First
Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany
”Sacred
Sexuality”
Rev. Samuel Trumbore March, 4, 2007
These two excerpts come from a fantastic book I highly recommend titled, "From Queer to Eternity: Spirituality in the Lives of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual People" by Peter Sweasey
Diana Reynolds, now a priest, found coming out of the closet a profound experience. Here is how she described it:
I don’t know how it happened really, but I was walking down the street one day and I suddenly saw a woman, and looked at her in a way that I’d never looked at anybody before. It wasn’t just a physical lust that I’d never felt; it was like the sun rising in the morning, a whole new light came over me. I sensed this insight into who I was as a person. I was bowled over by it; it was almost like a trance. There was a strong sense that this was me, I still couldn’t name it, but I knew myself.
I was living at the time in a lay community: we had daily contemplative prayer together, about half an hour’s silence every evening. I’d been praying this way for ten years and had always felt there was some kind of barrier, I could never put my finger on what it was. That night the silence was different: it was like the wall had been taken away. There was nothing between me and God any more. Until then, I’d managed to hide who I was from myself, and from the God I was meeting in that silence. I don’t know if it was me that realized, or if God was telling me – it depends what kind of language you use about god – but I had an awareness then, that I was gay, and that was the way I’d been made, and that was the way God wanted me to live my life. It was a very liberating experience. I sat in the silence for three more hours that night, and it felt like five minutes. I just soaked up energy from it; it was like I’d been a dry sponge that had been put in a bucket of water. I came out of that silence and said yes, I’m gay and that’s fine, I’m going to tell everyone and celebrate it. (p. 32)
Occasionally the transcendent potential of sex finds a truly mystical fulfillment.
Peter Cooper, now in his seventies, recalls one such occasion from many years ago. ‘I was a Wing Commander in the Royal Air Force. Carl was a commander in the United States Navy. We had been lovers for two years. One summer, on leave in the mountains and forests of Turkey, We swam naked in the river. Afterwards, as we lay in the sunlight, we made love. We had done so many times before, but there was something especially intense about this occasion. Our bodies smelled and tasted of the cool fresh river. We could see a magnificent oak tree, whose leaves danced and rustled…We had simultaneous orgasms of explosive force. At this instant our gaze was drawn to the tree, which had undergone a change. It was ablaze with mysterious life, as if our release of energy had somehow triggered off a reaction in the tree so that sap raced upwards through it, filling it with power. The best analogy was that a mighty wind was blowing vertically through it and rushing into the blue sky. I thought of the wind of the Holy Spirit, which filled the house of the apostles in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. Our sex act had been the expression of our intense love.
Love was the force that flowed through the tree and through us…[We experienced] a change of consciousness, so that we were at one with each other and with the tree, which seemed to ramify gigantically into outer space. It was the tree of life. The whole landscape—river, forest, mountains, sky—was lit from within. Colors glowed with extraordinary vividness. All was vibrant. Paradise was here and now. Never had we been so full of life, seemed so beautiful to each other, loved each other so tenderly, been so fused together in body and spirit that each experienced the existence of the other as his own. We saw how everything and everyone was connected in a unity.
Then the vision vanished as suddenly as it had begun. We felt that the mysterious activity was still going on, but that we had lost our awareness of it. It was only now that we realized that during our change in consciousness we had seen no physical motion, heard no sound. For a moment we were dazed at returning to the familiar universe. We discussed what had happened. We had each, independently of the other and yet together, just had an experience that had been virtually identical. Carl said, “The force, whatever it was, obviously didn’t mind our being homosexual.” We had felt our love (love, not just sex) to be in perfect harmony with the manifestation, indeed to be a part of it. (p88-89)
Feminist Dorothy Allison writes:
I have concluded, there are no valid generalizations to be made about sex and women’s lives except for the central fact that we are all hungry for the power of desire and we are all terribly afraid.
Hungry and afraid, our sexual passion can dominate human existence. Helen’s seduction by Paris that led to the fall of Troy shaped Greek civilization. Associating spirituality with sexuality just increases the danger. Adding homosexuality to the mix is begging for trouble.
This topic is fraught with the temptation to over-generalize or to speak for communities to which I do not belong as an avowed heterosexual. In preparation of these words, I’ve spoken with gays and lesbians in our congregation and I’ve spoken and corresponded with gays and lesbians in our ministry. My intent is not to draw conclusions but express appreciation and suggest new perspectives. The readings beautifully communicate my message. I’d just like to add a little commentary to extend and amplify them.
I didn’t know, by moving to the East Bay of San Francisco to finish my undergraduate work at U.C. Berkeley in the fall of 1979, I’d be entering a stronghold of the gay and lesbian community. I realized this as I discovered many of the women I was attracted to, in the circles I ran in, were lesbians. The choirs I sang in were both led by and populated by gays and lesbians. My congregation, the First Unitarian Church of Oakland, also had a young, vibrant gay and lesbian population.
While I was finishing my degree at Berkeley, I participated in a Unitarian Universalist Student Association led by a gay Starr King School for the Ministry seminarian named Doug. He and I became good friends giving me an opportunity to explore a new world that didn’t exist, as far as I knew, in my hometown of Newark, Delaware. I remember going with him to a gay bathhouse and getting to see some gay pornography. My lack of response to it helped me get very clear about my sexual orientation, as well as, imagine how homosexuals feel operating in a heterosexually dominated world.
I attended Starr King School myself as a seminarian six years later. This allowed me to get to know gay and lesbian students for whom their sexuality was an important part of their spiritual lives. I came to seminary without much appreciation of how sexuality and spirituality could be complementary. Flush with my newly discovered passion for Buddhism, I didn’t make the connection.
You
see, when Buddhists go on a meditation retreat, they vow to abstain
from all sexual activity. This is quite practical to keep
everyone focused on meditation, and for good reason. One of the
secrets of meditation retreats is they can stimulate tremendous
sexual energy in the meditators. That energy can easily find an
object in one of the other people on retreat.
The
imagination grabs hold of the person as one’s soul mate, all
without ever exchanging a glance or a word. Such experiences
reveal the projective power of the mind. I was taught to
redirect this energy into sharpening my concentration and expanding
my awareness.
When I heard my fellow seminarians talk about coming out and claiming their sexual identities, I was intrigued. I felt a power and authenticity in their voices that was extremely attractive. I hope you heard it in the voice of Diana Reynolds. Being a straight, white male, I envied the spiritual power they seemed to have access to. Given my experience of Buddhism, I felt I should be sublimating my sexual energy rather than expressing it openly. I wondered what it was about being outsiders and oppressed that translated into their authenticity. Was I compromising my access to this power and authenticity by my approach to my sexuality? Was I sublimating my sexual energy … or denying it? Was I being unconsciously influenced by traditional Western religious views?
I don’t think I need to spend much time or energy convincing you of the way homosexuals have been rejected by powerful elements of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions. Traditionally, rabbis have called sexual desire a potentially evil impulse that must be carefully controlled and kept within strict boundaries. Most Christian denominations will not ordain ‘practicing’ gays and lesbians nor recognize their marriages. According to a pamphlet produced by Al-Fatiha, there is a consensus among Islamic scholars that all humans are naturally heterosexual. Homosexuality is seen by scholars to be a sinful and perverted deviation from the norm.
Given their harsh treatment by the Abrahamic traditions, is it any wonder so many gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people turn away from religion? Yet the current of the Spirit of Life still runs through them exactly as it runs through heterosexuals. And one way that current can be discovered is through sexual activity. Audre Lorde calls sexuality a current that flows through all activities, that animates and enlivens them. She sees the bonds of community as erotic bonds. Judith Plaskow observes mutuality, openness, intimacy and vulnerability can connect one’s sexuality to the sacred. When sexuality and the sacred meet, they release a liberating energy that bucks hierarchical power and control.
The liberating energy that Peter and Carl experienced changed their lives. They were able to make connections like never before. They had a new level of empathy in their lives. That liberating energy is also at work at all levels of our congregational life from uplifting music in a service, to inspiring words from the speaker, to bringing people together during coffee hour, even to well run committee meetings. Skilled ministers know how to encourage and nurture this connectional energy without abusing it for personal satisfaction, power or control.
After reflecting on those gay and lesbian seminarians I knew, my reading these past two weeks, and the many gays and lesbians I’ve known, I’m convinced the Abrahamic religions have it wrong. Being non-heterosexual may actually give one an advantage in one’s free and responsible search for truth and meaning. I believe there are many life circumstances that can be advantages in one’s spiritual journey. Suffering childhood illness and getting almost killed by an automobile profoundly stimulated my spiritual journey. So, rather than being disadvantaged religiously, gays and lesbians can have a head start.
Realizing one’s non-heterosexuality begins through a sense of not fitting in with everyone else. Many gay boys notice they are different at an early age. They don’t respond to or even understand their buddies’ lurid references to women’s bodies. Lesbian girls may experience disgust watching other girls court male attention. Their peers’ behavior just doesn’t make sense to them emotionally. Why would they want to do that?
Being non-normative as a teenager immediately jeopardizes one’s social status. Their peers pick up their differences quickly and ostracize them for it. Most gay and lesbian children are forced into an outsider relationship to their peers and begin to question themselves. They awaken, sooner than their conforming peers, to a sense of separate, self-awareness.
This sense of been different forces them to begin to examine themselves. They ask, who am I and why am I like this? Why do I feel the way I do? Why can’t I be like everyone else? Rather than just sleep-walking though life doing what is expected of them by their parents, peers, employers, generals, politicians, priests and all the other authority figures, they start to think for themselves.
Their spiritual transformation happens, as it did for Diana Reynolds, when they begin to accept themselves for who they are. Diana explains:
When you’re confronting your own sexuality, you’re confronting yourself at the deepest level of your being – and it’s in that deepest level of your being that your spirituality dwells as well. A lot of straight people never confront their sexuality.
San Francisco Episcopalian priest Robert Williams puts it this way, “Coming out … is nothing more or less than a commitment to tell the truth, to live the truth, to ‘do the truth.’” Catholic skinhead Mike Fox feels “because I am rooted in who and what I am, it is easier for me to honestly approach God.” Sean Paterson, a former Benedictine monk, expresses his insight this way, “I’m utterly convinced that for most people, spiritual experience happens between the sheets, because that’s the closest encounter we have with the Other, the Transcendent, the More than Self.”
In alienation from dominant culture, these gays and lesbians discovered a freedom from repression of their sexuality to fully explore it, making powerful discoveries in the process of what is also true for heterosexuals. For many of us, sex is where we feel most alive; where we experience awe, joy, gratitude, intimacy, heightened awareness and where we encounter a mystery far greater than ourselves. Whatever our sexual orientation, our exploration of this intensely creative energy can lead us to the sacred, as it did for Peter and Carl.
As I’ve been reflecting on gays and lesbian’s outsider status, I recognized why Unitarian Universalism has been so welcoming to them. Part of it, of course, is our non-creedal approach to religion. But it goes to a deeper emotional level. As liberal religionists, we have experienced rejection by Trinitarian Christians. I’ve had to defend myself, as I’m sure many of you have, from those wanting to convince me I’m on the highway to hell. Being different from other kids as a Unitarian Universalist stimulated the growth of my self-awareness. Rather than just imbibe a church doctrine, I had to work out my own beliefs, declare them and stand behind them. And that included an exploration of my sexuality.
As a parent, I now have a new perspective on watching teenagers explore their sexuality. Seeing how women’s bodies are exploited to sell “murch,” cars and beer and how hard it is not to stumble upon an Internet pornography site (just try doing a google search for sacred sexuality and see where you go) I can easily become tempted to trim a little off of the First Amendment. As our culture has become increasingly sexualized, I worry about the effects on children and their development.
Reading about promiscuity, man-boy love and leather groups this past week, I’ve wondered about the dangers of being consumed by this passionate energy. The flood of endorphins, and risky behaviors give me pause. Would such practices open people’s heart or just trap them in addiction to their own opiates? What about the capacity for abuse? What about the danger of being consumed by the fires of lust?
The Rabbis are wise on this. Sexual energy needs boundaries, although we might draw them a little differently. For Dorothy Allison, the boundaries must be not so much the behaviors but the qualities of relationship between consenting adults. The keys are honesty, respect, responsibility and mutuality.
Susie Bright, pro-sex lesbian feminist who has lived and loved widely, writes about her early attempt to rate the quality of her sexual encounters:
By the end of my seventeenth year, I started to differentiate among the erotic chemistry, friendship, whirlwind romance, infatuation, and just another profound acid trip. I know some people have a first love—the love of their life—early on, but for me it was a maturing thing. I’ve never loved anyone as deeply and unselfishly as I love now, and if I had met my current lover ten or twenty years ago, I’m sure my love and trust would not have been as complete. I will always relish the fire of my four star lovers; they taught me what it was like to feel sexually alive, and at seventeen, that’s a gift.
Whatever the meaning of life really is, why we are here and what we are to do, our sexuality must be part of it, a delightful gift of evolution. Its energy literally is the spark of life. Allowing it to dominate and control our lives can be toxic to our Spirits. Denying it and rejecting it cuts us off from the Spirit of Life we embody.
Skillfully expressed with honesty, respect, responsibility and mutuality, our sexuality can open us to a sacred truth much greater than ourselves. That sacred truth is the direct experience of our embodiment of a love that knows no limit or bound, a holy love that is identical with the Spirit of Life.
Wanting to make our deepest yearnings conform to some social norm is useless. The creative power that moves through our sexuality has its own agenda. A healthy Unitarian Universalist response to the diversity of sexual energy is a sense of appreciation and wonder.
Developmental psychologist James Fowler thinks faith, at its most mature, values, “richness, ambiguity and multidimensionality;” ‘it comes to cherish paradox and the apparent contradictions of perspectives on truth as intrinsic to that truth.’
As Unitarian Universalists, let us cherish the richness, ambiguity and multidimensionality of sexuality as we search for truth and meaning in a climate of honesty, respect, responsibility, and mutuality.
Copyright © 2007 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore
Referenced books and reading for further exploration:
From Queer to Eternity: Spirituality in the Lives of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual People, Peter Sweasey, Cassell, London and Washington, 1997
Skin: Talking about Sex, Class & Literature, Dorothy Allison, Firebrand Books, Ithaca, NY, 1994
Sexual State of the Union, Susie Bright, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1997
Gay Spirituality: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness, Toby Johnson, Lethe Press, Maple Shade, NJ, 2004
Gay Soul: Finding the Heart of Gay Spirit and Nature, Mark Thompson, Harper, San Francisco, 1995 – Interviews and photographs with sixteen writers, healers, teachers and visionaries.
Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning, edited by Mark Thompson, White Crane Spirituality Series, Lethe Press, Maple Shade, NJ, 2005
Twice Blessed: On Being Lesbian or Gay and Jewish, Edited by Christie Balka and Andy Rose, Beacon Press, Boston, 1989
Womenspirit Rising, Edited by Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow, Haroer & Rowe, New York, 1979
Sex and Sex Worship in the World, O. A. Wall, Inter-India Publications, Delhi, 1979