In the area of sexuality, we all seem to have our sacrosanct areas that cannot be touched. Liberals will find some way to say that it is always good, and conservatives are determined to enforce rules and regulations. Both seem to be nervous about nuance. Idols with clear shapes and explanations seem to be easier to live with. Our job is to keep working to enjoy, to respect, to reverence, to honor, to love, and to listen to our bodies—before we start controlling or judging our sexuality. We must not picture God sitting up in heaven with a list: “These kinds of things I get really happy about; these kinds of things I get upset about. Uh-oh—you touched that! I’m upset with you now.” The wisdom from the Christian tradition is that whatever God is doing, it is certainly beyond cultural fears, fads, and social taboos. Open and prayerful people will likely discover a very intuitive and almost common-sense wisdom about what is real and what is unreal in regard to our sexual relatedness and the many ways it allows us to move and discover our true bodily and spiritual selves. The Catholic Theological Society summarized it well when it stated that our sexual actions must aim to be “self-liberating, other-enriching, honest, faithful, socially responsible, life-serving, and joyous.” [1] That is certainly the task and journey of a lifetime, but it is no more or no less than what Jesus said when he taught the greatest commandment of love of God and love of neighbor. The two loves “resemble one another” (see Matthew 22:37–39). They are each the school of the other. We will learn how to be properly sexual as we understand the properly passionate relationship that God has with us. And we learn how to be properly spiritual as we come to understand the true character of human longing and affection. Finally, the only biblical mandate that matters is to copy and allow the pattern of God’s love in you. If this sounds too soft, perhaps it means that we have never loved “all the way.” We have never let it carry us through all its stages, all of its internal ecstasies, loneliness, and purifications. To attain a whole and truly passionate sexuality is hard and holy work. God’s way of loving is the only licensed teacher of human sexuality. God’s passion created ours. Our deep desiring is a relentless returning to that place where all things are one. If we are afraid of our sexuality, we are afraid of God. Nor should we equate sexuality with unadulterated lust, which is far too egocentric to care about anybody else. My desire in this week’s meditations is to initiate a healthy and holy dialogue within your own spirit and perhaps between lovers and would-be lovers. In such an interchange, I hope that you will catch sight of that one Holy Spirit, who enlightens and assures us that it is from our flesh that we shall look on God (Job 19:26). Overcoming the Gap Incarnation is the overcoming of the gap between God and everything visible and concrete. It is the synthesis of matter and spirit. Without incarnation, God remains separate from us and from creation. Because of incarnation, we can say, “God is with us!” In fact, God is in us, and in everything else that God created. We all have the divine DNA. Everything bears the divine fingerprint including, of course, the mystery of embodiment. The belief that God is “out there” is the basic dualism that is tearing us all apart. Our view of God as separate and distant has harmed our relationship to food, possessions, and money, to animals, nature, and our own bodies. This loss is foundational to why we live such distraught and divided lives, particularly when it comes to sexuality, the subject of this week’s meditations. Jesus came precisely to put it all together for us and in us. He was saying, in effect, “The material and the physical can be trusted and enjoyed. This world and even this body are the hiding place and the revelation place of God! To be human, to have a body, to be sexual is good!” The whole movement of Christianity is found in the Incarnation. Jesus was not satisfied to remain Word, he became flesh. Already in the first century, the New Testament speaks of the resurrection and redemption of the body. God did not play a trick on us humans, saying “I’m going to give you sexual desire, but don’t you dare really think, feel, or act sexually!” But that’s what happens with dualism and when we view God as separate. The word sex itself comes from the Latin sectare (to cut), so the original root meaning suggests that reality is cut or divided. We split matter and spirit into two and we are searching for union or our other half. As the writer and Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber puts it, “When two loving individuals, two bearers of God’s image, are unified in an erotic embrace, there is space for something holy. What was separate has come together. Two spirits, two bodies, two stories are drawn so close that they are something together that they cannot be alone. There is unity.” [1] Jesus is the great synthesis for us, the icon of the whole mystery—all at once. “In his body lives the fullness of divinity, and in him you too find your fulfillment” (Colossians 2:9–10). We are clearly not very at home in our bodies, and Jesus came to show us that it is our human and this-world experience that we must and can trust. It is our necessary and good beginning point. After the Incarnation, we hopefully realize that the material world has always been the privileged place for divine encounter. What a surprise for most people! Most of us are hooting for the stars instead. We are looking for “higher states of consciousness” and moral perfectionism, while Jesus quite simply comes and “lives among us.” _________________________________________________________ Sarah Young Jesus Calling… IAM ALL AROUND YOU, like a cocoon of Light. My Presence with you is a promise, independent of your awareness of Me. Many things can block this awareness, but the major culprit is worry. My children tend to accept worry as an inescapable fact of life. However, worry is a form of unbelief; it is anathema to Me. Who is in charge of your life? If it is you, then you have good reason to worry. But since I am in charge, worry is both unnecessary and counterproductive. When you start to feel anxious about something, relinquish the situation to Me. Back off a bit, redirecting your focus to Me. I will either take care of the problem Myself or show you how to handle it. In this world you will have problems, but you need not lose sight of Me. LUKE 12:22–31; ²² He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. ²³ For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. ²⁴ Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! ²⁵ And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?^[a] 26 If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? ²⁷ Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;^[b] yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ²⁸ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! ²⁹ And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. ³⁰ For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. ³¹ Instead, strive for his^[c] kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. JOHN 16:33; I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

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