The Role of the Ego in Our Search for Union with God
The most difficult spiritual struggle for me is the effort to center myself on God and on the love of God versus the ravenous hunger in my human ego to make itself the center of my universe. I am aware of a very real danger; if God gives me a taste of the joy of God's presence and love, my ego could go completely out of control. I am likely to start searching to experience God's love as an ego fix; trying to use God as an object for my own ego satisfaction and my own feelings of superiority and specialness.
Of course, God will not let God's gifts to be used that way. In God's goodness, God allows my spirit to be plunged into what the mystics call "the dark night of the soul", until I am ready to experience God's love for me in such a way that that experience contributes to the "greater glory of God". I understand well Rami's Sufi prayer: "Give me the pain of your love, o Lord, and not the joy. Give the joy to others, but give me the pain!"
The pain of God's love is what in Part 1 I described as the longing for God's love from a sense of deprivation. That pain purifies me and makes ready to experience the positive joy of God's presence within me. So in moments of dark night I make an act of trust that, through emptiness and privation, God is purifying me and preparing me to share in God's joy.
How do I go about loosening the grip of my ego on my spiritual life? The word ego has two very different meanings in psychotherapy and in spirituality. In psychotherapy, the ego refers to the ability of the "I" or self, to transpose the chaos of raw experience, id drives and the like, onto a meaningful and conscious plane. Building the psychological ego inplies promoting one's consciousness, fostering ego development, channeling energy from the id and the superego into the ego and, thus, taking responsibility for one's self and one's unconscious. To state this in spiritual terms: I can be co-creator of my very being in cooperation with the divine spirit. In this sense of the word ego, my first task is to build a strong ego before I begin the spiritual process of letting go of it.
The word ego has exactly the opposite meaning in most spiritual traditions. In western Christian tradition the word ego is used to indicate the prideful self that will not acknowledge any dependence on others or on the divine. In eastern spiritual tradition the ego usually refers to the illusion of a separate self from the absolute that stands in the way of enlightenment. Having a strong and healthy ego in the freudian psychological sense of the term is, I believe, essential to having a healthy and mature spiritual life. We must first possess an independent ego before we can freely let go of it in a healthy spiritual process. Otherwise letting go of our ego would mean regressing into a symbiosis with the chaos of primal drives.
How do I go about loosening the grip of my ego on my life in the second spiritual sense? The first thing I have to learn to be aware of is that this process is completely out of my human control and power. Trying to lessen the power of my ego is the equivalent of trying to lift myself by my own bootstraps. Only God can lessen the grip of my ego on my life by touching my heart with God's loving presence.
One tiny touch of God's loving presence and I am outside myself in ecstasy and my ego is swallowed up in the glory and goodness of God. The only power my ego has in all of this is that out of my freedom I can invite God in. "Ask and you shall receive! Knock and the door will be open!" I can ask God to come and purify me and make me worthy to experience God's love. Here I have to follow the path of twelve step spirituality, acknowledging my own powerlessness, and reach out with complete trust to be empowered by God: "Let go! Let God!"
The philosopher Maurice Blondel speaks of this experience as falling into the category of those actions that are simultaneously "necessary" for our human fulfillment and "impossible" by human means alone. Intimate union with God is absolutely necessary for human happiness and absolutely impossible by human means alone. Therefore, if that union happens, it is because of God's power, presence and action. Our only appropriate response is gratitude for God's merciful love.
The only other power I have - and that power is also dependent on God's grace - is to live a life of compassion, always seeking to lose myself in my desire to be present in love to those who need my help. I am aware that the ultimate and decisive liberation from my ego-centeredness can only occur by means of the transition through death onto eternity.
With God's grace I have reached the point now where I can invite God in and mean it. Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus, Come! I intend to continue my spiritual struggle to center my life in God. Whatever time and energy I have left I will use to the best of my ability to bring the message of God's love to gays, lesbians, transsexual and transgendered people. My hope is someday to be united with a great crowd of my gay brothers and sisters in God's presence, where we will eternally celebrate God's love.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Hunger and Thirst in the Human Heart for Union with God: Part II
(This is a continuation of Hunger and Thirst for Union with God. If you have not read the first article, I recommend that you read it and then continue with Part II,)
The great spiritual leaders of the past have always taught that God in fact nurtures our growth in capacity and potential for a passionate intimate relationship with God. My own experience of spiritual development finds its closest description in the understanding of spiritual growth in the writings of the Greek father, Gregory of Nyssa. Gregory describes beautifully the step by step nature of spiritual growth. He says that God always waits on our freedom. Our first serious Yes! to God enables divine love to begin to act within us. Our most basic way of saying Yes! to God is by placing an action of gratitude and love into the universe. Our inner space - as a result of that yes - is ready to receive something of God, As John put it so succinctly in his first epistle: God is love, and he who abides in love, abides in God, and God abides in him...There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear (1 John 3: 16-18).
God fills that space created by our action of love as fully as we are able to accept. At the same time, this filling enlarges the space, and we long for more. Thus the lover of God is always filled to her or his capacity, and always longs for more of God. Yet the longing does not bring frustration because there is a fullness.
According to Gregory, this process goes on beyond our transition through death into eternity because God is infinite and we are always a finite capacity open to further growth in our identity with an infinite God. For all eternity, by our actions of love, we continue to grow in union with God who is infinite and, therefore, can never be exhausted. This is why God did not promise us a "visio beatificans", a static gazing on the divine essence but a "vita beatificans", a dynamic growing process through actions of love into an ever deeper and fuller union with divine life.
The great spiritual leaders of the past have always taught that God in fact nurtures our growth in capacity and potential for a passionate intimate relationship with God. My own experience of spiritual development finds its closest description in the understanding of spiritual growth in the writings of the Greek father, Gregory of Nyssa. Gregory describes beautifully the step by step nature of spiritual growth. He says that God always waits on our freedom. Our first serious Yes! to God enables divine love to begin to act within us. Our most basic way of saying Yes! to God is by placing an action of gratitude and love into the universe. Our inner space - as a result of that yes - is ready to receive something of God, As John put it so succinctly in his first epistle: God is love, and he who abides in love, abides in God, and God abides in him...There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear (1 John 3: 16-18).
God fills that space created by our action of love as fully as we are able to accept. At the same time, this filling enlarges the space, and we long for more. Thus the lover of God is always filled to her or his capacity, and always longs for more of God. Yet the longing does not bring frustration because there is a fullness.
According to Gregory, this process goes on beyond our transition through death into eternity because God is infinite and we are always a finite capacity open to further growth in our identity with an infinite God. For all eternity, by our actions of love, we continue to grow in union with God who is infinite and, therefore, can never be exhausted. This is why God did not promise us a "visio beatificans", a static gazing on the divine essence but a "vita beatificans", a dynamic growing process through actions of love into an ever deeper and fuller union with divine life.
The Hunger and Thirst in the Human Heart for Union With God
I am approaching 85 years of age. I have discovered that every decade of my life has been happier and more peaceful than the last. As my body grows older, my spirit becomes younger. I know that this is a gift from God for which I am grateful. As the years have gone by my prayer life has undergone a radical change, from a prayer of the head, a prayer of words, concepts and thought processes, to a prayer of the heart. God has given me the grace to be continuously aware of a longing in my heart for a greater intimacy with the Spirit of God indwelling in my heart. My conscious awareness of God is based on not only what I have already achieved but what I am deprived of, what I need and dont have; what I am yearning for; what I have a hunger and thirst for and have not yet achieved!
Privation is a paradoxical concept. Classical philosophy defines privation as "the absence of that which ought to be." To experience something as a deprivation is an experience of absence in presence or presence in absence. To experience God as privation, then, necessarily means that I have already had an experience of God's presence and now I yearn for more. I like to compare it to a missing piece in a jigsaw puzzle. If I see it, I will know it because there is only one piece that will fit into that empty space. In St Augustine's prayer, "You made us for yourself, oh Lord, and our hearts will never rest until they rest in thee." This is a dynamic reading of the static statement that humans were created in the image and likeness of God.
My personal knowledge of God has little to do with any intellectual definition. All the great mystics saw our efforts to capture God with concepts and dogmas as self defeating. They recommended in prayer that we should empty our minds of thought and enter "the cloud of unknowing".
My knowledge of God comes from the hunger and thirst in myself. In the words of Psalm 63:
O God, you are my God, I seek you,
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.
My prayer life consists in being in touch with that hunger and thirst, not letting anything fill it in or block it off from me. Rather, I strive to be in touch with that hunger and thirst, to consecrate it by converting it intentionally into prayer and identifying with it.
My prayer life then is very simple. I spend a lot of time just being in touch with that longing, being open to it and waiting. I continually ask God to come and fill in the deep deprivation within me. I identify with the desert waiting for the rain to come and soak in. As a result my prayer is continuous with my conscious awareness.
I set aside time to enter into myself, empty out all thought and rest in the presence of God. I also spend some time everyday "praying" the New York Times, formulating a prayer appropriate to every headline and article. In this way I strive to let my prayer reach out to the whole world.
At a recent Easter vigil I heard this passage from the Psalms:
As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soull longs for you, O God!
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God! (42:!)
Suddenly I was in touch with a profound longing for union with God, a longing that was at the same time painful and pleasurable, and I began to cry. I am grateful to God for that moment and see it as a great grace. Since that time I am consciously aware that what I want is intimacy with God, and I will not settle for anything less.
I am aware that being in touch with that longing is already a kind of awareness of God through privation. This awareness is God's gift and promise.. All other touches of intimacy in my life - the intimacies of family, friendships, intimacy with a lover - are all foretastes of that ultimate intimacy, But the only intimacy that can meet my needs and fill my heart is the intimacy with God.
I particularly love the words of St. Augustine's prayer in his Confessions:
Late have I loved you, O Beauty, ever ancient, ever new; late have I loved you,
You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you.
In my unlovliness I plunged into the lovely things that you created.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
yet if they had not been in you, they would not have been at all.
You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.
You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness,
You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you.
I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.
You touched me and now I long for your peace!
jjmcneill@aol.com
Comment
"My prayer life then is very simple. I spend a lot of time just being in touch with that longing, being open to it and waiting. I continually ask God to come and fill in the deep deprivation within me..."
If there ever were truer and more profound words to describe spiritual intimacy....you sir have done it.
I applaud the simplicity of your vision for how a life with God is lived. All too often we seem to clutter life with definition and illusion for what God is like...or even what God wants for us to do...Instead, you have described a life of willingness to learn how love and life is suppose to work as a manifestation for how one feels at peace with The One (God) within.
Truly, you embody the love and the life Jesus had shared and still shares with The Father through us all.
PEACE
AngllHugnU2
Author of IM with God
July 21
Privation is a paradoxical concept. Classical philosophy defines privation as "the absence of that which ought to be." To experience something as a deprivation is an experience of absence in presence or presence in absence. To experience God as privation, then, necessarily means that I have already had an experience of God's presence and now I yearn for more. I like to compare it to a missing piece in a jigsaw puzzle. If I see it, I will know it because there is only one piece that will fit into that empty space. In St Augustine's prayer, "You made us for yourself, oh Lord, and our hearts will never rest until they rest in thee." This is a dynamic reading of the static statement that humans were created in the image and likeness of God.
My personal knowledge of God has little to do with any intellectual definition. All the great mystics saw our efforts to capture God with concepts and dogmas as self defeating. They recommended in prayer that we should empty our minds of thought and enter "the cloud of unknowing".
My knowledge of God comes from the hunger and thirst in myself. In the words of Psalm 63:
O God, you are my God, I seek you,
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.
My prayer life consists in being in touch with that hunger and thirst, not letting anything fill it in or block it off from me. Rather, I strive to be in touch with that hunger and thirst, to consecrate it by converting it intentionally into prayer and identifying with it.
My prayer life then is very simple. I spend a lot of time just being in touch with that longing, being open to it and waiting. I continually ask God to come and fill in the deep deprivation within me. I identify with the desert waiting for the rain to come and soak in. As a result my prayer is continuous with my conscious awareness.
I set aside time to enter into myself, empty out all thought and rest in the presence of God. I also spend some time everyday "praying" the New York Times, formulating a prayer appropriate to every headline and article. In this way I strive to let my prayer reach out to the whole world.
At a recent Easter vigil I heard this passage from the Psalms:
As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soull longs for you, O God!
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God! (42:!)
Suddenly I was in touch with a profound longing for union with God, a longing that was at the same time painful and pleasurable, and I began to cry. I am grateful to God for that moment and see it as a great grace. Since that time I am consciously aware that what I want is intimacy with God, and I will not settle for anything less.
I am aware that being in touch with that longing is already a kind of awareness of God through privation. This awareness is God's gift and promise.. All other touches of intimacy in my life - the intimacies of family, friendships, intimacy with a lover - are all foretastes of that ultimate intimacy, But the only intimacy that can meet my needs and fill my heart is the intimacy with God.
I particularly love the words of St. Augustine's prayer in his Confessions:
Late have I loved you, O Beauty, ever ancient, ever new; late have I loved you,
You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you.
In my unlovliness I plunged into the lovely things that you created.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
yet if they had not been in you, they would not have been at all.
You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.
You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness,
You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you.
I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.
You touched me and now I long for your peace!
jjmcneill@aol.com
Comment
"My prayer life then is very simple. I spend a lot of time just being in touch with that longing, being open to it and waiting. I continually ask God to come and fill in the deep deprivation within me..."
If there ever were truer and more profound words to describe spiritual intimacy....you sir have done it.
I applaud the simplicity of your vision for how a life with God is lived. All too often we seem to clutter life with definition and illusion for what God is like...or even what God wants for us to do...Instead, you have described a life of willingness to learn how love and life is suppose to work as a manifestation for how one feels at peace with The One (God) within.
Truly, you embody the love and the life Jesus had shared and still shares with The Father through us all.
PEACE
AngllHugnU2
Author of IM with God
July 21
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Objective Disorder
The recent statement of the Vatican equating the sin of pedophilia with proposing woman's ordination gives this article I wrote on feminaphobia several year’s ago a new relevance and urgency!\
The Vatican in its recent instruction barring gays from the seminary has given a vicious collective slap in the face, not only to gay priests and seminarians, but to every gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual and transgendered person on the face of the earth. The instruction from Pope Benedict calls homosexual orientation an “objective disorder” and any sexual actions that flow from that orientation are contrary to the divine will and profoundly sinful. Note that this judgment applies not only to seminarians and clergy struggling to live in accordance with their vow of chastity, but to all gay men and lesbian women. Any effort by a gay person to reach out for human sexual love, no matter what the circumstances, is judged as evil. Scripture says that if anyone loves, they know God, because God is love. The Vatican says that if gay people enter into a human sexual love relation they know evil and will separate themselves from the love of God.
I believe this is the worst document issued from the Church since it declared in 1866 (three years after the Emancipation Proclamation) that “slavery itself…is not at all contrary to the divine and natural law”. Slavery is not, but homosexuality is.
I foresee two probable consequences to this instruction; the first will be a sharp decline in candidates for the priesthood. That decline in candidates has already reached a critical point in Europe and the United States. In fact, the instruction may well deal a death blow to a cultic priesthood of exclusively chaste male (heterosexual and repressed homosexual) men and force the hierarchy to open the priesthood to other candidates such as married men and eventually, to woman. If this happens, it represents what I call the shrewdness of the Holy Spirit.
It is common knowledge that the primary yet unstated reason for the publication of this instruction is the priest child abuse scandal that has seriously and perhaps permanently damaged the Church’s moral authority. This document has nothing to do with God or even morality. It is a political document issued in self-defense by the human and sinful hierarchy of the institutional church. The hierarchy, rather than accept their responsibility for this crisis, decided to scapegoat gay priests and seminarians. Starting with the fact that the vast majority of the victims were young boys, some high officials in Rome and many in the United States declared that the majority of the perpetrators were homosexual priests. They assumed without evidence that every same sex act implies homosexual orientation. In fact, most empirical research evidence points to the opposite conclusion. The majority of men involved in child abuse are heterosexual. The motivation for most child abusers is not sex but power.
A more probable explanation for the abuse, according to the vast majority of psychologists is the high number of priests who were immature, insecure about their tendencies and full of doubt and guilt. Any homosexual who achieves a healthy self acceptance and has a positive attitude toward his sexual orientation is precisely the one this instruction excludes from seminary. Whereas those gay men who are struggling with immaturity, who manifest insecurity and self rejection because of their homosexuality, who are full of doubt and guilt, they are acceptable candidates for the seminary. The healthy are unacceptable; only the pathological may apply. Rather than acting as a cure of the child abuse crisis, this instruction guarantees that the crisis will continue. What is bad psychology has to be bad theology.
The second consequence of this Instruction will be a further decline of the moral authority of the hierarchy. The Instruction is so out of touch with reality that it is obvious that the authors consulted only so-called experts who agreed with its dogmatic premises that homosexual orientation is an orientation to evil. On November 30, 2005, the Vatican newspaper published a commentary on the instruction written by Fr. Tony Anatrella, a French priest and psychoanalyst, and a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family. Father Anatrella’s essay is such a homophobic caricature of gay priests as to be laughable. Yet Vatican spokesmen say Anatrella’s essay does represent an official explication of what the instruction’s authors had in mind. By limiting themselves to such prejudiced consultants the Vatican cut itself off from the reality of gay life. Every major psychological association has concluded from empirical evidence that homosexuality as such does not imply psychological disorder and homosexuals can be as mature and responsible as heterosexuals. The Vatican has an important role in the human search for truth, but it certainly does not have the right to invent the truth concerning homosexuality.
The Vatican is right, I believe, in claiming that we are dealing with an “objective disorder”. But that objective disorder has nothing to do with homosexuality but with the Vatican itself. One clue to what that disorder is, is to be found in the use of the word “objective”. Traditionally, the Vatican viewed all homosexual behavior as a choice motivated by lust by otherwise heterosexual men and, therefore, “subjectively disordered” But when modern psychologists accumulated undeniable evidence that there is such a thing as homosexual orientation that is not chosen and is unchangeable, the Vatican was forced to concede that homosexual orientation, since it is not a matter of choice, cannot be qualified as subjectively morally evil. One possible conclusion then was that homosexual orientation was part of God’s creative plan and since “ agere sequitur esse”, the acts that would flow from such an orientation, if they are in the context of interpersonal love, would be morally acceptable. To say that God created humans with an orientation to evil is blasphemy. In defense of its tradition the Vatican chooses to go the other way. God intended all humans to be heterosexual. Homosexual orientation must represent, then, some mysterious disruption of God’s plan possibly due to original sin. The orientation itself is an orientation to evil and any action flowing from that orientation would be sinful.
There is a deeper reason why the Vatican seems so out of touch whenever it deals with sexual ethics. Paradoxically, the Vatican, which teaches the Christian position that God is love, has no adequate philosophical foundation for dealing with love, divine or human, or with the unique individual person and that person’s subjective consciousness. The Vatican remains exclusively committed to objective Thomistic realism and has systematically rejected any effort to introduce the human subject into its moral reasoning In his encyclical, Veritatis Splendor , published in 1993, Pope John Paul II defended this choice because objective realism makes possible the formulation of absolute, universal laws essential to the power and absolute authority of the Church, whereas to introduce the human subject is to allow a kind of relativism, which would undermine the absolute authority of the Church. On several occasions Pope Benedict has iden5ified this “relativism” as the worst intellectual enemy of Church authority. For over a hundred years, progressive Catholic theologians have urged the Church to develop its philosophical foundation to allow for the unique human subject, the person, and that person’s contribution to theological thinking. Instead of basing its sexual morality on biology, gender differences and procreation, this would allow the Church to deal with the specific human purposes of sex such as interpersonal love and companionship, but the Church has adamantly refused to do so.
As far back as 1893, Maurice Blondel in his book, L’Action argued that objective realism, since it could only deal with conceptual reality, was necessarily depersonalized and depersonalizing because the unique individual person can never be objectified in a concept. He also maintained that love is a human experience that can only be known from within in the action of loving. He believed that a philosophy that included the unique human person would be much more compatible with Christian belief. The ultimate level of truth was not the conformity of human concepts with objective reality but the conformity of will-willing with will-willed. That truth can only be arrived at through human action and commitment and is a truth that is only available subjectively in individual consciousness.
Jesus at the last supper told his followers, “It is necessary that I go away. If I do not go away the Spirit can not come to you. But if I go away I will send you the Spirit. The Spirit will dwell in your hearts and lead you into all truths.” Jesus was recommending a spiritual maturing process by which his followers’ contact with God would no longer be Jesus outside themselves but the divine life living within them.
“Because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Holy Spirit will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (John: 16:6-13)
Jesus is expressing the need in some way to prove to be a fallible leader in order for his followers to mature and move on to the next stage in their spiritual life, where their authority is no longer just Jesus outside themselves but the Spirit dwelling in their hearts.
As Blondel put it, what Jesus was promising was not a “visio beatificans” , a purely intellectual viewing of the divine essence, but a “vita beatificans”, a sharing on the subjective level of divine life, a sharing that can rise up into our consciousness when we place an action of love. “For God is love and, if anyone loves they know God.” “The only way we can know God is in some way to be God, to share in divine life.” When we place an action that is in conformity with that divine spirit dwelling within us then we experience total certainty and intense joy and fulfillment
A central Christian teaching based on the indwelling of the Spirit, one that is without doubt of outmost importance especially to those who are gay or lesbian, is the teaching of freedom of conscience. This teaching was expressed anew in a powerful way in the documents of Vatican II:
Every human has in his or her heart a law written by God. To obey that law is the dignity of the human. According to that law we will be judged. There we are alone with God whose voice echoes in our depths. (The Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World)
According to this teaching where do you seek to find out what God wants of you? You turn inward in prayer and you listen carefully to discern what your heart is saying to you. You ask God, if you are about to make a choice, if what you are about to do is in harmony with God’s spirit dwelling in your heart, to fill your heart with confidence, peace and joy. “Lord, grant me the grace to know your will for me and the courage to be able to do it.” Note that God speaks to us primarily though our hearts, that is to say, through our emotions, and only secondarily through our reason. This indwelling of the Holy Spirit was the grounds on which Ignatius Loyola based his Spiritual Exercises, especially his Rules for the Discernment of Spirits. This is the reason why the Vatican never trusted the Jesuits and preferred Opus Dei’s rigid authoritarianism instead.
Paul saw the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday as fulfillments of this prophesy of Jeremiah: “This is the new covenant I will make with my people in those days. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. No longer will they teach one another, or say to each other: Know the Lord. For they shall all know me from the least to the greatest, says the Lord!” Again Paul quotes these words from the prophet Joel: “In the last days, it will be,” God declares, “that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy and your young men will see visions. And your old men will dream dreams. Even upon slaves, both men and women, I will pore out my Spirit and they shall prophecy.” (Acts 2: 16-17)
(There is no comment on these passages in John Paul II’s encyclical, Splendor Veritatis, which gives a brilliant defense of the role of reason in moral life.) The hierarchy has no exclusive claim to discerning what the will of God is. This power belongs to every baptized Christian who has received the Holy Spirit.
The Church is in need of a special transformation to become a Church of the Holy Spirit. With the coming of the Spirit, we, like the Apostles, must give up the security of a provident leader. We have a special need with God’s grace to become mature, self-motivated, autonomous people, no longer dependent on outside forces for a sense of our identity and well-being. We must not let our enemies outside ourselves define us, we must let the Spirit of love that dwells in our hearts define us. If we approach external Church authorities, it should not be to seek an approval they cannot and frequently will not give us. Rather, it should be to witness to what the Holy Spirit is saying through our experience.
The loss of the moral authority of the Catholic Church is truly tragic. There is a desperate need for that authority in such issues as poverty, war and peace, the economy and many other areas. True authority in the Church of the Holy Spirit will only be exercised by leaders who are tuned in and listening to what the Holy Spirit is saying in and through the experiences of the people of God. Here is where God is making an ongoing revelation of God’s truth. In the Book of Revelations, the Holy Spirit makes the statement: “Behold! I am doing something new.” Paul in Romans 4:17 writes “The Spirit is calling into being what does not now exist”. Scripture and reason are not the only sources to reveal to us the will of God. We also have the living and creative voice of God’s Spirit speaking to us directly in our hearts and through our experiences. And Jesus promised us that if we prayerfully listen to that voice, the Spirit “will lead us into all truth”.
For twenty-five years, I conducted ecumenical retreats twice a year at Kirkridge Retreat Center located in the Poconos, for gay and lesbian Christians using the theme “Seeking Intimacy with God”. Every Saturday night during the weekend retreat we held a session called the ‘fishbowl’ during which ten selected retreatents shared their spiritual journey as gay men. After hearing five hundred such biographical accounts, a clear pattern of how the Holy Spirit acts in gay men emerged. Initially, there was a period of acceptance of homophobic Church teaching which led to self-loathing, emotional breakdown, alcohol and/or drug abuse, and relating to God purely out of fear. More often than not there were heartbreaking experiences of being thrown out and disowned by their family and Church community, being abused and beaten by fellow students in school, attempted suicide and coming close to despair. The amount of human suffering in the gay community was overwhelming. In the midst of all that suffering and despair the Spirit came to them and touched their hearts. They became aware that God loved them as gay men. This experience of God’s love healed their spirit and psyche. Having accepted themselves as loved by God, they were then able to reach out for companionship. “It is not good that a human remain alone. Every human needs a companion of his or her own kind.” (Gen ) The final stage in that journey was a call to ministry, the Spirit urging them to share their experience of God’s love and all the good things that God has done for them with their brothers and sisters. Gay seminarians should keep in mind that Jesus was not a priest in his Church. His authority to minister came directly from the Spirit of God dwelling in his heart.
Wherever humans are being liberated to a greater fullness of justice and life, there is God’s Holy Spirit “doing something new” in establishing the kingdom of God on earth. The two great liberation movements of our day, women’s liberation and gay and lesbian liberation are both the work of the Holy Spirit. And they are not unconnected. The root cause of all homophobia is what I name feminaphobia, the hatred of all things feminine. This is the most central “objective disorder” in the Vatican.
The Holy Spirit cannot be contained. “The wind of the Spirit blows where it will!” I do not think it was pure coincidence that the movie, Brokeback Mountain was released simultaneously with the Vatican Instruction. That movie is a revelation of the human goodness and beauty of gay love that speaks directly to the human heart. Another event will happen at the Equity Forum film festival in Philadelphia during the month of May. A documentary on the life of the gay Franciscan priest, Mychal Judge, the chaplain of the New York fire department entitled “ Saint of 9/11” will be shown. Father Judge, a gay man was the perfect model of a saintly priest. Again I think it was no coincidence that at the very moment Father Judge was dying while anointing a fallen fire fighter at the foot of the World Trade Towers, hierarchs were drafting the Instruction in Rome banning gays from the priesthood.
Father Jacques Perotti, a leader of David and Jonathan, the Christian gay movement in French speaking countries, speaks of a declic, a special moment in history, “a revelation of a positive homosexual identity from the heart of the world. After so many ages of rejection, destruction and intimidation, a wind of freedom has begun to blow!” Since this is the work of God, no human force can stop it.
The recent statement of the Vatican equating the sin of pedophilia with proposing woman's ordination gives this article I wrote on feminaphobia several year’s ago a new relevance and urgency!\
The Vatican in its recent instruction barring gays from the seminary has given a vicious collective slap in the face, not only to gay priests and seminarians, but to every gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual and transgendered person on the face of the earth. The instruction from Pope Benedict calls homosexual orientation an “objective disorder” and any sexual actions that flow from that orientation are contrary to the divine will and profoundly sinful. Note that this judgment applies not only to seminarians and clergy struggling to live in accordance with their vow of chastity, but to all gay men and lesbian women. Any effort by a gay person to reach out for human sexual love, no matter what the circumstances, is judged as evil. Scripture says that if anyone loves, they know God, because God is love. The Vatican says that if gay people enter into a human sexual love relation they know evil and will separate themselves from the love of God.
I believe this is the worst document issued from the Church since it declared in 1866 (three years after the Emancipation Proclamation) that “slavery itself…is not at all contrary to the divine and natural law”. Slavery is not, but homosexuality is.
I foresee two probable consequences to this instruction; the first will be a sharp decline in candidates for the priesthood. That decline in candidates has already reached a critical point in Europe and the United States. In fact, the instruction may well deal a death blow to a cultic priesthood of exclusively chaste male (heterosexual and repressed homosexual) men and force the hierarchy to open the priesthood to other candidates such as married men and eventually, to woman. If this happens, it represents what I call the shrewdness of the Holy Spirit.
It is common knowledge that the primary yet unstated reason for the publication of this instruction is the priest child abuse scandal that has seriously and perhaps permanently damaged the Church’s moral authority. This document has nothing to do with God or even morality. It is a political document issued in self-defense by the human and sinful hierarchy of the institutional church. The hierarchy, rather than accept their responsibility for this crisis, decided to scapegoat gay priests and seminarians. Starting with the fact that the vast majority of the victims were young boys, some high officials in Rome and many in the United States declared that the majority of the perpetrators were homosexual priests. They assumed without evidence that every same sex act implies homosexual orientation. In fact, most empirical research evidence points to the opposite conclusion. The majority of men involved in child abuse are heterosexual. The motivation for most child abusers is not sex but power.
A more probable explanation for the abuse, according to the vast majority of psychologists is the high number of priests who were immature, insecure about their tendencies and full of doubt and guilt. Any homosexual who achieves a healthy self acceptance and has a positive attitude toward his sexual orientation is precisely the one this instruction excludes from seminary. Whereas those gay men who are struggling with immaturity, who manifest insecurity and self rejection because of their homosexuality, who are full of doubt and guilt, they are acceptable candidates for the seminary. The healthy are unacceptable; only the pathological may apply. Rather than acting as a cure of the child abuse crisis, this instruction guarantees that the crisis will continue. What is bad psychology has to be bad theology.
The second consequence of this Instruction will be a further decline of the moral authority of the hierarchy. The Instruction is so out of touch with reality that it is obvious that the authors consulted only so-called experts who agreed with its dogmatic premises that homosexual orientation is an orientation to evil. On November 30, 2005, the Vatican newspaper published a commentary on the instruction written by Fr. Tony Anatrella, a French priest and psychoanalyst, and a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family. Father Anatrella’s essay is such a homophobic caricature of gay priests as to be laughable. Yet Vatican spokesmen say Anatrella’s essay does represent an official explication of what the instruction’s authors had in mind. By limiting themselves to such prejudiced consultants the Vatican cut itself off from the reality of gay life. Every major psychological association has concluded from empirical evidence that homosexuality as such does not imply psychological disorder and homosexuals can be as mature and responsible as heterosexuals. The Vatican has an important role in the human search for truth, but it certainly does not have the right to invent the truth concerning homosexuality.
The Vatican is right, I believe, in claiming that we are dealing with an “objective disorder”. But that objective disorder has nothing to do with homosexuality but with the Vatican itself. One clue to what that disorder is, is to be found in the use of the word “objective”. Traditionally, the Vatican viewed all homosexual behavior as a choice motivated by lust by otherwise heterosexual men and, therefore, “subjectively disordered” But when modern psychologists accumulated undeniable evidence that there is such a thing as homosexual orientation that is not chosen and is unchangeable, the Vatican was forced to concede that homosexual orientation, since it is not a matter of choice, cannot be qualified as subjectively morally evil. One possible conclusion then was that homosexual orientation was part of God’s creative plan and since “ agere sequitur esse”, the acts that would flow from such an orientation, if they are in the context of interpersonal love, would be morally acceptable. To say that God created humans with an orientation to evil is blasphemy. In defense of its tradition the Vatican chooses to go the other way. God intended all humans to be heterosexual. Homosexual orientation must represent, then, some mysterious disruption of God’s plan possibly due to original sin. The orientation itself is an orientation to evil and any action flowing from that orientation would be sinful.
There is a deeper reason why the Vatican seems so out of touch whenever it deals with sexual ethics. Paradoxically, the Vatican, which teaches the Christian position that God is love, has no adequate philosophical foundation for dealing with love, divine or human, or with the unique individual person and that person’s subjective consciousness. The Vatican remains exclusively committed to objective Thomistic realism and has systematically rejected any effort to introduce the human subject into its moral reasoning In his encyclical, Veritatis Splendor , published in 1993, Pope John Paul II defended this choice because objective realism makes possible the formulation of absolute, universal laws essential to the power and absolute authority of the Church, whereas to introduce the human subject is to allow a kind of relativism, which would undermine the absolute authority of the Church. On several occasions Pope Benedict has iden5ified this “relativism” as the worst intellectual enemy of Church authority. For over a hundred years, progressive Catholic theologians have urged the Church to develop its philosophical foundation to allow for the unique human subject, the person, and that person’s contribution to theological thinking. Instead of basing its sexual morality on biology, gender differences and procreation, this would allow the Church to deal with the specific human purposes of sex such as interpersonal love and companionship, but the Church has adamantly refused to do so.
As far back as 1893, Maurice Blondel in his book, L’Action argued that objective realism, since it could only deal with conceptual reality, was necessarily depersonalized and depersonalizing because the unique individual person can never be objectified in a concept. He also maintained that love is a human experience that can only be known from within in the action of loving. He believed that a philosophy that included the unique human person would be much more compatible with Christian belief. The ultimate level of truth was not the conformity of human concepts with objective reality but the conformity of will-willing with will-willed. That truth can only be arrived at through human action and commitment and is a truth that is only available subjectively in individual consciousness.
Jesus at the last supper told his followers, “It is necessary that I go away. If I do not go away the Spirit can not come to you. But if I go away I will send you the Spirit. The Spirit will dwell in your hearts and lead you into all truths.” Jesus was recommending a spiritual maturing process by which his followers’ contact with God would no longer be Jesus outside themselves but the divine life living within them.
“Because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Holy Spirit will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (John: 16:6-13)
Jesus is expressing the need in some way to prove to be a fallible leader in order for his followers to mature and move on to the next stage in their spiritual life, where their authority is no longer just Jesus outside themselves but the Spirit dwelling in their hearts.
As Blondel put it, what Jesus was promising was not a “visio beatificans” , a purely intellectual viewing of the divine essence, but a “vita beatificans”, a sharing on the subjective level of divine life, a sharing that can rise up into our consciousness when we place an action of love. “For God is love and, if anyone loves they know God.” “The only way we can know God is in some way to be God, to share in divine life.” When we place an action that is in conformity with that divine spirit dwelling within us then we experience total certainty and intense joy and fulfillment
A central Christian teaching based on the indwelling of the Spirit, one that is without doubt of outmost importance especially to those who are gay or lesbian, is the teaching of freedom of conscience. This teaching was expressed anew in a powerful way in the documents of Vatican II:
Every human has in his or her heart a law written by God. To obey that law is the dignity of the human. According to that law we will be judged. There we are alone with God whose voice echoes in our depths. (The Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World)
According to this teaching where do you seek to find out what God wants of you? You turn inward in prayer and you listen carefully to discern what your heart is saying to you. You ask God, if you are about to make a choice, if what you are about to do is in harmony with God’s spirit dwelling in your heart, to fill your heart with confidence, peace and joy. “Lord, grant me the grace to know your will for me and the courage to be able to do it.” Note that God speaks to us primarily though our hearts, that is to say, through our emotions, and only secondarily through our reason. This indwelling of the Holy Spirit was the grounds on which Ignatius Loyola based his Spiritual Exercises, especially his Rules for the Discernment of Spirits. This is the reason why the Vatican never trusted the Jesuits and preferred Opus Dei’s rigid authoritarianism instead.
Paul saw the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday as fulfillments of this prophesy of Jeremiah: “This is the new covenant I will make with my people in those days. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. No longer will they teach one another, or say to each other: Know the Lord. For they shall all know me from the least to the greatest, says the Lord!” Again Paul quotes these words from the prophet Joel: “In the last days, it will be,” God declares, “that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy and your young men will see visions. And your old men will dream dreams. Even upon slaves, both men and women, I will pore out my Spirit and they shall prophecy.” (Acts 2: 16-17)
(There is no comment on these passages in John Paul II’s encyclical, Splendor Veritatis, which gives a brilliant defense of the role of reason in moral life.) The hierarchy has no exclusive claim to discerning what the will of God is. This power belongs to every baptized Christian who has received the Holy Spirit.
The Church is in need of a special transformation to become a Church of the Holy Spirit. With the coming of the Spirit, we, like the Apostles, must give up the security of a provident leader. We have a special need with God’s grace to become mature, self-motivated, autonomous people, no longer dependent on outside forces for a sense of our identity and well-being. We must not let our enemies outside ourselves define us, we must let the Spirit of love that dwells in our hearts define us. If we approach external Church authorities, it should not be to seek an approval they cannot and frequently will not give us. Rather, it should be to witness to what the Holy Spirit is saying through our experience.
The loss of the moral authority of the Catholic Church is truly tragic. There is a desperate need for that authority in such issues as poverty, war and peace, the economy and many other areas. True authority in the Church of the Holy Spirit will only be exercised by leaders who are tuned in and listening to what the Holy Spirit is saying in and through the experiences of the people of God. Here is where God is making an ongoing revelation of God’s truth. In the Book of Revelations, the Holy Spirit makes the statement: “Behold! I am doing something new.” Paul in Romans 4:17 writes “The Spirit is calling into being what does not now exist”. Scripture and reason are not the only sources to reveal to us the will of God. We also have the living and creative voice of God’s Spirit speaking to us directly in our hearts and through our experiences. And Jesus promised us that if we prayerfully listen to that voice, the Spirit “will lead us into all truth”.
For twenty-five years, I conducted ecumenical retreats twice a year at Kirkridge Retreat Center located in the Poconos, for gay and lesbian Christians using the theme “Seeking Intimacy with God”. Every Saturday night during the weekend retreat we held a session called the ‘fishbowl’ during which ten selected retreatents shared their spiritual journey as gay men. After hearing five hundred such biographical accounts, a clear pattern of how the Holy Spirit acts in gay men emerged. Initially, there was a period of acceptance of homophobic Church teaching which led to self-loathing, emotional breakdown, alcohol and/or drug abuse, and relating to God purely out of fear. More often than not there were heartbreaking experiences of being thrown out and disowned by their family and Church community, being abused and beaten by fellow students in school, attempted suicide and coming close to despair. The amount of human suffering in the gay community was overwhelming. In the midst of all that suffering and despair the Spirit came to them and touched their hearts. They became aware that God loved them as gay men. This experience of God’s love healed their spirit and psyche. Having accepted themselves as loved by God, they were then able to reach out for companionship. “It is not good that a human remain alone. Every human needs a companion of his or her own kind.” (Gen ) The final stage in that journey was a call to ministry, the Spirit urging them to share their experience of God’s love and all the good things that God has done for them with their brothers and sisters. Gay seminarians should keep in mind that Jesus was not a priest in his Church. His authority to minister came directly from the Spirit of God dwelling in his heart.
Wherever humans are being liberated to a greater fullness of justice and life, there is God’s Holy Spirit “doing something new” in establishing the kingdom of God on earth. The two great liberation movements of our day, women’s liberation and gay and lesbian liberation are both the work of the Holy Spirit. And they are not unconnected. The root cause of all homophobia is what I name feminaphobia, the hatred of all things feminine. This is the most central “objective disorder” in the Vatican.
The Holy Spirit cannot be contained. “The wind of the Spirit blows where it will!” I do not think it was pure coincidence that the movie, Brokeback Mountain was released simultaneously with the Vatican Instruction. That movie is a revelation of the human goodness and beauty of gay love that speaks directly to the human heart. Another event will happen at the Equity Forum film festival in Philadelphia during the month of May. A documentary on the life of the gay Franciscan priest, Mychal Judge, the chaplain of the New York fire department entitled “ Saint of 9/11” will be shown. Father Judge, a gay man was the perfect model of a saintly priest. Again I think it was no coincidence that at the very moment Father Judge was dying while anointing a fallen fire fighter at the foot of the World Trade Towers, hierarchs were drafting the Instruction in Rome banning gays from the priesthood.
Father Jacques Perotti, a leader of David and Jonathan, the Christian gay movement in French speaking countries, speaks of a declic, a special moment in history, “a revelation of a positive homosexual identity from the heart of the world. After so many ages of rejection, destruction and intimidation, a wind of freedom has begun to blow!” Since this is the work of God, no human force can stop it.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
The Hunger and Thirst in the Human Heart for Union With God
I am approaching 85 years of age. I have discovered that every decade of my life has been happier and more peaceful than the last. As my body grows older, my spirit becomes younger. I know that this is a gift from God for which I am grateful. As the years have gone by my prayer life has undergone a radical change, from a prayer of the head, a prayer of words, concepts and thought processes, to a prayer of the heart. God has given me the grace to be continuously aware of a longing in my heart for a greater intimacy with the Spirit of God indwelling in my heart. My conscious awareness of God is based on not only what I have already achieved but what I am deprived of, what I need and dont have; what I am yearning for; what I have a hunger and thirst for and have not yet achieved!
Privation is a paradoxical concept. Classical philosophy defines privation as "the absence of that which ought to be." To experience something as a deprivation is an experience of absence in presence or presence in absence. To experience God as privation, then, necessarily means that I have already had an experience of God's presence and now I yearn for more. I like to compare it to a missing piece in a jigsaw puzzle. If I see it, I will know it because there is only one piece that will fit into that empty space. In St Augustine's prayer, "You made us for yourself, oh Lord, and our hearts will never rest until they rest in thee." This is a dynamic reading of the static statement that humans were created in the image and likeness of God.
My personal knowledge of God has little to do with any intellectual definition. All the great mystics saw our efforts to capture God with concepts and dogmas as self defeating. They recommended in prayer that we should empty our minds of thought and enter "the cloud of unknowing".
My knowledge of God comes from the hunger and thirst in myself. In the words of Psalm 63:!:
My prayer life consists in being in touch with that hunger and thirst, not letting anything fill it in or block it off from me. Rather, I strive to be in touch with that hunger and thirst, to consecrate it by converting it intentionally into prayer and identifying with it.
My prayer life then is very simple. I spend a lot of time just being in touch with that longing, being open to it and waiting. I continually ask God to come and fill in the deep deprivation within me. I identify with the desert waiting for the rain to come and soak in. As a result my prayer is continuous with my conscious awareness.
I set aside time to enter into myself, empty out all thought and rest in the presence of God. I also spend some time everyday "praying" the New York Times, formulating a prayer appropriate to every headline and article. In this way I strive to let my prayer reach out to the whole world.
At a recent Easter vigil I heard this passage from the Psalms:
Suddenly I was in touch with a profound longing for union with God, a longing that was at the same time painful and pleasurable, and I began to cry. I am grateful to God for that moment and see it as a great grace. Since that time I am consciously aware that what I want is intimacy with God, and I will not settle for anything less.
I am aware that being in touch with that longing is already a kind of awareness of God through privation. This awareness is God's gift and promise.. All other touches of intimacy in my life - the intimacies of family, friendships, intimacy with a lover - are all foretastes of that ultimate intimacy, But the only intimacy that can meet my needs and fill my heart is the intimacy with God.
I particularly love the words of St. Augustine's prayer in his Confessions:
Late have I loved you, O Beauty, ever ancient, ever new; late have I loved you,
You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you.
In my unlovliness I plunged into the lovely things that you created.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
yet if they had not been in you, they would not have been at all.
You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.
You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness,
You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you.
I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.
You touched me and now I long for your peace!
jjmcneill@aol.com
Privation is a paradoxical concept. Classical philosophy defines privation as "the absence of that which ought to be." To experience something as a deprivation is an experience of absence in presence or presence in absence. To experience God as privation, then, necessarily means that I have already had an experience of God's presence and now I yearn for more. I like to compare it to a missing piece in a jigsaw puzzle. If I see it, I will know it because there is only one piece that will fit into that empty space. In St Augustine's prayer, "You made us for yourself, oh Lord, and our hearts will never rest until they rest in thee." This is a dynamic reading of the static statement that humans were created in the image and likeness of God.
My personal knowledge of God has little to do with any intellectual definition. All the great mystics saw our efforts to capture God with concepts and dogmas as self defeating. They recommended in prayer that we should empty our minds of thought and enter "the cloud of unknowing".
My knowledge of God comes from the hunger and thirst in myself. In the words of Psalm 63:!:
O God, you are my God, I seek you,
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.
My prayer life consists in being in touch with that hunger and thirst, not letting anything fill it in or block it off from me. Rather, I strive to be in touch with that hunger and thirst, to consecrate it by converting it intentionally into prayer and identifying with it.
My prayer life then is very simple. I spend a lot of time just being in touch with that longing, being open to it and waiting. I continually ask God to come and fill in the deep deprivation within me. I identify with the desert waiting for the rain to come and soak in. As a result my prayer is continuous with my conscious awareness.
I set aside time to enter into myself, empty out all thought and rest in the presence of God. I also spend some time everyday "praying" the New York Times, formulating a prayer appropriate to every headline and article. In this way I strive to let my prayer reach out to the whole world.
At a recent Easter vigil I heard this passage from the Psalms:
As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soull longs for you, O God!
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God! (42:1)
I am aware that being in touch with that longing is already a kind of awareness of God through privation. This awareness is God's gift and promise.. All other touches of intimacy in my life - the intimacies of family, friendships, intimacy with a lover - are all foretastes of that ultimate intimacy, But the only intimacy that can meet my needs and fill my heart is the intimacy with God.
I particularly love the words of St. Augustine's prayer in his Confessions:
Late have I loved you, O Beauty, ever ancient, ever new; late have I loved you,
You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you.
In my unlovliness I plunged into the lovely things that you created.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
yet if they had not been in you, they would not have been at all.
You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.
You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness,
You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you.
I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.
You touched me and now I long for your peace!
jjmcneill@aol.com
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Sexual Play: God's Gift To The Poor, Part 2
I will never forget several decades ago the first time I heard the famous British theologian, Norman Pittenger, make the statement: "Granting that we are dealing with consenting adults, there is no such thing as bad sex; there is only good, better and best sex!" A wave of laughter went through the room. You could feel the spirit of joyful liberation those words brought from decades of shame, guilt and self-hatred. And every time since when I repeated that statement I witnessed the same result.
We know from Revelation that God created us sexual beings and delights in our sexual play. Every human being has a God-given right to sexual fulfillment. In this article I speak primarily as a psychotherapist as I ask the question what makes sex good, better or best? Best sex is obviously two humans enjoying mutual sexual pleasure within a committed loving relationship. Where this kind of sexual relation can be achieved, it brings with it not only superb sexual pleasure but, as Genesis 2 said, on an even deeper level it brings with it escape from loneliness and isolation into the deepest experience humans can have of intimacy, and frequently opens the door to a mystical experience of intimacy with God.
I am aware as a psychotherpist with several decades of experience that many, if not most, human beings grow up with badly damaged psychys and a wounded self image that render them incapable , except with extreme difficulty, to enter into a committed relation based on mutual love. However, these psychically wounded humans still have a right to sexual fulfillment to the best of their ability. If all one is capable of is a solitary act of masturbation, then that masturbatory act, undertaken with gratitude to God for the gift of sexual pleasure, is good sex.
Even better sex occurs when two wounded humans reach out to each other to share mutual sexual pleasure in a 'one night stand'. I always liked the joke I heard many years ago about an aging queen in the Bowery who went into a bar with a parakeet on his shoulder. Standing at the end of the bar he announced in a loud voice, "I will go to bed with anyone who guesses the weight of my parakeet!" One drunk looked up and guessed two hundred pounds. "Close enough!" responded the queen. What is happening here. Two psychically badly damaged human beings will share a moment of mutual sexual pleasure . That is all they are capable of and that is good, even better, sex. Even better still is the relation of two "fuck buddies" that meet regularly for sexual fulfillment in the context of mutual friendship.
These reflections make it patently clear that no human being has the right to make moral judgments on the sexual activities of others. Only God knows if the person involved in a sexual act is living up to her or his potential. Humans are under an obligation to achieve the highest level of intimacy they are capable of. If you are blessed with a healthy psyche that opens the possibility of best sex for you, be grateful to God and refrain from any judgmentalism about the sex life of your neighor.
jjmcneill@aol.com
We know from Revelation that God created us sexual beings and delights in our sexual play. Every human being has a God-given right to sexual fulfillment. In this article I speak primarily as a psychotherapist as I ask the question what makes sex good, better or best? Best sex is obviously two humans enjoying mutual sexual pleasure within a committed loving relationship. Where this kind of sexual relation can be achieved, it brings with it not only superb sexual pleasure but, as Genesis 2 said, on an even deeper level it brings with it escape from loneliness and isolation into the deepest experience humans can have of intimacy, and frequently opens the door to a mystical experience of intimacy with God.
I am aware as a psychotherpist with several decades of experience that many, if not most, human beings grow up with badly damaged psychys and a wounded self image that render them incapable , except with extreme difficulty, to enter into a committed relation based on mutual love. However, these psychically wounded humans still have a right to sexual fulfillment to the best of their ability. If all one is capable of is a solitary act of masturbation, then that masturbatory act, undertaken with gratitude to God for the gift of sexual pleasure, is good sex.
Even better sex occurs when two wounded humans reach out to each other to share mutual sexual pleasure in a 'one night stand'. I always liked the joke I heard many years ago about an aging queen in the Bowery who went into a bar with a parakeet on his shoulder. Standing at the end of the bar he announced in a loud voice, "I will go to bed with anyone who guesses the weight of my parakeet!" One drunk looked up and guessed two hundred pounds. "Close enough!" responded the queen. What is happening here. Two psychically badly damaged human beings will share a moment of mutual sexual pleasure . That is all they are capable of and that is good, even better, sex. Even better still is the relation of two "fuck buddies" that meet regularly for sexual fulfillment in the context of mutual friendship.
These reflections make it patently clear that no human being has the right to make moral judgments on the sexual activities of others. Only God knows if the person involved in a sexual act is living up to her or his potential. Humans are under an obligation to achieve the highest level of intimacy they are capable of. If you are blessed with a healthy psyche that opens the possibility of best sex for you, be grateful to God and refrain from any judgmentalism about the sex life of your neighor.
jjmcneill@aol.com
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Sexual Play: God's Gift To The Poor
In my most recent publication: Sex As God Intended: A Reflection on Human Sexualty As Play, I made the observation that scripture , especially The Song of Songs, makes it abudantly clear that God intended human sexuality to be an experience of play. As St Irenaus said: Gloria Dei, homo vivens. The glory of God are humans fully alive. That includes being sexually fully alive. It delights God to see the creatures he loves enjoying God's gift of playful sex within an intimate loving relationship with a spirit of gratitude.
But what makes sex play? The human experience of play, like love, is indefinable. We know what play is when we experience it, but we cant define it. Sociologists observe that a disturbed child ceases to play when it experiences the absence of love. Tht child can be freed to begin to play again only when it feels the security of uncondiional love. Simlarly, we adults are free to play only if we feel loved. Ultimately it is the human experience of God's unconditional love that frees us to totally indulge the spirit of play all our lives.
What makes a human activity play? Play is usually contrasted to work. The human activity of work is frequently based on anxiety. The child who does not feel loved will work hard to earn that love. When one is working what one is doing in the present moment takes its meaning from what the future will bring. Work empties the present moment of its meaning and renders the worker a prisoner to the tyranny of time.
What makes human activity play is the fact that platful activity has its meaning totally in the present moment. The perfect example of that is dancing. The activity of dancing takes its meaning totally from what is happening in the present moment with no reference to the future. The result is a joyful liberation from the tyranny of time.
If human sexual activity is undertaken for the conscious purpose of procreation , it become another form of work subject to the tyranny of time. In Gen 2 we read that God looked at Adam and said"It is not good that the human be alone. Every human should have a companion of his or her own kind" Obviously God intended human sexuality to be a cure for lonliness and help humans enter into deep intimate love relations.. In playful sex we must relate to our sexual partner as end in him or herself and not as a means to something beyond the partner him or her self. Adam and Eve enjoyed playful sex in the garden of Eden in the presence of God. By restoring our awareness of God's love, Christ wanted to restore human sexuality to the same joyful play it was in Eden.
St Augustine once wrote: Ama! Et fac quod vis! Love and then do wahatever you want! Exactly! Because what ever a lover wants will be in complete harmony with the spirit of God!
But what makes sex play? The human experience of play, like love, is indefinable. We know what play is when we experience it, but we cant define it. Sociologists observe that a disturbed child ceases to play when it experiences the absence of love. Tht child can be freed to begin to play again only when it feels the security of uncondiional love. Simlarly, we adults are free to play only if we feel loved. Ultimately it is the human experience of God's unconditional love that frees us to totally indulge the spirit of play all our lives.
What makes a human activity play? Play is usually contrasted to work. The human activity of work is frequently based on anxiety. The child who does not feel loved will work hard to earn that love. When one is working what one is doing in the present moment takes its meaning from what the future will bring. Work empties the present moment of its meaning and renders the worker a prisoner to the tyranny of time.
What makes human activity play is the fact that platful activity has its meaning totally in the present moment. The perfect example of that is dancing. The activity of dancing takes its meaning totally from what is happening in the present moment with no reference to the future. The result is a joyful liberation from the tyranny of time.
If human sexual activity is undertaken for the conscious purpose of procreation , it become another form of work subject to the tyranny of time. In Gen 2 we read that God looked at Adam and said"It is not good that the human be alone. Every human should have a companion of his or her own kind" Obviously God intended human sexuality to be a cure for lonliness and help humans enter into deep intimate love relations.. In playful sex we must relate to our sexual partner as end in him or herself and not as a means to something beyond the partner him or her self. Adam and Eve enjoyed playful sex in the garden of Eden in the presence of God. By restoring our awareness of God's love, Christ wanted to restore human sexuality to the same joyful play it was in Eden.
St Augustine once wrote: Ama! Et fac quod vis! Love and then do wahatever you want! Exactly! Because what ever a lover wants will be in complete harmony with the spirit of God!
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