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<h5 style="padding-left: 330px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/52871206@N00/">Made Underground</a></h5>
Wow, y'all. I was pretty much blown away by the level of discussion around my previous post, <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=445">Why the case for early marriage worries me</a>. You all were thoughtful, candid, smart, insightful, and amazingly considerate, when you think of the variety of viewpoints and deeply-held convictions surrounding topics like belief, sex and marriage.

Since we seem to have touched on some important ideas, I was hoping to keep the dialogue going, and give it a bit more direction and shape. Sharing our own experiences and stories—what has happened in our lives and why—gives perspective, but it is what it is: a retelling of what happened (and I love it for what it is, by the way).

Sharing our opinions and structures of spiritual belief (or lack of it) can send us running in endless circles—no matter what we say and how eloquently we argue our point, there will be people who see things differently from each of us (thank goodness!).

But what about this concrete question: <strong>What will you (or have you) told your children, when it comes to sex, relationships and marriage? What do you want and hope for them, more than anything else? And how will you feel if they take a different path?
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As I re-read the comments on my previous post last night, two aspects kept pushing me back to these questions about my kids (and they're questions I've pondered before, and even addressed in the post <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=143">Politics, religion &amp; sex</a>).

First, I was really moved and inspired by this particular part of <a href="http://revsongbird.typepad.com/">Songbird</a>'s comment:
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Here’s what I want for [my children] (who are 23, 18 and 14 now). I want them to view themselves as whole people, loved body and soul by God. I want them to love themselves, body and soul, and to recognize how inextricable those two parts are. I want them to love another person, body and soul, and to regard that person’s wholeness to be as precious as their own. In talking to them, I’ve called it a Love Ethic where sex is concerned. Love yourself, love your partner, and remember that how you live is an expression of how you love God. It’s for them to work out when that happens, and I trust them to be true to their teaching.</em></p>
And then, a friend who responded to that same post privately in an email, told me how much she appreciated this last paragraph, which got somewhat lost in the bigger picture:
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><strong>What did/does Jesus want most for us?</strong> To be compassionate and merciful? To forgive freely? To love our neighbors as ourselves, and to love God?  And </em><em>if we focused more on those things, would everything else—healthy, fulfilling sex and relationships included—fall more organically into place, as God intended?</em></p>
<strong>The two seem clearly related: My body-and-soul hopes for my children, who I love so much it hurts, and Jesus' hopes for his children, who he loves even more than we can imagine.</strong>

So think about this, and if you feel like it, share your response with the rest of us: What do you want most for your children, when it comes to their sexuality and relationships? (If you don't have children yet, try to imagine it!) And how will you communicate those hopes to them?