"... ." ". . ""... ." ". .. ." ". ......." ". ." .. ." ".: .: :. .. :. .." ".: "" .'...." ".: : : : : :." ".: " "" ..." "F L A M E" ". ..: " ... .. ." "F L A M E" ". ... ..: " .." ".F L A M E." ". .. ... '.: ""." "..F L A M E:." "... ' .:" '." "..: : : : : :.." ". ' . . ':"." "' ': " ': :' ': ':"" ". ' ' ."' ' ' ' : : ':'" ". ' . .." "Powered by .:" "ExitFOR :." "Right in the middle of the Bible, there's this collection of Hebrew love poems that are so explicit and erotic, that young jewish boys were not even allowed to read them untill they were older." "Song of Songs gives us like a picture, a series of pictures of the relationship between a man and a woman." "The joy, struggle, the complexity." "It's almost says if the love that this couple's exploring has a life of its own." "The woman says several times, she says:" "not arouse or awaken love until it so desires." "Its almost as if she says:" "You know whatever this is, its so good, its so beautiful." "And we can't do anything to mess this up." "We get incredible mileage out of this tired, old, english word love, dont we?" "I mean we tell someone that we love them and in the same breath we'll talk about how much we love a new car or certain pair of pants." "I mean, I love my wife, and I also love tacos?" "Now we have to keep in mind that Song of songs was originaly written in the Hebrew language, which has at least three different words for our english word love." "The first word we find is the word RAYA." "Raya would be translated literally as like friend or a companion somebody you hang out with." "We might even translate it as like the word soulmate." "We here people talk like this all the time, theyll say things like you know she's my best friend or I can tell him anything, these are all experssion of RAYA." "So we see core of this relationship between these lovers, there's the friendship." "Another Hebrew word we find for love is 'ahava." "is deep affection." "It's that sense of desiring to be with someone so much that heart aches." "Ahava is when your mind and your heart are bent toward your lover in such passion and intensity and you cant think of little else." "My wife and I we were friends for 4 years." "4 years of RAYA before anything more happens." "Now I was living in a Los Angeles and one weekend she came out to visit so we went out for the first time." "And theres the sense of anticipation in the air." "this question we both had." "You know is there any, is there any AHAVA to go with our RAYA." "I remember sitting there in this restaurant in Santa Monica couple of blocks in from the ocean." "I remember this feeling came over me, that I would," "Id rather be here with her at this moment than anywhere else in the universe." "The lovers in Song of songs declare that AHAVA is as strong as death." "That any rivers cannot quench AHAVA." "Ahava is the love of the will." "Now, this is way more profound than fleeting romantic feelings." "This is much more than like temporary urges." "Ahava is making a decision to join your life to the life of another." "This is an emotion that leads to commitment, that leads to joining their life to somebody elses." "AHAVA is what makes things last." "Maybe this would help." "Lets think of this loves, these dimension to a relationship as flames." "Ok, first we have our RAYA flame." "Thats like the friendship the soulmate aspect of a relationship." "Then you have your AHAVA flame, which is the flame of commitment and making the decision to join your life to another." "But Theres a third Hebrew word for love that we find in Song of Songs." "Its the word dod." "Dod is translated in English literally as to carouse, to rock or to fondle." "I think you get the idea we have with this flame." "This word is used elsewhere in scriptures like in the book of Proverbs it says:" "Let us drink deep of dod til morning." "A woman even says in Song of songs:" "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for your dod is more delightful than wine." "Dod is the physical, sexual element to a relationship." "This is where we get the Greek word EROS which is translated literatelly as..." "like erotic in English language." "So we have our raya flame." "We have our ahava flame." "And we have our dod flame." "So when this man and woman come together, all of these flames get combined." "When Jesus talks about this idea of entire beings coming together he uses the prase "one flesh"" "to describe this connection between a man and a woman." "Now this one flesh is way more than just the physical act," "It's emotions, it's hearts, it's minds, it's experiences, it's the mingling of souls." "And so this coming together physically becomes a picture of the deeper spiritual reality." "So Jesus teaches us, sex is ultimately a spiritualy act, something so beautiful, something so powerful that was meant to endure for ever." "See the one flame burning all by itself will never be as hot be as hot as all the flames burning together." "mean, we were created for all the flames to burn as one." "And think about all the ways we mess this up." "take an affair for example, affair is two people sharing the dod flame without any of the other flames, without raya or the ahava, theres no friendship, theres no commitment, theres no loyalty of sacrifice," "theres dod, but theres no raya or ahava." "Its two people trying from this one flame, the dod flame to get all the heat of the three flames burning together." "I mean, noo wonder it leaves a person empty and unfulfiled, we were created for so much more." "So the person keeps coming back for this one flame over and over again and yet it never truly satisfies." "It cant." "Or how about the couple whove been married for years and theyre still together, theres still some commitment, I mean, theres still some ahava, but lets be honest, theres not much else." "Theres no friendship, theres no sex, and they neglect the flames and eventualy they flicker and they fade and they go out." "When you seperate the flames, it can never really satisfy." "Its like youre living outside of how God wired you to live." "mean, maybe our culture has no clue what true sexuality really looks like." "Maybe the world around us, when it come to sex just doesnt get it." "I mean true sexuality is vast and mysterious," "It involves all of you, and you have a body, but you also have a soul and a spirit." "And love is two people coming together and giving all of themselves to each other, forever." "And now, may you honor the way that god created you, may you have a proufound sense of respect for the fact that you are deeply spiritual and mysterious being and that love is ultimately and profoundly spiritual thing." "May you realize that the 3 flames are meant to burn together and may you discover the big flame."