Another Old Testament Post

I’m becoming too fascinated with the Old Testament. I refer back to it every time I read something else. I guess the most popular book in the history of the world probably has enough insights in it to fill a blog for a semester, so maybe it’s not the end of the world.

I read the Songs of Solomon the other day, and I had an insight that changed the way I saw the book. Here is a book that we largely ignore because of how erotic it seems. We’ve come up with ways to take the edge off of the apparent love poems between a husband and a wife, insisting that it was instead a metaphor for the relationship between Israel and God, but I don’t buy that. I think it is exactly what it seems to be, an erotic love poem. The problem is that we just don’t talk about that in the society I grew up in. You barely talk about it with your parents, you certainly don’t discuss it with your friends, and you never ever talk about it with people of the opposite sex.

We show sex as object lessons of ink dying an entire jar of water, or putting a nail into a piece of wood. Something that is bad and disgusting and ugly and should not be mentioned. And then one day you get married and sealed in the temple, and all of the sudden all bets are off and not only is it no longer ugly and gross, but it is something that you are expected to understand. There is something wrong with that, can’t we address sex the same way we talk about baptism or receiving your endowment? It seems that it should be a beautiful, wonderful, incredible experience that brings you closer to Heavenly Father under the right authority. I would probably be frustrated if I saw two 17 year olds pretending to baptize one another, but I wouldn’t tell them that baptism is disgusting or gross. The Songs of Solomon seem to try to walk that line. Expressing and showing that this is a beautiful moment for a married couple, but it should only occur within that bond.

I still don’t think I’ll be comfortable if my Dad tries to give me a sex talk, I’ve gone 24 years being uncomfortable talking about it, but at least now I know where to turn in the scriptures for a little guidance on the matter. Maybe that will be a FHE evening one night with my future wife.