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Risky Sex

Several years ago, Vanderbilt University and the Nashville Police Department designed a Rate-Your-Risk test. “Rate your risk” for…being robbed, raped, stabbed, shot, or murdered. The project director was a former FBI agent.

One of the questions was “How many acts of adultery have you committed within the past two years?

Now THAT question blows all the smoke out of the room. Reality Time at the Ranch: If you’ve developed improper sexual attachments, your risk of being assaulted or murdered has just red-lined.

Hmmm, “Sir, are you saying that sex could have ramifications beyond the moment?”

At a tip from Jesus Creed, I just read a very wise essay on sex. Risky Sex by Michael Hildalgo examines our culture’s shallow and vacant approach to sex. Yes, I do know that others have excavated that ground. But this one is good enough to warrant your time.

Sample quotes:

…“Safe Sex” is a myth. What protection is there to prevent to intertwining of minds, hearts, and souls that happens when two people are joined together sexually?

“Sex, by its very nature is not safe. It is the ultimate act in giving your whole self away to another person. It requires vulnerability that no other relationship asks for. It is to be fully exposed to another human being. It’s putting your full naked self out there as a gift – that’s risky.

“…This is why so many people have sex with so many people, and feel more and more alone. Somewhere, deep inside their heart, something is being ripped apart and taken from them, and nothing can protect that. What they mistake as a physical act, can cause emotional and spiritual heartache.

“Make no mistake, sex is risky – and what is at risk is our hearts and souls.”

I think this essay can be very helpful to parents as they shape a morality worth integrating into lives and legacies. The piece provides nuanced, textured, and trustworthy ways of thinking about sex. It lifts the topic out of the immature, mechanical, and soulless approach that is so pervasive in our society.

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Seen & Heard Today

  • Ann Voskamp is one of my favorite writers. Her latest essay, “Learning to Forgive (your parents),” is classic Voskamp. Do yourself a great favor and read this wise and moving piece.  If you check click the link after today, you’ll need to scroll down to this one.
  • First of July, the Spring Hill paper published a profile of me.  I just remembered it and thought I’d pass it along.
  • Marshall Grant died this past Sunday.  He was Johnny Cash’s bass player for many years…part of the “Tennessee Two.”  I’ve read much about him and his death this week.  But this pieceby the AP’s Chris Talbot is the best thing I’ve read on him.  I thank my son, Eddie, for passing it on.I really love Grant’s remembrance here of how they — Johnny Cash, Luther Perkins, and Marshall Grant — created that “boom-chicka-boom” sound.  And, his insight that, “Our inability had more to do with our success than our ability did…”  None of them were great musicians (Grant put strips of scotch tape on the base neck so he could remember where to put his fingers).This is another reminder that we should lead with our weakness rather than our strength.  I practice that…which is very easy for me, because I have many more weaknesses than strengths!  :-)Of course, most people lead with their strength.  But our weaknesses, our “inabilities,” will make us more vulnerable and that opens us to those mysterious muses, those breezes from Heaven, that we would have missed in our “full metal jacket” mode.

    Again, good article with good insight.

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