Sister Jose Hobday, the Franciscan sister and Native American whom I cited a previously regarding the spiritual leadership of gay and lesbian people, told me that in her rich ministry of retreat giving, “the most beautiful Christians of all” were very often homosexual men and women. This has been my experience as well. Why might this be?
Behind the dualism of body versus soul or of spirit versus matter that has heinously infiltrated Christianity from Hellenism lies the dualism that spirit is about soul and not body. That is not the case in biblical teaching, where the word too often translated as soul, nepesh, indeed means all of the following: throat, neck, desire, life, person. The homosexual, by not equating sexuality exclusively with procreation, as Augustine did, allows for the energies of Spirit to flow once again, to overcome dualism that neither Jesus not the prophets ever imagined, to allow passion its proper place so that compassion might be born.
Furthermore, by removing sexual expression from a dominantly reproductive motif—as if sexual love needs to be justified by having babies—the homosexual, like the author of the Song of Song, teaches society to pause long enough to savor life and its divine delights. In this way homosexual love is an affront to capitalism, which is per se production-oriented and has never developed an art of celebration.
The brilliant psychologist Otto Rank, often credited with being the father of humanistic psychology, believed that humanity is emerging from the sexual era when the quest for immortality of the soul was expressed in an exaggeration of family or of its opposite, celibacy. In this era sexuality was in fact taken too seriously by all of us. As we emerge from the sexual era, we need those who can teach us the other, more playful, less serious, and less goal-oriented side to sexuality—the mystical side. Here, as Masters and Johnson have found, the homosexual offers a gift to the heterosexual community and society as a whole.
If it is true, as Gustavo Gutierrez writes, that the spirituality of liberation will have as its basis the spirituality of the anawim,* then the issue of First and Third World Liberation, of feminist and male liberation, of North American as well as Latin American liberation, of white as well as black, brown, red liberation cannot be joined without the sexual anawim being listened to.
* “anawim” means “those without voices” or “the voiceless ones.”
From Matthew Fox, “The Spiritual Journey of the Homosexual and Just about Everyone Else, in Fox, Wrestling With The Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life, pp. 244, 262-263.
Queries for Contemplation
What do you learn from homosexuals you know or from yourself as gay, lesbian, bi, trans, or genderqueer about the playfulness and creativity of life, of art, of friendship, of the art of love making?
Recommended Reading
In one of his foundational works, Fox engages in substantive discussions with some of history’s greatest mystics, philosophers, and prophets on today’s social and spiritual issues on such challenging topics as Eco-Spirituality, AIDS, homosexuality, spiritual feminism, environmental revolution, Native American spirituality, Christian mysticism, Art and Spirituality, Art as Meditation, Interspirituality, and more.
11 thoughts on “More Dimensions to Homosexual Love”
I appreciate this article
I also find it very interesting that homosexuality is deemed by some as against the Empire.
I would rather have 20 homosexual friends than 1 heterosexual friend because of the creativity and beauty that you describe in this article
thank you
Thanks for the insight and respect.
John, You are welcome. Thanks for writing.
Gail Sofia ransom
For the DM Team
My gay cousin has been a blessing in my life. He is sweet and loving. Sadly, as a teenager and young man, he often thought of suicide, as so many do. He took care of many of his friends with AIDS as they sickened and died. I do not think that those in the “church” or others who “disapprove” of or hate homosexuals could even imagine such Christlike service. I am sorry to say that many churches have become such havens of hatred and prejudice that they themselves are the perversion.
Dear Sue,
Thank you for writing to us about your cousin. He among many, has had to do so much healing in response to the toxic messages he has received from churches and the culture. Having to spend so much of one’s energy just for the right to breathe is not fair. And yet, like your cousin, the inner work required to gain personal strength and self respect creates a wisdom and resilience that becomes a an inspiration for us all.
Gail Sofia Ransom
For the DM Team
I am an ordained woman, (Ecumenical Catholic priest) and have a wonderful community in Colorado. We are small, we serve each others’ need, baptize, bury, cook, laugh, listen. These are often people rejected by the institutional church (gay, divorced-remarried, etc) and still know themselves to be Catholic. They are often deeply committed to listening, to forgiveness, to significant signs of peacemaking and kindness. Not always, but often on the path past judgment of others. Bless all of us who accept others and do not judge, and still listen and stand in hope. Thank all those who forgive and hear the gospel readings from the standpoint of care.
Blessings
(Mother) Sheila Durkin Dierks
Boulder Co.
Thank you for your comment, Mother Dierks. It is good to know of a healthy and affirming community. May your lives thrive because of the honest faith that you share.
Gail Sofia Ransom
For the DM Team
Dear Sheila,
Thank you for letting us know about your wonderful community in Colorado. There are small communities like yours across the country that are based on Creation Spirituality. Creation Spirituality Communities has several ways for communities to share and learn from each other. If you are interested in finding a companion community, check out their website: http://www.cscpmmunities.org or write to contact@csommunities.org They would be very glad to hear from you.
Gail Sophia Ransom
For the Daily Meditations Team
Thank you for your sensitive and enlightened understanding of who and what I am … a happily married 80-year-old Christian gay man. Down through my decades I’ve marched, protested, created and operated LGBT support groups, sang, danced and delighted in sex, and eased dying friends and loved ones into God’s eternal grace. And through it all, though I’ve occasionally doubted it, my lifelong faith has sustained me. I am grateful beyond words for having been chosen to be one one of God’s gay creations … it’s a pricelessly precious gift.
Dear Jon,
Thank you for all you have done as a Christian gay man. You remind us that acceptance is not the ultimate goal of all our struggles for inclusion – celebration is! Within God’s infinite varieties of beauty, gay is a particularly exquisite creation.
Gail Sofia Ransom
For the Daily Meditation Team
I miss José… she was a mystic par excellence…