Sometimes I think odd thoughts. Today I was thinking about how my son loves snowboarding. It is the same passion and desire I had as a figure skater. Remembering that love … the way my body/soul was at home on ice … made my heart smile for both of us. Then (here’s the odd part), I found myself wondering if there is more interaction between the physical world and our emotional and spiritual world then we typically believe. For example, when is figure skating a spiritual experience – for the skater? for the viewer? What is love making? Where does love begin, touch end and love begin again? Does a snowboarder ride a mountain or does the mountain reach up to guide the boarder who reaches down a caress in response? Could there be more connections, more interplay, more dancing in life than we realize?
When I tell people I study the connection between sex and God … they say WHAT?!! Are you kidding?? They look at me like sex, God and the church mix like toilet paper, grass and a rainy day. On the surface, not a tidy combo. Yet … while these things don’t appear symbiotic, given time, the toilet paper dissolves into the earth revealing identical elements.
Sex and God are a manufactured insoluble … kept at odds by the development of western religion. However, head back in history and we find a God who loves his people passionately. Images abound that are sensual, vivid and adoring. Hebrew scripture reveals a God who compared the most sacred areas of the temple to the sacral sexual touch of lovers. In these holy places God vowed to meet with priests and lovers alike.
In 2005 a research study directly measured people’s beliefs about the connection between transcendence and sexuality. In this study, the sanctification of sexual intercourse, or the belief that sexuality is sacred and associated with the divine, predicted increased sexual activity and sexual satisfaction. Another study looking at similar variables found the same results including sexual variance – more variety in their sexual lives.
Perhaps our body and our heart know something our intellects question. Could it be that there is more interaction between the physical, spiritual and emotional worlds than we have been taught to believe by our current understanding of scientific knowledge? Could it be that as the body ignites in loving touch the heart knows the sacredness of the lover’s sensual dance? Could it be that when our private sanctuary is bathed in love there is no separation between the flow of God’s love and the swirl of our earthy love? Could it be that sometimes the mountain and the boarder move as one?
I think so.
(In case you are wondering … yes, that is my favorite snowboarder caressing the curves of Squaw. Can you see the mountain’s joy?)
About Tina Schermer Sellers
Tina Schermer Sellers is a recognized scholar in the integration of spirituality into a multitude of areas represented in family and career life. As a behavioral scientist, licensed family therapist, medical family therapist, and certified sex therapist, she specializes in helping to craft relationships, organizations and lives that flourish. In the area of sexuality, Tina has spent a career helping people discover what culture has failed to teach them about their bodies, their hearts, their capacity for intimacy and their erotic potential.
