[today’s run: 3.4 miles]<\/p>\n
I’m sure there are many ways that I have failed my children.\u00a0 I think one of the biggest was to avoid talking about sex.<\/p>\n
No, I’m not going to get into anything specific in this blog.<\/p>\n
But, I remember growing up how everything was mysterious and overbearing.\u00a0 Now that I’m on the far side of 50, it seems like a lot of energy was wasted.\u00a0 A lot of anxiety.<\/p>\n
There are two ways to look at that.\u00a0 One is to go the “sexual revolution” way and just wave my hands and say that sex is good if it feels good, or is honest, or whatever.\u00a0 No guilt, just go.<\/p>\n
I think we can see from the last 60 years of history that it doesn’t really work that way, particularly when children come along. You can’t say, “Oh, I’m not hurting you, you’re not hurting me, we can do whatever we want.”\u00a0 There are always other people in the picture and they do get hurt.\u00a0 Because sex is more than just a puppy wanting a tummy rub.\u00a0 There is a spiritual dimension to it, like Solomon said in the book of Proverbs.\u00a0 God said that people in a sexual relationship “become one flesh” and it is difficult to understand that.\u00a0 But there is more to it than a casual encounter.<\/p>\n
The first thing I would tell my children is that sex is powerful and in some ways mysterious.<\/p>\n
The second thing is to reassure them that everyone I know has “messed up” in some way about sex.\u00a0 That doesn’t mean that everyone is an adulterer, just that everyone has problems with sex just like they have problems always telling the truth or never stealing\u00a0 (money, time, pencils from the office supplies).<\/p>\n
And the third thing follows closely after: that problems with sex are handled like other problems, with repentance (change), apology, restitution, seeking forgiveness.\u00a0 Nobody has committed any big sexual sins against me so I don’t want to make light of the damage that can involve.\u00a0 But I think the general pattern is the same.<\/p>\n