To connect to the holy is to access the deepest, juiciest part of our spirits. Perhaps this is why we set up so many boundaries, protections, and rules around both sex and religion. Both pursuits expose such a large surface area of the self, which can then be either hurt or healed. But when the boundaries, protections, and rules become more important than the sacred things they are intended to protect, casualties ensue.
—Nadia Bolz-Weber, Shameless
Father Richard encourages Christians to embrace a sexual ethic that reflects a love of God, self, and others.
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, while conservatives are determined to enforce rules and boundaries. Both groups 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.
The wisdom the Christian tradition offers 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 us. 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.
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John Chaffee 5 For Friday
1.
“The line between good and evil runs not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties-but right through every human heart.”
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian Author and Historian
One of the things that we do is assume there is a line separating “us from them.” This particular line helps us to wrongfully believe that people on “our side” are right or good while the people on “the other side” are wrong or evil.
However, Sozhenitsyn tells us the truth here.
That line goes right through every human heart.
There is some good in the other and there is some evil within me. Just that simple acknowledgment starts to chip away at the dualistic thinking that I and my enemy are different from one another. A more accurate picture is that the war between good and evil is a constant thing within every one of us.
2.
“I drink beer whenever I can lay my hands on any. I love beer, and by that very act, the world.”
- Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk and Activist
There probably was a point in my life when I believed that to love God inferred a certain disapproval of “the world.” This is in part because of passages in the NT that decry “the world.”
One of the liberating teachings that I stumbled across from Catholic activist Dorothy Day (or at least it is attributed to her) is how she calls “the world” as “the filthy rotten system.” Meaning, that she understood Scripture to be decrying abusive, power-hungry, dehumanizing, and callous behavior toward the lowest tiers of society.
OF COURSE, a Christian is supposed to love the world, in the same manner that Christ did.
OF COURSE, we are supposed to love this material existence, the Incarnation happened into it.
OF COURSE, we are supposed to stand up against injustice, the prophets of old did it first.
And so, Thomas Merton is simply tapping into that same stream. He is a part of that same lineage.
And we can be, too.
3.
“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”
- Werner Heisenberg, German Theoretical Physicist
Science observes the world through the five senses.
Wonder and faith are the romancing tactics of God that come to us through experiencing our finitude while observing the world through our five senses.
4.
“Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.”
- Romans 12:19
This verse is always a hard one to swallow. I can’t speak for others but there are certainly days when I would love to see accountability happen. Then again, it is probably best to let the One who is Love be the one who does the judging.
After all, even Nietzsche said to “distrust anyone within whom the desire to punish is strong.”
5.
“Is there a third way, a Christian way? It is my growing conviction that in Jesus the mystical and the revolutionary ways are not opposites, but two sides of the same human mode of experiential transcendence. I am increasingly convinced that the conversion is the individual equivalent of revolution. Therefore every real revolutionary is challenged to be a mystic at heart, and he who walks the mystical way is called to unmask the illusory quality of human society. Mysticism and revolution are two aspects of the same attempt to bring about radical change. No mystic can prevent himself from becoming a social critic, since in serl-reflection he will discover the roots of a sick society. Similarly, no revolutionary can avoid facing his own human condition, since in the midst of his struggle for a new world he will find that he is also fighting his own reactionary fears and false ambition.”
- Henri Nouwen in The Wounded Healer
Whew, that might be the longest quote I have included in a 5 on Friday yet.
What I appreciate about Henri Nouwen is his ability to name things with a clarity that makes his point seem so very obvious.
Evangelicalism holds Christian mysticism with suspicion to its own detriment because it is a failure to recognize that at its roots Christianity has always been a mystical religion.
Evangelicalism also seems to hold activism with suspicion to its own detriment because it is a failure to recognize that at its roots Christianity has always been a revolutionary critique and subversion of cultural norms.
I say these things about Evangelicalism because I, once upon a time, butted up against opposition within it because I wanted to talk about and teach about the mystical and revolutionary spirituality of Christianity and was reprimanded for it.
Nearly 15 years ago, I was encouraged to read The Wounded Healer and it has since been a book that I return to every few years. It has helped to shape my interior landscape and personal outlook so much that The Wounded Healer feels like an undeniable side of my own spirituality.
It may not be that Christianity is in decline or rise in the West. I believe that every generation must be taught anew, to be built up from ground zero, and to be taught the best of the tradition. Perhaps what is actually falling apart or is in decline is a false, amystical (did I just invent a word?), and passive… thing (?) that calls itself Christianity but has shallow roots and is without any true lineage.
This is hopefully where I can fit in. Perhaps you as well. We are each tasked with the job and the joy of sharing the deep wisdom (sophia) of the Christ to each new generation. We are each responsible to the tradition for the transmission of the tradition. We are each called to be like Christ, to be mystic revolutionaries, and encourage one another to follow in those same footsteps.
