Communion and great sex

(New series on Christian Parenting - "Parenting Teens")

(Warning: if you are not grown up enough to read about sex, here is a link to Mr. Rogers)

Some women have sex all of their adult lives and never orgasm. I am a marriage and family therapist, so I get the inside story on these situations. Sadly, it’s more common than you want to believe.

Usually what happens with these women is that something has contaminated their sex life. Some of these women got some really bad advice from their mothers – "Just lie there and take it; the more you cooperate the quicker he’ll be done." Others were sexually abused as children. Still for other women, it is their husband’s demands (unusually high frequency demanded or perverse behaviors) which inhibit her satisfaction. Some women got some bad religion as a girl – "Sex is dirty." I could go on and on, but I think that you get the point.

Yet, with all of this, the truth is that sex is good, healthy, and in the larger picture, necessary.

Some Christians take bread and wine their whole adult lives and never commune. I am a Christian, so I get the inside story on these situations. Sadly, it’s more common than you want to believe.

I grew up in a church that required weekly communion of it believers. It happened like this: At the appropriate time during the Sunday morning worship serve, four men would stand behind a large wooden table that said, "This do in remembrance of Me," in Old English script, hands folded in front of them in the fig leaf position. Stock prayers, always including the statement, "in a manner pleasing to you," were uttered first for the cracker, then for the grape juice (never real wine), and then for the contribution, which was done with the communion, though "separate and apart," and, "as a matter of convenience."

There were some problems with communion.

It was the same every time. It was called the center of the worship service, but was never treated very special. Rarely was it ever explained except for the fact that it was Jesus’ flesh and blood and that we should feel real bad that we did this to him, and in fact keep on doing this to Him every time we sin.

It also flowed from church-culture context of legalism – you have to do this or else you are sinning. Growing up, I took a lot of communion, but I never really got communion. I never really learned how to commune. The obligation, the unexplained ritual, the stock prayers, the rote communing did not really penetrate. The whole exercise got contaminated from the very beginning.

Yet, with all of this, the truth is that communion is good, healthy, and in the larger picture, necessary.

The solution is to slow down, take a deep breath, let off with the pressure, and experiment without obligation. Certainly it takes the cooperation of two and the demands of none. When it happens, it is great, and when it just doesn’t, oh well, it doesn’t mean anything for the relationship. Part of connecting is the effort to connect. Celebrate each other with joy when it works and flow with grace for each other when it doesn’t work.