is so fundamentally important to the plan of salvation in the first place, why sin of any kind is such a serious matter (namely because its automatic consequence is death, the separation of the spirit from the body and the separation of the spirit and the body from God), and why the resurrection of the body is so central to the great abiding and eternal triumph of Christ's atonement. We do not have to be a herd of demonically possessed swine charging down the Gadarene slopes toward the sea to understand that a body is the great prize of mortal life, and that even a pig's will do for those frenzied spirits that rebelled, and to this day remain dispossessed, in their first, unembodied estate.

May I quote a 1913 sermon by Elder James E. Talmage on this doctrinal point:

We have been taught . . . to look upon these bodies of ours as gifts from God. We Latter-day Saints do not regard the body as something to be condemned, something to be abhorred. . . . We regard [the body] as the sign of our royal birthright. . . . We recognize . . . that those who kept not their first estate . . . were denied that inestimable blessing. . . . We believe that these bodies . . . may be made, in very truth, the temple of the Holy Ghost. . . .

It is peculiar to the theology of the Latter-day Saints that we regard the body as an essential part of the soul. Read your dictionaries, the lexicons, and encyclopedias, and you will find that nowhere [in Christianity], outside of the Church of Jesus Christ, is the solemn and eternal truth taught that the soul of man is the body and the spirit combined. [CR, October 1913, p. 117]

So partly in answer to why such seriousness, we answer that one toying with the God-given--and satanically coveted--body of another, toys with the very soul of that individual, toys with the central purpose and product of life, "the very key" to life, as Elder Boyd K. Packer once called it. In trivializing the soul of another (please include the word body there), we trivialize the Atonement that saved that soul and guaranteed its continued existence. And when one toys with the Son of Righteousness, the Day Star himself, one toys with white heat and a flame hotter and holier than the noonday sun. You cannot do so and not be burned. You cannot with impunity "crucify Christ afresh" (see Hebrews 6:6). Exploitation of the body (please include the word soul there) is, in the last analysis, an exploitation of him who is the Light and the Life of the world. Perhaps here Paul's warning to the Corinthians takes on newer, higher meaning:

Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. . . .

Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. . . .

Flee fornication. . . . He that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. . . .

. . . Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. [1 Corinthians 6:13-20; emphasis added]

Our soul is what's at stake here--our spirit and our body. Paul understood that doctrine of the soul every bit as well as James E. Talmage did, because it is gospel truth. The purchase price for our fullness of joy--body and spirit eternally united--is the pure and innocent blood of the Savior of this world. We cannot then say in ignorance or defiance, "Well, it's my life," or worse yet, "It's my body." It is not. "Ye are not your own," Paul said. "Ye are bought with a price." So in answer to the question, "Why does God care so much about sexual transgression?" it is partly because of the precious gift offered by and through his Only Begotten Son to redeem the souls--bodies and spirits--we too often share and abuse in cheap and tawdry ways. Christ restored the very seeds of eternal lives (see D&C132:19, 24), and we desecrate them at our peril. The first key reason for personal purity? Our very souls are involved and at stake.

A Symbol of Total Union

Second, may I suggest that human intimacy, that sacred, physical union ordained of God for a married couple, deals with a symbol that demands special sanctity. Such an act of love between a man and a woman is--or certainly was ordained to be--a symbol of total union: union of their hearts, their hopes, their lives, their love, their family, their future, their everything. It is a symbol that we try to suggest in the temple with a word like seal. The Prophet Joseph Smith once said we perhaps ought to render such a sacred bond as "welding"--that those united in matrimony and eternal families are "welded" together, inseparable if you will, to withstand the temptations of the adversary and the afflictions of mortality. (See D&C 128:18.)

But such a total, virtually unbreakable union, such an unyielding commitment between a man and a woman, can only come with the proximity and permanence afforded in a marriage covenant, with the union of all that they possess--their very hearts and minds, all their days and all their dreams. They work together, they cry together, they enjoy Brahms and Beethoven and breakfast together, they sacrifice and save and live together for all the abundance that such a totally intimate life provides such a couple. And the external symbol of that union, the physical manifestation of what is a far deeper spiritual and metaphysical bonding, is the physical blending that is part of--indeed, a most beautiful and gratifying expression of--that larger, more complete union of eternal purpose and promise.

As delicate as it is to mention in such a setting, I nevertheless trust your maturity to understand that physiologically we are created as men and women to fit together in such a union. In this ultimate physical expression of one man and one woman they are as nearly and as literally "one" as two separate physical bodies can ever be. It is in that act of ultimate physical intimacy we most nearly fulfill the commandment of the Lord given to Adam and Eve, living symbols for all married couples, when he invited them to cleave unto one another only, and thus become "one flesh" (Genesis 2:24).

Obviously, such a commandment to these two, the first husband and wife of the human family, has unlimited implications--social, cultural, and religious as well as physical--but that is exactly my point. As all couples come to that moment of bonding in mortality, it is to be just such a complete union. That commandment cannot be fulfilled, and that symbolism of "one flesh" cannot be preserved, if we hastily and guiltily and surreptitiously share intimacy in a darkened corner of a darkened hour, then just as hastily and guiltily and surreptitiously retreat to our separate worlds--not to eat or live or cry or laugh together, not to do the laundry and the dishes and the homework, not to manage a budget and pay the bills and tend the children and plan together for the future. No, we cannot do that until we are truly one--united, bound, linked, tied, welded, sealed, married.

Can you see then the moral schizophrenia that comes from pretending we are one, sharing the physical symbols and physical intimacy of our union, but then fleeing, retreating, severing all such other aspects--and symbols--of what was meant to be a total obligation, only to unite again furtively some other night or, worse yet, furtively unite (and you can tell how cynically I use that word) with some other partner who is no more bound to us, no more one with us than the last was or than the one that will come next week or next month or next year or anytime before the binding commitments of marriage?

You must wait--you must wait until you can give everything, and you cannot give everything until you are at least legally and, for Latter-day Saint purposes, eternally pronounced as one. To give illicitly that which is not yours to give (remember--"you are not your own") and to give only part of that which cannot be followed with the gift of your whole heart and your whole life and your whole self is its own form of emotional Russian roulette. If you persist in sharing part without the whole, in pursuing satisfaction devoid of symbolism, in giving parts and pieces and inflamed fragments only, you run the terrible risk of such spiritual, psychic damage that you may undermine both your physical intimacy and your wholehearted devotion to a truer, later love. You may come to that moment of real love, of total union, only to discover to your horror that what you should have saved has been spent, and--mark my words--only God's grace can recover that piecemeal dissipation of your virtue.

A good Latter-day Saint friend, Dr. Victor L. Brown, Jr., has written of this issue:

Fragmentation enables its users to counterfeit intimacy. . . .

If we relate to each other in fragments, at best we miss full relationships. At worst, we manipulate and exploit others for our gratification. Sexual fragmentation can be particularly harmful because it gives powerful physiological rewards which, though illusory, can temporarily persuade us to overlook the serious deficits in the overall relationship. Two people may marry for physical gratification and then discover that the illusion of union collapses under the weight of intellectual, social, and spiritual incompatibilities. . . .

Sexual fragmentation is particularly harmful because it is particularly deceptive. The intense human intimacy that should be enjoyed in and symbolized by sexual union is counterfeited by sensual episodes which suggest--but cannot deliver--acceptance, understanding, and love. Such encounters mistake the end for the means as lonely, desperate people seek a common denominator which will permit the easiest, quickest gratification. [Victor L. Brown, Jr., Human Intimacy: Illusion and Reality (Salt Lake City, Utah: Parliament Publishers, 1981), pp. 5-6]

Listen to a far more biting observation by a non-Latter-day Saint regarding such acts devoid of both the soul and symbolism we have been discussing. He writes:

Our sexuality has been animalized, stripped of the intricacy of feeling with which human beings have endowed it, leaving us to contemplate only the act, and to fear our impotence in it. It is this animalization from which the sexual manuals cannot escape, even when they try to do so, because they are reflections of it. They might [as well] be textbooks for veterinarians. [Fairlie, Seven Deadly Sins, p. 182]

In this matter of counterfeit intimacy and deceptive gratification, I express particular caution to the men who hear this message. I have heard all my life that it is the young woman who has to assume the responsibility for controlling the limits of intimacy in courtship because a young man cannot. What an unacceptable response to such a serious issue! What kind of man is he, what priesthood or power or strength or self-control does this man have that lets him develop in society, grow to the age of mature accountability, perhaps even pursue a university education and prepare to affect the future of colleagues and kingdoms and the course of the world, but yet does not have the mental capacity or the moral will to say, "I will not do that thing"? No, this sorry drugstore psychology would have us say, "He just can't help himself. His glands have complete control over his life--his mind, his will, his entire future."

To say that a young woman in such a relationship has to bear her responsibility and that of the young man's too is the least fair assertion I can imagine. In most instances if there is sexual transgression, I lay the burden squarely on the shoulders of the young man--for our purposes probably a priesthood bearer--and that's where I believe God intended responsibility to be. In saying that I do not excuse young women who exercise no restraint and have not the character or conviction to demand intimacy only in its rightful role. I have had enough experience in Church callings to know that women as well as men can be predatory. But I refuse to buy some young man's feigned innocence who wants to sin and call it psychology.

Indeed, most tragically, it is the young woman who is most often the victim, it is the young woman who most often suffers the greater pain, it is the young woman who most often feels used and abused and terribly unclean. And for that imposed uncleanliness a man will pay, as surely as the sun sets and rivers run to the sea.

Note the prophet Jacob's straightforward language on this account in the Book of Mormon. After a bold confrontation on the subject of sexual transgression among the Nephites, he quotes Jehovah:

For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land. . . .

And I will not suffer, saith the Lord of Hosts, that the cries of the fair daughters of this people . . . shall come up unto me against the men of my people, saith the Lord of Hosts.

For they shall not lead away captive the daughters of my people because of their tenderness, save I shall visit them with a sore curse, even unto destruction. [Jacob 2:31-33; emphasis added]

Don't be deceived and don't be destroyed. Unless such fire is controlled, your clothes and your future will be burned. And your world, short of painful and perfect repentance, will go up in flames. I give that to you on good word--I give it to you on God's word.

A HOLY SACRAMENT

That leads me to my last reason, a third effort to say why. After soul and symbol, the word is sacrament, a term closely related to the other two. Sexual intimacy is not only a symbolic union between a man and a woman--the uniting of their very souls--but it is also symbolic of a union between mortals and deity, between otherwise ordinary and fallible humans uniting for a rare and special moment with God himself and all the powers by which he gives life in this wide universe of ours.

In this latter sense, human intimacy is a sacrament, a very special kind of symbol. For our purpose here today, a sacrament could be any one of a number of gestures or acts or ordinances that unite us with God and his limitless powers. We are imperfect and mortal; he is perfect and immortal. But from time to time--indeed, as often as is possible and appropriate--we find ways and go to places and create circumstances where we can unite symbolically with him, and in so doing gain access to his power. Those special moments of union with God are sacramental moments--such as kneeling at a marriage altar, or blessing a newborn baby, or partaking of the emblems of the Lord's supper. This latter ordinance is the one we in the Church have come to associate most traditionally with the word sacrament, though it is technically only one of many such moments when we formally take the hand of God and feel his divine power.

These are moments when we quite literally unite our will with God's will, our spirit with his spirit, where communion through the veil becomes very real. At such moments we not only acknowledge his divinity, but we quite literally take something of that divinity to ourselves. Such are the holy sacraments.

Now, once again, I know of no one who would, for example, rush into the middle of a sacramental service, grab the linen from the tables, throw the bread the full length of the room, tip the water trays onto the floor, and laughingly retreat from the building to await an opportunity to do the same thing at another worship service the next Sunday. No one within the sound of my voice would do that during one of the truly sacred moments of our religious worship. Nor would anyone here violate any of the other sacramental moments in our lives, those times when we consciously claim God's power and by invitation stand with him in privilege and principality.

But I wish to stress with you this morning, as my third of three reasons to be clean, that sexual union is also, in its own profound way, a very real sacrament of the highest order, a union not only of a man and a woman but very much the union of that man and woman with God. Indeed, if our definition of sacrament is that act of claiming and sharing and exercising God's own inestimable power, then I know of virtually no other divine privilege so routinely given to us all--women or men, ordained or unordained, Latter-day Saint or non-Latter-day Saint--than the miraculous and majestic power of transmitting life, the unspeakable, unfathomable, unbroken power of procreation. There are those special moments in your lives when the other, more formal ordinances of the gospel--the sacraments, if you will--allow you to feel the grace and grandeur of God's power. Many are one-time experiences (such as our own confirmation or our own marriage), and some are repeatable (such as administering to the sick or doing ordinance work for others in the temple). But I know of nothing so earth-shatteringly powerful and yet so universally and unstintingly given to us as the God-given power available in every one of us from our early teen years on to create a human body, that wonder of all wonders, a genetically and spiritually unique being never seen before in the history of the world and never to be duplicated again in all the ages of eternity--a child, your child--with eyes and ears and fingers and toes and a future of unspeakable grandeur.

Imagine that, if you will. Veritable teenagers--and all of us for many decades thereafter--carrying daily, hourly, minute-to-minute, virtually every waking and sleeping moment of our lives, the power and the chemistry and the eternally transmitted seeds of life to grant someone else her second estate, someone else his next level of development in the divine plan of salvation. I submit to you that no power, priesthood or otherwise, is given by God so universally to so many with virtually no control over its use except self-control. And I submit to you that you will never be more like God at any other time in this life than when you are expressing that particular power. Of all the titles he has chosen for himself, Father is the one he declares, and Creation is his watchword--especially human creation, creation in his image. His glory isn't a mountain, as stunning as mountains are. It isn't in sea or sky or snow or sunrise, as beautiful as they all are. It isn't in art or technology, be that a concerto or computer. No, his glory--and his grief--is in his children. You and I, we are his prized possessions, and we are the earthly evidence, however inadequate, of what he truly is. Human life--that is the greatest of God's powers, the most mysterious and magnificent chemistry of it all--and you and I have been given it, but under the most serious and sacred of restrictions. You and I who can make neither mountain nor moonlight, not one raindrop nor a single rose--yet we have this greater gift in an absolutely unlimited way. And the only control placed on us is self-control--self-control born of respect for the divine sacramental power it is.

Surely God's trust in us to respect this future-forming gift is awesomely staggering. We who may not be able to repair a bicycle nor assemble an average jigsaw puzzle--yet with all our weaknesses and imperfections, we carry this procreative power that makes us very much like God in at least one grand and majestic way.

A SERIOUS MATTER

Souls. Symbols. Sacraments. Does any of this help you understand why human intimacy is such a serious matter? Why it is so right and rewarding and stunningly beautiful when it is within marriage and approved of God (not just "good" but "very good," he declared to Adam and Eve), and so blasphemously wrong--like unto murder--when it is outside such a covenant? It is my understanding that we park and pet and sleep over and sleep with at the peril of our very lives. Our penalty may not come on the precise day of our transgression, but it comes surely and certainly enough, and were it not for a merciful God and the treasured privilege of personal repentance, far too many would even now be feeling that hellish pain, which (like the passion we have been discussing) is also always described in the metaphor of fire. Someday, somewhere, sometime the morally unclean will, until they repent, pray like the rich man, wishing Lazarus to "dip . . . his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame" (Luke 16:24).

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.

In closing, consider this from two students of civilization's long, instructive story:

No one man [or woman], however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history. A youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by custom, morals, or laws, he may ruin his life [or hers] before he matures sufficiently to understand that sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints if it is not to consume in chaos both the individual and the group. [Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), pp. 35-36]

Or, in the more ecclesiastical words of James E. Talmage:

It has been declared in the solemn word of revelation, that the spirit and the body constitute the soul of man; and, therefore, we should look upon this body as something that shall endure in the resurrected state, beyond the grave, something to be kept pure and holy. Be not afraid of soiling its hands; be not afraid of scars that may come to it if won in earnest effort, or [won] in honest fight, but beware of scars that disfigure, that have come to you in places where you ought not have gone, that have befallen you in unworthy undertakings [pursued where you ought not have been]; beware of the wounds of battles in which you have been fighting on the wrong side. [Talmage, CR, October 1913, p. 117]

I love you for wanting to be on the right side of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I express my pride in and appreciation for your faithfulness. As I said earlier, you are an absolute inspiration to me. I consider it the greatest of all professional privileges to be associated with you at this university at a time in your lives when you are finalizing what you believe and forging what your future will be.

If some few of you are feeling the "scars . . . that have come to you in places where you ought not have gone," I wish to extend to you the special peace and promise available through the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. I testify of his love and of the restored gospel principles and ordinances which make that love available to us with all their cleansing and healing power. I testify of the power of these principles and ordinances, including complete and redeeming repentance, which are only fully realized in this the true and living church of the true and living God. That we may "come unto Christ" for the fullness of soul and symbol and sacrament he offers us, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.