Open Hands Vol 3 No 3 - Sexuality and Spirituality

Open Hands Vol 3 No 3 - Sexuality and Spirituality

3

3

1988

Winter

~1syour heart true to my heart as mine is to yours? .. Ifit
Open Hands is published by Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Cay Concems, Inc., as a resource for the Reconciling Congregation Program. It addresses concems of lesbians and gay men as they relate to the ministry of the church.
The Reconciling Congregation Program is a network of United Methodist local churches who publicly affirm their ministry with the whole family of Cod and who welcome lesbians and gay men into their community. In this network, Reconciling Congregations find strength and support as they strive to overcome the divisions caused by prejudice and homophobia in our church and in our society. Together these congregations offer hope that the church can be a reconciled community.
To enable local churches to engage in these ministries, the program provides resource materials, including Open Hands. Resource persons are available locally to assist a congregation that is seeking to become a Reconciling Congregation.
Information about the program can be obtained by writing: Reconciling Congregation
Program ~
P.O. Box 24213
Nashville, TN 37202
Reconciling Congregation Program
Coordinators
Mark Bowman Beth Richardson
Open Hands Co-Editors
M. Burrill Bradley Rymph
This Issue's Coordinators
Kristan Burkert Rebecca Parker
Graphic Artist
Brenda Roth
Other Contributors to This Issue
Malcolm Boyd
Pat Dougherty
W. Paul Jones
Carolyn Henninger Oehler
Robert Treese
Un iversity UMC (Madison)
Cover Graphic: Brenda Roth
Open H.nds (formerly M. nn. (0' the /ou,ney) is published four times a year. Subsaiption is $12 for four issues ($16 outside the U.sA ) Single copies are available for $4 each; quantities of 10 or more are S3 each. Permission to reprint is granted upon request. Reprints of certain articles are available as indicated in the issue. Subscriptions and correspondence should be sent to:
OpenH.nds
P.O. Box 23636
Washington, DC 20026
Copyright 1988 by Affirmation:
United MethodistS for Lesbian/Gay Concerns, Inc.
ISSN 0888-8833
Contents
Spirituality and sexuality: we have often heard that they have nothing to do with one another, or that too much thought about sexuality is damaging to spirituality. Our Christian tradition has a long history of negative attitudes toward things of the body, with sexuality receiving the greatest share of prohibitions and taboos. In this issue of Open Hands, we break with that tradition and explore the ties linking spirituality and sexuality. Instead of damaging spirituality, sexuality can be seen as a source of strength and knowledge for our spiritual journey. Pat Dougherty, in "Sexuality and Spirituality: Exploring Connections" (p. 3), draws parallels between sexual desire and our longing for intimacy with God, our acceptance of grace, our life in community, and our call to witness. In "Making Love as a Means of Grace" (p. 8), Rebecca Parker utilizes the writings of several women to demonstrate the ties between love-making and our religious experience. Three individuals share their personal journeys with us. Malcolm Boyd offers a witness that "Being Gay Is Good for Your Spiritual Journey" (p. 5). Robert Treese tells of his own struggle at "Integrating Sexuality and Spirituality" (p. 18). An anonymous lesbian relates her own story-one of sexual addiction. In "Personal Reflections" (p. 19), she reminds us that answers are not easy, nor do all of our struggles for wholeness take the same road. New language and imagery are needed, especially in worship, if we are to convey a new vision of integrated sexuality and spirituality. Carolyn Henninger Oehler shares an important reminder of the power of language in shaping our spirituality in "From Jacob's Ladder to Sarah's Circle" (p. 20). And in this issue, we have expanded the SUSTAINING THE SPIRIT section to offer a "Book of Uncommon Prayer" (p. 13). As in past issues, we present a list of RESOURCES (p. 17) on the theme of this issue and news of the reconciling movement in the RCP REPORT (p. 22). As people with an incarnational faith, we are invited to take our embodied life seriously. Let us embrace the many gifts that sexuality brings to our lives.
NEXT ISSUE'S THEME: Developing Reconciling Ministries
2 Open Hands
Sexuality andSpirituality:
Exploring Connections
By Pat Dougherty arl jung found that people who brought
religious questions to him were really asking sexual questions; conversely, those who posed sexual questions were really asking about religion. 1 The last century has seen the relatively young science ofpsychology scrutinize the ways in which religion and sexuality have mutually informed dominant Western culture.
Unfortunately, mainstream Christian traditions, Protestant as well as Catholic, have not been similarly inquisitive. Modern Christianity has not seriously considered the effects of its historical abandonment and condemnation of sexuality or of the resulting debilitated spirituality. Nor has it begun to explore the revitalization now possible for both sexual and spiritual understanding.
Modern research has given us the potential for greater understanding of sexuality than ever before. Better understanding of sexuality stands in need Of spiritual depth for interpretation and meaning; it also challenges Christian spiritual receptivity and expression to reincorporate the sexual, the bodily, the Incarnate.
Despite our best efforts, we often continue to experience sexuality and spirituality as mutually exclusive and tend to compartmentalize both apart from our "ordinary" lives. Through exploration of the connections between sexuality and spirituality, we can begin to heal the rifts.
What fOllOWS is based on the premise that diversity of sexual orientation, preference, and gender is a fact of God's creation and is seen by God as good. (The recognition of bisexuality and transsexualism prompts me to include the possibility ofgender diversity, not just gender bifurcation.) Furthermore, the portrayal of human sexuality as a heterosexual core surrounded by "deviant" offshoots is to be left behind, in favor ofan understanding ofhuman sexuality as a spectrum ofidentities.
Of course, as Linus from the Peanuts comic striP says, the theological implications alone are staggering. How will theological acknowledgment of this created reality, along with the commitment to explore the implications, change our spiritual understanding? What insights will be deepened? What awareness activated? In the context of acceptance of diversity, how will our faith continue to challenge andguide us?
Matthew Fox, in the article, "The Spiritual journey of Homosexuals ... And just About Everyone Else, "2 suggests that gay men and lesbians hold the potential to be spiritual guides for those Christians who f ind themselves more welcome in socially accepted sexual norms. The spiritual journeys oflesbians and gay men are more often taken out of necessity rather than choice. The rewards are hard won. H?t those who are growing through the crises of self-acceptance (grace), coming out (exile), self-authenticating, creative expression (new birth), and transformation to a faithgrounded hope motivating work for justice (witness) are those in a position to provide guideposts for others.
In pain and in solidarity with others in pain, all are called to be bearers of the light, stepping out on the journey to redefine our experience as "sexualspiritual" beings, witnesses sent by God and drawn toward God through an ever more revealing gospel of love. What follows are sexual and spiritual starting points, places where sexuality might better inform spiritual understanding, and vice versa.
Sexualityand theYearningSpirit
James Nelson, author of Embodiment, 3 once was asked how sexuality can be understood as part of the spiritual lives of Christians. He responded by telling a story about his attending the Christmas Eve service at a large stone church in England. He went forward to the communion rail, and, as he knelt, he had the distinct experience of sexual arousal. He felt in that awareness of the erotic the culmination of all he had heard, seen, and felt. He experienced himself as an embodiment of the yearnings of many nations and peoples for fulfillment. "0 come, Desire of Nations, come ...." His spirituality and sexuality mutually informed that moment in such a way that they were inseparable.
Open Hands 3
What does it mean to truly desire the presence of the Holy in our lives? Might we better understand spiritual longing for God as physical longing? The longing of hunger, of thirst? The longing for a lover? Certainly this was the intensity of God's yearning for Israel. So Hosea understood it. Hebrew scriptures unabashedly use the imagery of God and Israel as lovers, with Israel alternately embracing and scorning that love, while God in faithfulness pursues and reclaims Israel again and again. In our spiritual searching, physical, sexual longing is an appropriate and biblical metaphor for the soul who thirsts for the living, incarnate God.
Grace and Sexuality
Noone knows our faults, including what we perceive as our sexual and spiritual faults, better than ourselves-except God. We persist, however, in our unbelief: "If you really knew me, you wouldn't love me."
Dr. Roger A. Roffman, professor of social work at the University of Washington in Seattle, works with gay men who find it difficult to accept safer sex practices, such as the use of condoms, into their lifestyles. Dr. Roffman finds that another shared problem for most of the men in this group is an overwhelming fear of intimacy. To risk knowing and being known in their sexual expression, as perhaps elsewhere in their human encounters, is a fear to be weighed against the fear of AIDS itself.
Physical, sexual intimacy devoid of personal and spiritual meaning is not intimacy at all. Our ability to be intimate, to give a glimpse of who we really are to another person, is based on the measure of grace we experience.
As Christians we are always in the process of being astonished by grace, and of learning to accept it. The God who made a most intimate disclosure of God's self in the embodied, physical, and sexual human being Jesus of Nazareth is the same Holy One who draws each of us close in a gospel of love. To the extent I am able to believe this in my heart and soul, I, in turn, am able to risk intimacy. Acceptance of God's love and the risk that God takes in offering that love is empowering for the scariest of our acts: the offer of our own vulnerability in love.
Making the Erotic Connections
Eroticism is our creative power to make intimate connections with one another and with God. It is energy enhanced by mutuality. Erotic power, says Audrey Lorde, "comes from sharing deeply any pursuit with another person,"4 The perversion of that energy by removing its mutuality becomes the energy of violence and oppression. It is the difference between erotica and pornography.
A spirituality bereft of the erotic is flat, isolating itself from expression in the world created and loved by God. (A spirituality can be pornographic, however, as we see in the obsessive preoccupation of right-wing Christianity with sexual matters and the desire to control others' sexual behavior.)
In contrast to the sterile and the pornographic spiritualities, erotic spiritualities are whole and very much connected to our lives in this world. The two great commandments to which Jesus pointed were these: Love God with all your emotional power, all your mental capacity, all your physical ability-with your very being. Second, love your neighbor as
4 Open Hands
much as you love yourself. We need to rekindle the erotic meaning in Jesus' message.
The experience of erotic joy in relation to God or another lover affords us a glimpse of that joy God intends for all. Incorporated into our lives as spiritual beings, joy spurs us to act on behalf of love, that all might experience its tender power. In other words, erotic knowledge and energy spur us to act for justice-which is love.s
Erotic power is what draws us into community. Social support is as important as personal meditation for the growth of the spirit. Those who participated in the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights on October 11, 1987-"For Love, for Life" -certainly experienced an erotic connection with others in the meaning of that event. At our church we heard from a member whose eyes filled with tears as he related event after event that spoke to the deeply felt spiritual, sexual, and political connection of those days. Having so many gay men, lesbians, and supporters gathered purposefully, joyfully, and for many in a new experience of safety was an erotic, empowering act.
In traditional Christian terms, to make the erotic connections is to witness. To connect is to be physically present to and with others, to "share deeply" the pursuit of love that is one with justice, often in the face of a hostile, antierotic world. We are renewed because God continually lures us forward, giving us, in what measure we can accept, the love that is intended for the world. We are drawn beyond our own causes to see the connections among all who work for fulfillment. And we are lured into a deeper spirituality, where the experience of the depths of joy also opens us all to deep feelings-of pain, of wonder, of anger, of hope. We are drawn toward the fire of the heart of God.
Making erotic connection also means celebrating this life fiercely, tenderly, loving at once the gift and the Giver. Loving in the face of pain, in the face of death, because God has first loved us.
The dialogue continues concerning what it means to be "sexualspiritual" beings. My hope is that these reflections will light a fire under your spirit and move you to find connections down the paths of spirituality and sexuality to which you are drawn. What, then, does the Holy One require of us but to make these connections: to act justly, to love tenderly, and to journey the humble road with God? (Micah 6:8) 0
References
I. James Nelson, Embodiment: An Approach to Sexuality and Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1978),
p.14.
2.
Matthew Fox, "The Spiritual Journey of the Homosexual . . . and Just About Everybody Else," in Robert Nugent, ed., A Challenge to Love: Gay and Lesbian CathoLics in the Church (New York: Crossroad, 1984), pp. 189-204.
3. James Nelson, "The Spiritual Journey."
4.
Audre Lorde, "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power," in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Trumansburg, NY.: The Crossing Press, 1984), p. 56.
5.
Carter Heyward, The Redemption of God (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1982), pp. 217-25.
Pat Dougherty is a member of CapitoL HiLL UMC in SeattLe, a ReconciLing Congregation. She hoLds a Master of TheoLogicaL Studies degree from Vancouver SchooL of Theology, British CoLumbia. She wrote her thesis on sexuaL diversity and the theoLogy of relationship.
Being Gay Is Goodfor
Your spintualJourney
By Malcolm Boyd
uman aspiration includes
interior liberation, as well as liberation from external pressures that stand in the way of fulfillment. This is a message of liberation theology-indeed, of Christ's gospel.
A corollary is that it is necessary to quit equating sex with sin. A terrible legacy from fundamentalist and patriarchal religion is the preaching of God's hate instead of love, and the espousal of denial and repression in place of communication and fulfillment.
As a gay man, I had to confront this reality in order to survive. I wrote in
H
Gay Priest: An Inner Journey:
It is no mistake that my well-known book of prayers written in the sixties was entitled Are You Running with Me, Jesus? That was an honest question from me, an anguished cry from my heart. Indeed, it was an existential question: Who am I? What am I doing here? What does my being have to do with God and reality?
Mine was the gay experience characterized by an image of a cat on a hot tin roof. I was restless, in pain, driven, passionately seeking love-sometimes finding a prefiguring of it in a sexual encounter with another stranger.
I did the only thing that seemed to make sense for me: I ran. Fast. Kept in motion. Interacted with others who were also running. Knew no "home," no "nest," no quiet or secure locus. And, what a blessing!-I found that I wasn't in place long enough to have to look into a mirror. My self-esteem could stay low without needlessly agonizing about it. I could even accumulate fragments of prestige, as Band-Aids, to fool myself that I had acquired significance.
In motion, I found meanings. Quick images of grace. Flashes of fulfillment. The hot ardor of the race, lust for life. Seashell symphonies, beauty caught for a second as if in a photo.
It seemed to be enough. Wasn't I lucky to have that? I worked and played harder, ran ever faster, turned motion into an art form. Yet loneliness remained, and burned brightly in the dark night. A sensual itch for meaning grew more fevered. I needed to possess a sense of meaning, fulfill a longing for union and mission in my life.
Open Hands 5
Wholeness: this is what I sought: Wholeness embraced love, meaning, union, mission. Where could I find it? How?
Martin Luther King, Jr., understood how true spirituality has to deal with universal elements as well as individual ones. He put it succinctly: People, he said, "often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they do not know each other; they do not know each other because they cannot communicate; they cannot communicate because they are separated." In other words, people need to come out of closets and ghettos, of whatever kind, and relate to each other.
I realized this meant, for me, that I needed not only to "find" myself; I needed to find my brother/sister, too. I comprehended I could not speak of freedom as an individual if I could not live in a free society. The shattering truth of this involved me deeply in the civil rights movement.
In December 1964, I traveled a thousand miles through rural Mississippi, drove down country lanes at night, talked to black people living in shacks of abject slums. Gradually, I realized the "moral leaders" had decided not to know what was happening. I came upon horror story after horror story of misery and degradation, yet church leaders 50 miles away remained blind, deaf, and mute. They did not know. This reminded me of the "moral leaders" in Nazi Germany who did not know.
In 1965 when I was in the Watts area of Los Angeles during its "riot," I sensed the hopelessness of the black people there. I realized the causes of the revolt were simply not comprehended by people who did not understand the ghetto conditions. But why didn'l Ihey know? Communication was virtually nonexistent between poor blacks and the city's white power structure. Why? "Good" people had been hiding behind a facade of religion devoid of prophetic utterance or social involvement. In fact, these people had isolated themselves from personal confrontation with oppressed black people and others who were oppressed, including lesbians and gay men, Asians, Latinos, and homeless persons.
I beheld the failure of religion to place spirituality ahead of its own selfinterest as a social institution. A large part of Christianity placed "churchianity" ahead of Christ. Christ, I remembered, had nowhere to lay his head when he lived among us, and died a
6 Open Hands
social outcast.
Spirituality, under the strong guidance of Jesus Christ, led me to the all-. together surprising moment of honesty when I could risk "coming out," a moment of raw nakedness when I could incredibly confront Christ and my own reality. Being gay became the key to my spiritual journey, as I later explained when I came out publicly for the first time at a 1976 convention of Integrity, the Episcopalian lesbian/gay organization. The Advocate, a national gay newsmagazine, quoted me as saying,
In civil rights I was arrested frequently, despised by people who had formerly honored me. As it happened, my fragmented life was becoming unified. The pieces were coming together because they had to. It was God's insistence. That's when my sexuality came into focus. I had to work with it and through it, and look at it, experience it, figure out what it was and what I felt about it. My sexual development, in other words, has grown and been a part of my religious experience.
The holy, earthy radical Christ calls us to wholeness. The grace of Christ insinuates this gift into our lives, bestows it on us. In his book Jesus in Bad Company, Adolf Holl observes that the "real" Jesus "wants to change thought, not direct it along new lines that would simply become another rut." Why wasn't I ever taught about this in Sunday School as a kid? From my youth, my education earmarked me to be "an American," "a white man," and "a Christian." The rigidity of this role excluded a basic factor of my spiritual and physical reality: my gayness. It has taken the greater part of my life to unlearn the implications of what I was taught. Ominously, to be "gay" was never a part of the prescribed agenda.
At the outset, how could I find out that I have an allegiance to humankind transcending my identity as "an American"? Or that I belong to a race that defines me, not narrowly as "white," but as a creative and growing human being? I would "find" Christ, and Christ would "find" me, and I would become a Christian. This, largely despite my "Christian" education. I would be born again, know the meaning of conversion, that epiphany of wonder, mystery, beauty, and human gut reaction to God.
Yet it had to follow such a long period of deprivation and dryness. For example, I was not given an opportunity in junior high school, high school, or college to establish a relationship with a black person or a gay person. But these institutions spoke earnestly of giving me "an education." I was never enabled to see myself in any context of gay culture, history, literature, or achievement. I was not taught American history or American literature but instead "heterosexual white American history" and "heterosexual white
American literature."
I spent hours, days, weeks, months, and years seated in classrooms receiving not so much a minimal education as a false one. I was taught about a world that did not exist. How would I be able to cope with the real world?
I was always taught that patriotism really meant "my country, right or wrong." But how, it was suggested, could it ever be wrong? History was shoehorned into neat categories. I was taught that war was justified if my country fought it. The church backed up this teaching.
I was taught that black people were crude and vulgar people called "niggers"-although one was never supposed to say that word, just to think it when looking at a black face. I was taught that Native Americans were stupid, alcoholic, loutish, and had savagely killed kind and courageous American (white) troops who were fighting for "our country." I was taught that homosexuals were perverts, sinners, inhuman, evil, dangerous, degenerate, and deserved no mercy-even from God. I was taught that Latinos were unspeakably dirty, smelly, undependable, shifty people who did manual labor and were to be treated as children. This meant they should be disciplined when necessary if they got out of line. Why didn't they learn to speak EngLish? We mimicked their style of speech and laughed uproariously.
I was ta ught by U.S. war propaganda that the Japanese people were loathsome bearers of "the yellow peri1." Hiro-shi-ma ... Hiro-shima ... Hiroshi-ma. In 1955, as an American student at an international seminar in Switzerland, I lived in a dormitory with a Japanese student. He was the first person from his land whom I had ever known as a person instead of an image. After superficial talk and polite smiles, we finally "met" as humans.
No place, I found, was distant any longer. Nothing was remote from my thoughts, my life.
Why did my education fail to teach me about the world in which I lived? My intuition as a gay man, lovingly
nurtured by the Holy Spirit, became my teacher, my guide on my spiritual journey. It demanded that 1 make careful, precise connections between myself and others.
Cries of pain encircle the world. There are cries of hunger, dying, anxiety, torture, loneliness, brutality, depression, self-concern, and a sense of anguish for the suffering of others.
I do not want to be shielded from the terror and volume of so many cries of pain. My partnership in the continuing action of creation means that 1 must hear these cries and absorb their meaning into my life. As a gay man who also suffers needlessly at the hand of ignorance and prejudice, if 1 only hear such cries and do nothing about alleviating their cause, I betray love.
In stillness, one may hear the ticking of a clock, wind in trees, whispers, footsteps, and the roar of the sea in a seashell.
If there is enough stillness, and words are absent, one may hear the beat of another heart.
In a silence that speaks volumes, one hears unspoken words.
Outward silence may be accompanied by inner fury and a plethora of sound. Outward fury and sound may be accompanied by inner stillness.
Oh let the fury of the world diminish. Let us wait upon the spirit of love with still voices and hearts.
Growing up-in addition to being "an American," "white," and "Christian"-I was, yes, a gay boy. At that time, 1 did not know the word gay in reference to myself. All 1 heard was "queer," "faggot," "sinful," and "wrong." But 1 survived. A long odyssey lay ahead before 1 would claim "gay," assert pride in it, and know I am-as a gay man-healthy, joyful, creative, loved, yes, and blessed.
I know it now. Being gay has taught me much. It has helped me see how my life is interconnected with many other lives: gay, straight, black, white, Latino, Anglo, Asian, Western, Christian, Marxist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, young, old ....
Because 1 am gay 1 know that freedom, justice, and love are meant to be shared. They do not belong, as possessions, to any of us. We simply cannot possess them alone without each other.
And, by coming to know and love myself as a gay man, 1 have also come to know and love myself as a brother/ sister of Christ. 1 wrote in Take Off the Masks a few years after I came out, "Self-worth is a gift of God. This fact gradually permeated my consciousness. I did not have to earn it but only accept it with humility and gratitude." A few years later, in a sermon to my parish at St. Augustine by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, I told my congregants that I consider myself "whole, healthy, blessed, happy, created in God's own image, free of the past horrors of human slavery, and able to combine my sexuality and my spirituality":
Think of all the various closets of all our lives! Opening doors ... walking outside, sharing "closet experiences" as past history, can be liberating, a gospel experience in Jesus Christ ....
Don't let's label each other, place each other on convenient shelves, and therefore keep each other in our places! Let's let each other breathe, grow, develop as daughters and sons of God. To do this, we must truly see each other and share ourselves. Then, in that mutual vulnerability which is surely a gift of grace, we can all grow to the fullness of the glory that is God's call, and gift, to each one of us. Thanks be to God!
My hands touch, grasp, and move My legs stretch out, cross, walk, stand stil~ and run
My mouth tastes, eats, drinks, shouts,
whispers, talks, closes, and opens
My stomach fills, empties, growls, hisses,
and is silent My shoulders bend, twist, lean over, and are solid My hair is handsome, ugly, long, short, wavy, oily, dry, and falls out
My genitals are quiet, aroused, normal, mysterious, functional, private, and public
My back is unbending, bent, and filled with nerve ends My head is the most familiar view of me held by most people
My heart is unseen as it pumps, yet the character of it is seen by everybody in my actions
My eyes are the windows of my soul, although sometimes I try to pull do wn the shades
I am grateful fo r my body
I want to give it food, drink, iron, tenderness, and love
I am grateful for my soul
I want to give it flowers, humor, visions, dreams, and love
I am grateful that being gay has illuminated my spiritual journey, integrating it with Christ instead of churchianity, relating my God-given spirituality to my God-given sexuality. 0
Malcolm Boyd, an Episcopal priest and author of 22 books including Are You Running with Me, Jesus? and Gay Priest: An Inner Journey, resides in Los Angeles with his life partner, Mark Thompson. He is writer-priestin-residence at St. Augustine by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, Santa Monica, California, and director of the Institute of Gay Spirituality and Theology. Copyright 1988 by Malcolm Boyd.
Open Hands 7
Mak
ing Love as a M eans of Grace: Women -s Reflections By Rebecca Parker 8 Open Hands
exual intimacy can serve as
Sa resource for healing and transformation in our lives. Through it, we can experience a restored sense of intrinsic joy in being, elemental goodness, personal power to affect and be affected, intimate connection with all of life, and creative potency. When it functions this way in our lives, making love is a means of grace.
This is not to say that sexuality is the only means of grace available to us or that it automatically solves life's problems. On the one hand, there are other important means of grace-the world itself, the arts, friendship, rituals, meaningful work-to name a few. On the other hand, there are times when sex is not a rewarding or appropriate part of our lives.
The goodness of sexuality can be marred, denied, or even destroyed by any number of means. The use of sex in an act of overpowering or coercing another, sexual abuse of children by adults, intimacy outside one's committed relationship for the sake of punishing one's committed partner, addiction to sexual intimacy as the exclusive source of one's sense of worth, sexual intimacy as a ritual reinforcement of domination and submission (as in traditional "Christian" marriage)-these are examples of ways in which sexuality's goodness is denied or destroyed.
At some stages in life sexual activity is by choice, circumstance, or age not part of our lives. Childhood and early youth at best have other joys. We may find we must decide to limit our sexual activity to protect ours or another's health. Or our sexual experiences may have been so traumatic that we find abstinence to be the most healing choice, itself a means of grace. Furthermore, even our best sexual encounters may be fraught with human foibles or failures-we are blocked by fears and past hurts, insecurities, embarrassment, lack of confidence in our ability to give or receive pleasure, physical limitations, illness.
Sex is not the be all and end all of
life. Other pressing issues of lifeboth
sorrows and joys-sometimes
rightly take precedence in our attention.
We discover we can live without
sex, or without good sex. We don't need it in the same way we need food, sleep, and shelter. We need it more like the ways in which we need community, opportunities to learn, art, a vocation. But, within its proper perspective, when it is not being abused or used as a tool of abuse, when circumstances are right and it is one part of our lives offering its own measure of joy-sex can be a means of grace not only "within the bounds of marriage," or even "within the bounds of committed relationship," but in many forms.
"For this is the meaning of desire, that wanting leads us to the sacred," writes Susan Griffin.' She is one, among several women writers, whose self-described positive sexual experiences form a body of literature that illuminates how making love can be a means of grace. Since so much of the writing and visual material available to us reflects views of sexuality formed in the context of patriarchal, heterosexist culture, it is important to turn to voices and visions from "outside" the dominant culture. Here, as one way to expand on the theme of making love as a means of grace, are reflections on some of the writings of women-lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual-who have described their most positive sexual experiences.
'1'or this is the meaning ofliesire)tfzat wanting feacfs us to the sacrec£. )~usan Griffin
Open Hands
9
"It
was as thougfi
a door opened and aifowed ai{of fife to surge
wougfi tier. ))
-Susan Griffin
Audre Lorde in her article "Uses of the Erotic" speaks of erotic experience as "the nurturer is nursemaid of all our deepest knowledge."2 In her understanding, erotically satisfying experiences are ones in which sensual pleasure and creative power merge in a holistic experience of joy. Sexual intimacy can be an erotic experience, so can "building a bookcase, writing a poem, examining an idea."3 One characteristic of women's positive experiences of the erotic is a reluctance to isolate such experiences singularly to sexual activity. Rather, erotic joy, as known in the best experiences of sexual enjoyment, become the touchstone of life. Erotic joy reveals the ultimate possibilities of life, and through experiences of erotic joy the rest of life is judged. In Lorde's view, the heights of sexual happiness become the foundation for ethics, ... once we begin to demand from ourselves
and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of 4
She goes on to say,
When we begin to live... in touch with the power of the erotic within ourselves, and allowing that power to inform and illuminate our actions upon the world around us, then we begin to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense . .. we begin to give up, of necessity being satisfied with suffering and selfnegation, and with the numbness which so often seems like their only alternative in our society. Our acts against oppression become integral with self, motivated and empowered from within. 5
This view of the erotic as the inner source of knowledge about fullness of life contrasts dramatically with the traditional Christian view of eros as destructive energy that leads to disobedience to God. Rather, sexuality is viewed as a source of insight and guidance into the way of life-carnal knowledge is not the fall, it is the wellspring of right living, a resource for sustaining the vision of what is just and good, as well as a constant source of refreshment of the desire for abundant life.
How might sexuality function in this capacity as "nursemaid of all our deepest knowledge"?
For one thing, sexual intimacy can give us a profound sense of our communion with all of life, our connectedness in contrast to our loneliness or alienation. Theologian Carter Heyward sees loneliness as the creation of patriarchal culture and theology. We are saved when we are restored to a
10 Open Hands
sense of intimacy with all of life.
We are untouched and untouching until we realize our intimacy; until we know a fundamental bond between our innermost senses of who we are. Intimacy is the deepest quality of relation, the realization of ourselves, generically, as humanity-people with something in common-rather than as alien pieces offlesh and blood playing our separate parts in an absurd drama of loneliness. 6
In love making we can have a sense of boundaries falling away between the self and the world. Sexual ecstasy may involve a sense of feeling as if the whole of life were flowing through one's body, or as if one were smelling, touching, tasting, and breathing the universe, or as if the self and the world were indistinguishable from one another. This boundless communion through the breakdown of a sense of boundaried selfhood is the very thing about sexuality that theologians such as Augustine, Bonhoeffer, and Fuchs have found so offensive-to them the breakdown of a sense of limit signals abandonment of God. But it may in fact be the restoration of a healed sense of intimate connection to life. A woman describes a sexual experience:
New life was felt in her, newer even than the earth sgracious giving, a hopeful stirring deep in her center. They were part ofall life around them, and all of the alive natural facets of the world glowed and glistened between them. The sweet smell of their bodies came up with (l warm rush of breeze and they breathed deeply of themselves and the earth and were filled with an effortless joy. 7
Susan Griffin's description of making love moves close to a form of mystical enlightenment:
And if I let myself love, let myself touch, enter my own pleasure and longing, enter the body of another, the darkness, let the dark parts of my body speak, tongue into mouth, in the body's language, as I enter, a part of me I believed was real begins to die. I descend into matter, I know I am at the heart of myself, I cry out in ecstasy. For in love, we surrender our uniqueness and become world. 8
Describing this experience of sexual happiness as a merging with all of life, women use language similar to the language of mystical ecstasy. Images of profound stillness, whirling dervish ecstasy, and brilliant light are employed to describe sexual pleasure or orgasm:
She felt it come up from the base of her spine. It was as though a door opened and allowed all of life to surge through her. The spinning sensation rose up and flooded her whole body, pushing at the boundaries of who she
thought she was . .. pressing . .. pressing . .. pressing . . .. Finally, unable to hold the energy back any longer, she let it expLode through every ceLL in her body, cleansing her with light and pulsating out into the room-9
Or,
I am filled with light inside you, I have no boundary, the light has extinguished my skin, I am perished in light, Light fiLLing you, shining through you. /0
This altered state of consciousness described by women during experiences of sexual intimacy carries with it not only unbounded joy-an expansion of the self into a field of lightbut also matchless peace and liferenewing power:
She felt what she could only describe as her spirit spinning somewhere with his. It was as if they were both floating outside time and space in a peacefuLness that didn't exist on earth. / /
I know I am entranced at those times, gone into another dimension . .. the silver rays connecting between us fill me with strength, confidence, affirmation, joy, and some esthetic quality of beauty that is Like another way ofseeing, like being in another place. /2
And then we are free, floating outside our contours in emptiness. A stillness, a perfect stasis opens beneath us. Peace. /J
In contrast to this empowering, intense sense of immediate joy, mystical connection, and communion that is refreshing and healing, positive sexual experience is also described by women as an experience that heightens a sense of personal presence and power, and initiates one into a clearer sense of strong selfhood. As a writer of feminist spirituality, Starhawk emphasizes this aspect of sexual intimacy:
in sex we merge, give way, become one with another, allow ourseLves to be caressed, pLeasured, enfolded, allow our sense of separation to dissolve. But in sex we also feel our impact on another, we see our own faces reflected tn another's eyes, feel ourseLves confirmed, and sense our power, as separate human beings, to make another feel. /4
We as human beings feel ourselves felt. We know we are here-not invisible. We feel our power to give joy to another. We know our presence is a blessing to the world. We feel the joy the presence of a lover gives us. We know soul to be the power of presence.
Let me feel, more intensely, your fuLL power and presence. Bathe me with the pleasure of your company. The mind's delight, my heart's delight. You, my souL met love, my bone's history, my eye's remembrance, my ear's companion, my tongue 's perfect dialog partner. The life in you, so radiant, so deep, so there. You entice, excite, overwhelm me with joy and happiness, apple of my eye, ecstatic friend. /5
Sexual intimacy imparts to us a knowledge of ourselves as a powerful presence, and love as enjoyment of the presence of power of another. As such, making love is a means of moving beyond a sense of ourself as passive. It saves us from the sin of feeling that we are helpless and empty, which leads to the horrible despair of believing we have no being. Theologian Daniel Day Williams says,
"Inauthentic existence is the fall from inner self-determination. . .. Sin is.. . unbelief in ourselves. "/6
But making love can strengthen our sense of acting and being acted upon, restoring us to the balance that is the foundation of all ethical responsibility. Beverly Harrison asserts that personal well-being and healthy community depend on this kind of knowledge of ourselves. She says:
All of us . .. literally call forth each other in relationship, and our power of being and capacity to act emerges through our sensuous interaction in relation. /7
Daniel Day Williams expresses a similar sensibility:
The power to act is a condition of love; but it follows that the capacity to be acted upon, to be moved by another, is also required; for to act in love is to respond, and to have one's actions shaped by the other. /8
Sexual intimacy, at its best, teaches us this truth about ourselves-that joy is grounded in relational power. Thus it frees us from the sin of pride (wanting to be completely in control) and the terror of despair (feeling ourselves to be completely powerless).
Finally, it should be observed that women describe a strong connection between sexual pleasure and creativity. This is in dramatic contrast to the predominant public image of sexual expression as a form of violence and destruction. Though in people's experience intimacy may be closely tied to love of life and the desire to bring life into being, public images often associate sex with destruction of life: the penis is spoken of as a weapon and sometimes shown used as one. Language about sexual intimacy is a language of war: people are conquered. Images that present sex as a joyful, creative act are largely absent from the public sphere.
II . ins~ we merge, give wag, Gecome one witli another. . . ))
- Sta.rfiawk.
Open Hands 11
The association of sexual joy and creativity is felt by some in specific connection with their power to give birth. A woman describes a sexual fantasy in which she simultaneously gives birth and is made love to by her partner. 19 A pregnant woman exclaims, "I feel so sexy-so, I don't know, ripe, fertile, full of energy, alive."20 Another woman describes the birth of her daughter as an experience in which she felt overwhelmed with a mystical sense of connectedness to all of life, a whole body feeling of insight and ecstasy.21 But the deeply felt tie between sexuality and creativity is not confined in women's experience to pregnancy and childbirth. Other experiences in which personal strength is harnessed to bring forth life are felt to have erotic overtones. Wherever passion, energy, joy, personal power, and creativity emerge and converge, the experience can be felt as erotic.
Creativity in every aspect of living requires an inner sense of "Power to bring forth." One essence of sexual energy in human beings is this sense of "power to bring forth." Starhawk defines the erotic as "Power from within."22 This power is carried within the body of every human being. Our fundamental bodily experience is that sexuality is bonded to the power of life. Sexual energy is life-giving energy. We know that giving life to ourselves, to another, to a work of imagination or research, or a political cause-all forms of giving life to life-are bonded to sexual energy. Our sexual energy expands throughout life the more we choose to create out of the power within us. Our sexual body tells us we have the power to bring forth life. In this way, again, carnal knowledge saves us rather than damns us. It undergirds a sense of ourselves as people with the power, right, and responsibility to bring forth life. As a means of grace, it invites us to center our lives on the joy of creating.
Audre Lorde writes:
In touch with the erotic, I become Less wiLLing to accept powerLessness, or those other supplied states of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, despair, seLf-effacement, depression, self-denial. 23
The zest for passionate, exuberant, creative living can be tasted and seen and thus restored and sustained through our sexual pleasure.
12 Open Hands
In sum, women's self-described positive sexual experiences disclose four sensibilities about our deepest being. The self we come to know in our best sexual encounters is first, a self that is intimately connected with all of life. It is not a discreet, selfcontained entity, but a center of feeling flooded by the whole world. Secondly, the self we come to know has power to deeply affect another. It has the power of presence. It does not leave the world undisturbed but can activate profound pleasure in another by its very being. Thirdly, the self we come to know has the power to bring forth life. It is creative, originative, nurturing, and sustaining. Finally, the self we come to know takes joy in sheer being, in its own life and in the life it senses all around. Being itself is joyful, and being itself is a complex integration of breadth, created by receptivity to a vast field, and intensity, created by the power to move another and to bring forth life. In sexual intimacy we can experience ourselves as having power-the power of receptivity and action combined, the power of feeling and doing, being moved and moving. We feel the force of our soul, the reality of our powerful presence in the world, and we feel it with joy.
Sexual knowledge of this nature, knowledge bequeathed to us through our bodies, is gracious and saving knowledge. It releases us from a false sense of separation and alienation from the world. It baptizes us into the whole creation and tells us we are good. It explains our freedom to usour power to bring forth life from within our very being-and gives us a standard for judging what is worthwhile. It restores to us a sense of the balance of power-we are neither totally passive nor totally in control. And in some moments, making love gives us a sense of complete peace through the experience of immediate
JOY· Making love is not the be all and the end all of life. It rarely approaches perfection and isn't the most important thing we do. But it is far from the root of all sin. On the contrary, it can be life's most delightful means of grace. As such, it should be held in honor among all people, and no church should legislate against its potential for undergirding all that is right, good, and joyful in our lives. 0
References
1.
Susan Griffin, Pornography and SiLence (New York: Harper and Row, Colophon Books, 1982), p. 262.
2.
Audre Lord, Sister Outsider (Trumansburg, N.Y.: The Crossing Press, 1984), p. 56.
3.
Ibid.
4.
Ibid.
5.
Ibid., p. 58.
6.
Carter Heyward, The Redemption of God (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1982), p. xviii.
7.
Suzanne Miller, in Lonnie Barbach, ed., Erotic Interludes: Tales ToLd by Women (Garden City, NY.: Doubleday, 1986), p. 173.
8. Griffin, Pornography and SiLence, p.
260.
9.
Udana Power, in Barbach, Erotic InterLudes, p. 21.
10.
Susan Griffin, Made from This Earth (New York: Harper and Row, 1982), p. 226.
11. Power, in Barbach, Erotic Interludes,
p.29.
12. Judy Grahn, Another Mother Tongue (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), p. 240.
13. Boucher, Sandy, in Barbach, Erotic Interludes, p. 215.
14.
Starhawk, Dreaming the Dark (Boston: Beacon Press, 1982), p. 138.
15. From a woman's personal journal.
16.
Daniel Day Williams, The Spirit and the Forms of Love (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 150-51.
17.
Beverly Harrison, "Human Sexuality and Mutuality," in Judith L. Weidman (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984), pp. 14849.
18. Williams, The Spirit and Forms of Love, p. 117..
19. Power, in Barbach, Erotic Interludes,
p. 20-21.
20. Personal conversation, fall 1986.
21. Mary Brown, sermon, Wallingford United Methodist Church, Seattle.
22.
Starhawk, Dreaming the Dark, p. 138.
23.
Lord, Sister Outsider, p. 58.
Rebecca Parker served as pastor of WaLLingford UMC, a ReconciLing Congregation in SeattLe, from 1979 to 1986. She currently is pastor of Vashon Island UMC
o o
~.:.~ """"broUghout childhood, each of us is exposed to an::
J. ; artici/Jates in rituals-bedtime prayers and waking routines7 birthday celebrations and holiday parades7 weddings andfunerals7 worship services andpep rallies. These and other rituals play a key role in our socialization an~ on a deeper levelbegin to establish a sense ofmeaning andpurpose in our
7
lives. As we mature into adulthoo~ we take a more active role i1) creating and choosing our rituals. We intendfor our rituals to reflect our self-identity and the nature of our human relationships.
As persons offaith7 we create and participate in particular rituals that convey and sustain our relationship to God and our intention to live Christian lives. These rituals include the formal7 traditional liturgies ofthe institutional church and the informalday-to-day rituals we celebrate in our communal
7
and individual lives. While institutional church liturgies represent centuries of sifting through inherited tradition and a connection to a larger body ofpersons sharing our faith7 they are slow to respond to GodJs unfolding revelation. Therefore7 rituals are revised and recreated by local communities offaith out of their struggle to do theology in their daily lives.
Those of us in the reconciling movement celebrate rituals that reflect our commitment to justice for the diversity of GodJs creation. Recognizing that our traditional rituals are usually Euro-American-specificmale-dominate~ and hetero7
sexual-centere~ we delight in recreating liturgies and rites that sustain and enhance ourfaith journey. We offer a sampling of these ((uncommon rites that have grown out of the reconciln
ing movement.
Open Hands 13
OUR DAILY RIlUALS
Sharing at Table
At mealtime reflect alone or say aloud with others gathered the names ofindividuals or groups who live in suffering and oppression. Rememberpersons who are hungry, those in Central America and other wartorn areas ofthe world, persons with AIDS, victims of violence and hate. After each name is lifted up, everyone responds with:
Plant in us the seeds of your justice, 0 God.
Evening Prayer
At the conclusion ofthis litany say or sing this grace in Spanish:
Por e~ -te pan. sa -Iud yy -mor. gra -cias te doy. Se -nor' (For health and strength and dai-Iy food. we give you thanks. 0 God!)
This litany is from '~Liberationist Daily Office" written by W Paul Jones (St. Paul School of Theology, Kansas City). You can read the litany yourselfor, if other persons are with you, line it out by alternating reading lines.
o God, come to our assistance.
o Liberator, make haste to help me.
You are the God of Abraham and Sarah, Rebekah and Isaac, Jacob and Rachel, Zipporah and Hosea, Ruth and Naomi, Mary and Joseph, Mary Magdalene and Jesus.
Therefore, My soul magnifies you and my spirit rejoices in
you, 0 God, our savior, because you have regarded the lowly people, because you, the almighty one, have done great
things,
because you are scattering the proud in the imaginations of our hearts, are pulling down the mighty from their thrones, and are exalting the lowly.
The hungry, 0 God, you will fill with good things, and the rich, you will send empty away.
o God, help us to believe in the impossible, for with you all things are possible.
May we Christians come to embrace as sisters and brothers
all blacks, all gays and lesbians, all witches, all communists,
and all the victims of our "inquisitions." May we live for the Holy City, Where on the twelve gates of Hiroshima is the prayer
"Never Again;" And the ghettos shine like precious stones; And the reservations bloom as after a spring rain; And the victims of battering begin and end their days
without fear.
Lord we believe, help thou our unbelief.
Unto you, 0 God, we offer up the works of our hands, the ideas of our minds, the feelings of our bodies, and the dreams and
visions of our hearts.
We offer them pure, tainted, questionable. As the Refining Fire, make beauty of them; As the Incarnate One, accept them into yourself;
And as the Driving Spirit, carryon, that in trusting you we may at the close of day know the refreshment of having been co-creators with you in your vision.
May the souls of the faithful and unfaithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Eternal rest, grant unto them, 0 Christ, and let the perpetual light shine upon them, May they find themselves at last with you.
In the name ofYahweh, the martyrs of the Revolution, and the new heaven and the new earth, as it was promised in the beginning, must be now, and will be forever. AMEN.
14 Open Hands
RIruALS OF OUR LNBS TOGEmER
Coming Out Ritual
Based upon the ritual ofbaptism, this rite is designed to be a celebration ofthe goodness ofa gay man or lesbian's life-a goodness given by God. This ritual was written by Rebecca Parker, a clergywoman in the Pacific Northwest Conference ofthe UMC andformer pastor of Wallingford UMC in Seattle.
GATHERING Leader: Dear Friends, all life is a sacred and blessed gift. We are here today to bless the life of __, who has invited us to join her/him in celebration of her/himself as a lesbian/gay men. As we welcome this sister/brother with joy, we proclaim the sacred worth of every child of God.
PRAYER FOR TRUTH All: God of truth and justice, may our worship here help us to practice truth in speech and in thought before you, to ourselves, and before one another. We pray in the name ofJesus who promised: You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. Amen.
A HYMN or SONG OF PRAISE FOR LIFE
SELF-BLESSING
The one coming out recites these words:
Holy One, you examine and know me,
you know if I am standing or sitting,
you read my thoughts from far away.
Where could I go to escape your spirit? Where could I flee from your presence?
Prayerjor One Who Has Died
It was you who created my inmost self,
and put me together in my mother's womb;
for all these mysteries, I thank you;
for all the wonder of myself,
for all the wonder ofyour works.
(Adapted from Psalm 139)
COMMUNITY BLESSING
The celebrant and other friends and family pour or sprinkle water on the one coming out, and address her/him with any ofall the following words or other spontaneous words ofblessing.
Fora woman: Born of woman, beloved of God, lover of woman, you are blessed. You are the light of the world.
Fora man: Born of woman, beloved of God, lover of man, you are blessed. You are the light of the world.
WORDS OF WELCOME
All: We welcome you, sister/brother and friend, into this community. With you we make a commitment to integrity. We promise to oppose injustice, and we embrace with joy the gifts that come to us from the Holy One's hand.
A HYMN or SONG may be sung
BENEDICTION
All: Go in peace.
Love God and do what you will.
Be a blessing to the world. Amen.
Before beginning this rite (written by Beth Richardson), gather together a candle and symbols that represent the life ofthis friend (a letter, a photo, a button, a flower, etc.). Place the candle and symbols on a table or altar.
Use this prayer as a guided meditation or as a corporate prayer. During the times marked "silence, H you may write your reflections or share them with a friend. You may also want to use a bowl ofwater and some seeds as a part ofthe prayer. Make this prayeryour own.
Spirit of Life, we gather to remember the life of
You are the Creator of Life, the Comforter in death. Be present with us in our remembering, our celebrating, our letting go.
Light the candle.
We remember the life of our friend, ___ . We remember times of laughter... times of sharing.. . times of frustration. . . times of crying. . . times of growing... times of loving. (silence) (continued)
Open Hands 15
RITIJALS OF OUR LIVES TOGETHER
Prayerfor One Who Has Died(continued)
We remember times of pain, of anger, of regret, of
guilt. (silence) We feel God's Spirit washing over
us like healing waters. Let the waters wash away
that which must be released. Enable us to let go of
the crusty, stale, prickly memories that block us
from life. Let go as the waters wash them away.
(silence)
We celebrate the gifts that ___ has given to us
and to the world. We celebrate the seeds that
___ has planted, seeds that are growing and
will bear fruit. Remember the gifts that ___has
given to friends, to the church, to family, to the
world. (silence) Remember seeds that have been
A Celebration of Holy Union
T his celebration Of a covenanted relationship or holy union is one ofseveral developed by University United Methodist Church in Madison, Wisconsin.
PRELUDE and ENTRANCE
G REETIN G: Brothers and sisters in Christ, may the love of God that passes all understanding be yours now and forever more. Amen.
Human companionship is essential in
the Biblical view of human fulfillment.
These two persons are here this day to
publicly declare their covenant with
each other and God. They have come
into the presence of family and friends
to affirm their relationship and what
each brings to that relationship, making
it like no other.
We gather to witness the declaration that ___ and ___ are about to make. We pledge to each of them our continued love and support.
Let us rejoice and be glad!
MUSIC OF CELEBRATION
STATEMENT OF COVENANT ___ and ___, you are meant, as persons chosen by God, to live lives of compassion, kindness, humility and patience. Forbear each other; forgive each other. As God has forgiven you, you two are Sustainer of Life, we are thankful for the water, thankful for the seeds, thankful for the life of ___ . Teach us to live again and to bless life through our own living. Send us out as faithful, lifegiving, celebrating people. Shalom. Amen.
asked to forgive.
Above all, love. Love binds everything together in perfect harmony. Let the peace of Christ dwell in you. Be thankful for all that God has given you and that you give to each other. Let all you do, in word or deed, be done in the spirit of Christ, giving thanks to God, the creator of us all.
VOWS: Will you now say your vows to each other?
___ , I promise to love you, to be
patient with you, to be with you in joy
and pain as long as we both shall live.
PRAYER: Gracious God, you are the very source of our life and our love. May your love be with ___ and ___ throughout their lives. May their love for each other enable them to serve you more fully, to love others more deeply. Guide them to serve you all the days of their lives. Through Christ our Sovereign. Amen.
DECLARATION You have spoken vows to each other in the presence of these persons and God. May you have the wisdom and strength to keep these vows. May no one seek to destroy the covenant you have affirmed today in our presence. May peace come to you and to all people. Amen.
BENEDICTION
POSTLUDE
16 Open Hands
RESOURCES
SPIRITUALITYGENERAL
STUDIES
delBene, Ron, and Montgomery, Herb. Hunger of the Heart. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983. A new way of looking at some of the basic rhythms of spiritual growth.
Foster, Richard 1. The Celebration of Discipline: Paths to Spiritual Growth. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978. Looks at the classic spiritual disciplines, both individual and corporate.
Holmes, Urban T., III. Spirituality for Ministry. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1982. A specific look at spirituality in relation to ordained ministry. Nouwen, Henri J. Making All Things New: An Invitation to Life in the Spirit. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981. and The Way of the Heart: Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981. Clear and simple books about the basics of the spiritual life.
SEXUALITY AND
SPIRITUALITY
Daly, Mary. Pure Lust. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985. A brilliant critical analysis of culture that experiences lust as sinful, and a celebrative assertion of the lifegiving power of women loving women.
Donnelly, Dody. Radical Love: An Approach to Sexual Spirituality. Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1984. Strongly recommended for its integrated outlook.
Griffin, Susan. Pornography and Silence: Culture's Revenge against Nature. New York: Harper and Row, 1981. An analysis of pornography, including the relationship between patriarchal Christianity and pornography, by a lesbian poet who proposes a vision of desire as sacred.
Kosnik, John, et al. Human Sexuality. New York: Paulist Press, 1977. A landmark work by the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops. Critiques the Vatican's stand on sexuality, including homosexuality, calling for a modern reappraisal of traditional Catholic theology on sexual ethics.
Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Trumansburg, NY.: The Crossing Press, 1984. Includes "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power," an often-cited essay with much food for thought.
Nelson, James B. Between Two Gardens: Reflections on Sexuality and Religious Experience. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1983. and Embodiment: An Approach to Sexuality and Christian Theology. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1978. Foundational works addressing spirituality and sexuality. Propose the need for a sexual theology that would draw from liberation theologies to ask the question: what does sexuality say about faith?
Scanzoni, Letha Dawson. Sexuality. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984. With a primary emphasis on women, uses both biblical analysis and careful research to lay the groundwork for a well-rounded approach to sexuality.
United Church of Christ, Board for Homeland Ministries, Task Force to Study Human Sexuality. Human Sexuality: A Preliminary Study. New York: United Church Press, 1977. Accepted at the 1977 General Synod of the UCC, this document comprehensively covers sexuality from biblical/theological, ethical, psychological, public policy, and congregational perspectives.
GAy/LESBIAN
S PIRITUAL JOURNEYS
Boyd, Malcolm. Gay Priest: An Inner Journey. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986. Movingly recounts Boyd's spiritual journey as both a gay man and a priest, describing the confusion and ethical dilemma posed by being impelled to "tell a lie for Christ."
Fortunato, John E. Embracing the Exile: Healing Journeys of Gay Christians. Minneapolis: Seabury Press, 1982. Connects spiritual and psychological journeys.
Fox, Matthew. "The Spiritual Journey of the Homosexual ... and Just about Everybody Else." In Nugent, Robert, ed. A Challenge to Love: Gay and Lesbian Catholics in the Church. New York: Crossroad, 1984. Suggests that the experience of gay men and lesbians offers the potential to be spiritual guides for other Christians as well.
Heyward, Carter. Our Passion for Justice: Images of Power, Sexuality, and Liberation. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1984. Includes accounts of her coming-out process, and essays on sexuality and spirituality.
---. The Redemption of God. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1982. Heyward uses her lesbian experience to inform her theological work, offering creative and challenging reflections.
Thompson, Mark. Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987. An anthology of widely varied essays on spirituality/sexuality issues, with an emphasis on their relationship to the life of the gay man.
LANGUAGE AND I MAGERY
Bynum, Caroline Walker. Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1982. A fascinating scholarly study of sexual imagery used in describing spiritual experience during the Middle Ages.
Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey. The Divine Feminine: The Biblical Imagery of God as Female. New York: Crossroad, 1983. In-depth examinations of many biblical images of God-for example, God as nursing mother, as mother eagle, as female beloved.
United Methodist Church, General Council on Ministries, Task Force on Language Guidelines. Words that Hurt and Words that Heal: Language about God and People. Nashville, Tenn.: Graded Press, 1985. Excellent United Methodist document on inclusive language. Recommended by the 1984 General Conference of the UMC for churchwide study.
SCRIPTURAL STUDIES
Cady, Susan; Ronan, Marian; and Taussig, Hal. Sophia: The Future of Feminist Spirituality. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986. A rediscovery and study of the biblical image of Wisdom-Sophia.
Mulholland, M. Robert. Shaped by the Word. Nashville, Tenn.: Graded Press, 1985. A way of reading and appropriating scripture in a transformation way.
Trible, Phyllis. God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978. This Old Testament scholar includes an interpretation of the "Song of Songs" as an account of sexuality redeemed through mutuality. 0
Open Hands 17
ity
By Bob Treese
In the early years of my life, I saw little relationship between my sexuality and my relationship to God. My understanding of sexuality was limited to genital sex, and this was something not to be discussed. Enjoyed, yes! Understood, no! Sexual intercourse with my wife was "doing what came naturally" and was the supreme expression of our growing and deepening love for one another. Only at times when I experienced a feeling of guilt-for example, because lust had overpowered sensitive lovedid I get a sense that sexuality and its expression might have something to do with my relationship to God. Spirituality was a term I shied away from. It connoted something ethereal, unearthly, a goal toward which I was meant to grow, up and out of my earthiness toward some realm of being up there somewhere. Beginning in my childhood, I was perplexed by the emphasis my Sunday School teachers and others placed on another world up there somewhere. That emphasis seemed to mean denial of the world we lived in. Yet we were taught that God loved this world so much that God came in Jesus of Nazareth to save it. I thought that "the Word became flesh" meant that the body was real and important and that Jesus was really human, like me. Why did the religion that was shaping me seem to dehumanize him? If Jesus was all good, and my natural bodily feelings were somehow bad, Jesus couldn't have been human like mecould he?
18 Open Hands
With all the confusion I felt toward spirituality, it is hardly surprising how unprepared I was when I was first forced to deal with an aspect of sexuality in a religious context. In 1965-66, I spent a sabbatical year in San Francisco on the staff of Glide Urban Center. As part of my responsibilities, I was assigned to work with the Council on Religion and the Homosexual and to serve as consultant on its Theology Committee. I went into that setting with an unexamined, typical, and naive attitude toward sexual orientation-mine was right; any other was wrong.
As I worked with that committee, however, I discovered some important things about myself. In the first place, contrary to my expectations, at our initial meeting I could not distinguish homosexual persons from heterosexuals on that committee of about a dozen men and women. I also discovered that I was scared: what would I do if one of those men tried to seduce me? (My fear was inappropriate; seductive behavior never occurred.) And, on reflection, I came to realize that I could take no credit for my sexual orientation. I had not the slightest idea how I came to be heterosex ual.
As we worked together over that year, struggling with the nature and meanings of personhood, of sexuality, and of the church's rejection of persons with same-sex orientation, we developed a warm, intimate relationship with strong mutual respect. Sexuality, I came to realize, is something more than, and more mysterious than, genital sex. Sexuality is present as a dynamic force in all human experiences and relationships.
That year of working with the Council on Religion and the Homosexual and the Theology Committee was a kind of new-birth experience for me, one could say a "spirituality birthing." For the first time in my life, I came to know at some depth Christians who were gay and lesbian. Some of these lay persons were active in congregations (though they remained closeted); others were very hurt and angry at the institution that had rejected them. All of them longed to give open expression to their faith; to be accepted as they were. And most felt accepted by God, though rejected by Christians.
As I ruminated on my responses to fear of seduction-which disappeared after our first meeting-I experienced a spiritual breakthrough. Not only did I realize that I had responded homophobically because of fear of my own impulses; I also think I began to understand how a woman must feel in the midst of a group of macho men. I felt like a sex object-objectified, robbed of my personhood-not because any of the gay men had treated me that way but because I had imagined they would. This realization brought up the reality and brutality of sexism. I have struggled, since, with my own unconscious sexism.
I also became aware of an issue more subtle than blatant sexism. I found that I was ashamed of my own feelings of tenderness, of compassion, of the unexpected teardrop. I saw the sexism in feeling that a man should be above such "womanlike" qualities. I was forced to embrace those parts of me, finally realizing that so-called feminine qualities are integral parts of my being and that learned "male" attitudes are false and destructive of relationships.
Since my days at Glide, I have continued to grow in my understanding of the intricate relationships between sexuality and spirituality. Sexism, I now know, is in reality unhealed sexual dualism, supported by our male-dominated society. Such an awakening caused me to affirm that, truly, woman and man were, and are, both created in the image of the Creator (Genesis 1 :27). For centuries many of the Church Fathers posited as unchallengeable truth that women
were inferior to men. St. Augustine's comment that "Man but not woman is made in the image and likeness of God"l is but one example. Not until the eye-opening feminist liberation movement of recent years has the male-dominated Church begun to understand the profound significance that such evil teachings have had in distorting the Gospel. By contrast, Meister Eckhart, the Dominican theologian who was condemned as a heretic by Pope John XXII and who developed the theory of "creationcentered" (as opposed to sin-redemption) spirituality, said "that the reason Eve was said to be created from Adam's side was to demonstrate the absolute equality of woman to man."2
Gradually, I have become aware that spirituality for me is not otherworldly or ethereal; God is immanent in creation. God is not limited in the least by the affirmation that the Divine is present and active in creation. God permeates being, is present in and to me and all human beings. The incarnation of God in Jesus of Nazareth affirms all creation, including human beings. It says that flesh is important, that flesh became the medium of divine communication. God's compassionate judgment was communicated in the earthly life of Jesus. The Reign of God, which was more central in Jesus' message, is here and now among us and in us.
Relationship to God is awesome. Rather than the "up-there-ness" I had been struggling with, I now see spirituality as all-embracing, a kind of web of relationships that includes communion, celebration, earthiness, creativity, and hunger for ever more profound relationship to God. And an integral part of this web is sexuality, the psychological and physiological power by which we can be in community and can love. Sexuality, I now know, is essential in relationships; without it we can neither love others nor love God. 0
Notes
1. Quoted in Matthew Fox, Breakthrough: Meister Eckhart's Creation Spirituality in New Translation (Garden City, N.Y.: [mage Books, 1980), p. 41.
2. Quoted in ibid.
Bob Treese is emeritus professor of practical theoLogy, Boston University SchooL of TheoLogy. He now resides in St. Louis.
Anonymous
am a recovering addict. 1 am
I addicted to lust, to people. I use the lust connection I get from other people just as an alcoholic uses alcohol, or a drug addict uses cocaine, heroin, or valium. I use lust to escape reality and pain, to get me high, to bring me down, to cure the wrongs in my life.
I grew up as a normal child-a little on the shy side-in a Christian home. Around the age of eleven, I began using fantasies to escape; fairy tales, movies, and books drew me into them. In them, I was beautiful and loved and desired. This "normal" childhood pastime developed into my coping mechanism for life. I became more comfortable in fantasy than in reality.
I was very involved with the church during my teenage years. I was a leader in the United Methodist youth activities. I was admired and loved, but 1 did not feel confident. I felt afraid and alone and different.
When I went away to college, I tasted my first freedom . . . and my first alcohol .. . and my first lust. I "came out" during my third year of college and feIt, finally, at one with myself. I was very comfortable as a lesbian.
But finding my identity as a lesbian also introduced me to my drug of choice: lesbian women. I quit drinking alcohol when I fou nd the lesbian bars. 1 would sit at the bar drinking soft drinks and watching the women. I felt warm and excited and high when I watched the women. I loved the feeling of being in that place.
Over the next several years, 1 crossed the line from abuse to addiction. I lost the freedom to choose whether or not I would become involved in relationships with women. I was powerless over my actions, over my life. Feeling the lust, feeding the desire became a compulsion.
I was not a skid row sex drunk. I did not go on binges, go to prostitutes, sleep with "undesirables." My outward behavior fit very well into what was considered "acceptable" in the lesbian culture. But 1 was dying inside. 1 was using sex and lust to fill a very deep void in me, a hunger inside me. And I was filled with guilt and shame, confusion and insanity.
1 finally hit bottom when I found myself in an affair outside of my committed relationship. 1 had had affairs before, but 1 did not want to have this one. At each stage of the relationship, 1 tried to stop but could not. I was totally powerless over my feelings and my actions! Desperately, 1 sought help and found it in a 12-step program for sexual addiction.
The point of this storytelling is that I have discovered that I used sex and lust in a spiritual way. My use of women was based on a piritual need. Each encounter with another began with the feelings that "this one is the one," "it feels like I've known her forever ... we must have been together in another life," "I feel whole when I am with her." 1 was addicted to this wonderful sense of oneness that came when 1 was physically intimate with another person. I was addicted to the romance, the rush, the pursuit, the excitement. I did not feel happy or whole unless I was involved in some aspect of a relationship.
As 1 have gotten sober, I have realized that I was trying to fill an emptiness within me. I have discovered that the void in my soul was a God-hunger that can only be filled by a relationship with God. I tried to use lust and sex with other people to fill the emptiness inside me.
Now I am beginning anew with my life. I am learning about true intimacy and love. I am getting well from this disease, which is physical, spiritual, and mental. I am content, excited, and loving life. I am finally learning-after a life of being in the church-how to have a spiritual relationship with God. 0
Open Hands 19
"VZn one hears the term spirituality,W ::mcerns about language and imagery may not immediately come to mind. Rather, the mention ofspirituality may inspire thoughts ofrelationship to some ethereal force or presence, some sacred being. ~ta careful consideration ofjust why certain ideas arise regarding the spiritual reveals that a close interconnectedness links language and imagery with spirituality.
However any ofus views spirituality in relationship
to our own lives, spirituality clearly is
shaped and experienced through the language
and images offaith. AsJames Nelson explains,
spirituality
includes disciplines and practices, but also myths, symbols, and rituals, informal as well as formal. It includes the affective as well as the cognitive. Significantly, spirituality includes the ways in which our relatedness to the ultimate affects our understandings and feelings of relatedness to everyone and everything else. I
Myths, symbols, rituals, relatedness-all these are shaped and transmitted by language. This fact demonstrates the importance that language and imagery have in influencing ourperception and experience ofthe spiritual. The more inclusive the words and images that are used in worship, prayer, art7and literature7the more comprehensive a spirituality is possible. The use Of a malecenterec£ patriarchal language and imagery generates a male-centered spirituality. Nelson again:
Because our imagery and language have been so onesidedly masculine, a masculinist-shaped spirituality has resulted. Hence we have experienced God dominantly as noun, as transcendence, as order, as structure, as law, as rationality. A more androgynous theological imagery and language will help us to experience God also as verb, as immanence, as creativity, as vulnerability, as flow, and as absolute relatedness to creation.2
To use inclusive language and imagery in worship7 in prayer, in dialogue is to open oneselfand the community ofwhich one is a part to spiritual growth and development beyond the confines of traditional restrictions. Their use also opens us to the possibility ofa justice-based spirituality.
This justice-based spirituality was dreamed of by theprophets7who en.visionedjustice rolling down like water. This spirituality was sung ofby Mary, who experienced God acting to feed the hungry, bring thepowerfUl low, and offer liberation to those who live under oppression. This spirituality was claimed byJesus Christ, who envisioned his ministry as good news to the poor, release to the captives, and recovery ofsight to the blind.
20 Open Hands
Fromjacobs
L to
Sarahs Circle:
LanglUlge, lmage~ and spiritlUllity
By Carolyn Henninger Oehler
From Dominance/
Subordinance to
Equality andCo-Creation
M oving to this justice-based, inclusive spirituality means leaving behind language and imagery that foster dominance! subordinance metaphors for reality and embracing those that "affirm reciprocity in action."3 We need language and imagery that help us to claim the role of co-creator in our relationship to God and to other persons.
We have ample evidence of the inadequacy of and damage done by male-dominated language and understandings. In the traditional hierarchy of dominance, God is viewed as Lord, King, all-powerful, transcendent, demanding human submission, and fostering a sense of human powerlessness. Coming next in the hierarchy, males assume the role of dominance over those beneath them.
In this hierarchy, so-called generic language is common, with the male noun or pronoun used to represent all persons. The users of this language may not intend to be exclusive, but the effect nevertheless is to deny women's separate identity
and power, both linguistically and in relationships. Dominating white male imagery and language serve to enforce subordinance of other groups as well-by race, by class, by sexual orientation.
This dominance/subordinance understanding of God and of human relationships can be replaced by images and metaphors that teach us relationships of mutuality. Beverly Harrison, for example, writes of "One present who sustains us, gently but firmly grounding the fragile possibilities of our action, One whose power of co-relation enhances and enriches our acts aimed at human fulfillment, mutuality, and justice."4
Traditional faith language and imagery often are heterosexist, as well as sexist. The Church as the Bride of Christ, for example, presents difficulties for those seeking inclusive imagery. The use of heterosexist words and images shapes a spirituality that is the same, allowing for sexual beliefs and practices that distort or deny the goodness of human sexuality. As Nelson writes: "[T]he retheologizing of our language and imagery in sexually inclusive ways is a fundamental challenge of our day. At stake is a wholistic spirituality, for masculinist-shaped spirituality will only perpetuate alienation."5
From Dualism to an
Integrated Spirituality
If we are to develop a justice-based, inclusive spirituality, we must use language and imagery that move away from dualism toward an integrated language and spirituality.
Dualistic thinking supposes a division of reality into two separate and opposite categories. Some dualisms are:
God/creation, spirit/body,
good/evil, spiritual/sexual,
male/female, mind/emotion,
white/black, rationality/intuition,
heaven/earth, transcendence/immanence.
These dualisms not only set up each category as opposites, they also describe God (and maleness) in the first category as good and the created world (and femaleness) in the second category as evil or "other." Using this kind of language and imagery to construct and describe reality can lead to a spirituality that supports oppression and injustice, since it denies that the creation, the body, and those equated with them must be treated with respect.
This dichotomized spirituality separates God from God's creation and suggests that some persons are more spiritual than other persons. When homosexuality is defined primarily or exclusively as sexual behavior, then this dichotomized spirituality can consider gay and lesbian persons as "other" and as candidates for exclusion and oppression. When people of color fall on the "other" side of the dualism, then their oppression and exploitation can be justified. Dualistic language and imagery works against a justice-based spirituality.
Dualisms like the spirit/body one have created an uneasiness in the church about the bodily implications of its worship. Leaving behind these dualisms can open us to the sacramentality that is hidden in human sexuality.6 The links between sexuality and spirituality are profound. Rather than seeing them as opposites, inclusive language and imagery can help us to experience them as part of one whole.
From Death to
Life-Giving Spirituality
Creation-centered theology and spirituality offer a third possibility that the use of inclusive language and imagery helps to make possible. One suggested metaphor to connect creation and the creator is the image of Sophia, or Holy Wisdom. Susan Cady, Marian Ronan, and Hal Taussig explain: "Sophia provides exactly the image needed to make us aware of our own collective power, not as God's puppets, but as co-creators-or potential destroyers-of this planet. Sophia's continuing creativity, too, helps to keep before us the renewal of the earth, in birth, death, and resurrection."7
The introduction of Sophia as a metaphor for creativity signals the importance of a neglected aspect of God, sometimes called feminine, and the possible recovery of a biblical tradition that can contribute to a more inclusive spirituality.
The links between spirituality and creativity are strong. And a creative spirituality must move away from exclusive, patriarchal imagery. Matthew Fox says:
I think that for a theology to celebrate creativity, it must have a sense of the Motherhood of God. An exclusively paternalistic theology-which is what the West has had for three centuries, speaking and imaging God onLy as maLe-doesn't celebrate birthing, doesn't see birthing as the powerfuL, exciting, surprising, ecstatic, and spirituaL event that it is, personaLLy and culturally. 8
A spirituality that is life-giving will be shaped by language and imagery that are inclusive, rather than exclusive. Instead of alienation from our bodies and our life processes, we can claim an interrelatedness and connectedness to creation and to those created to be in community with us. Instead of being frozen in images that reinforce our powerlessness, we can become co-creators with God. Instead of accepting a spirituality that is misogynist and homophobic, we can be mothers and midwives in the shaping of a spirituality that celebrates rather than denies the world.
A justice-based spirituality needs language and imagery that are creative, egalitarian, integrated, inclusive. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott predicts that "the inclusive naming of God will train us to include all aspects of ourselves and the whole human race, and all of creation in the category of what is holy. And that in turn will help to break our bondage to a spirit-body dualism and to hierarchical structures."9
That spirituality will be good news to the poor and to the oppressed and to all who seek wholeness and healing. It is also our hope of creating a truly inclusive community. 0
Notes
1.
James B. Nelson, Between Two Gardens (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1983), p. 5.
2. Ibid.
3.
Beverly Wildung Harrison, Making the Connections (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985), p. 39.
4. Ibid.
5. Nelson, Between Two Gardens, p. 52.
6. Ibid., p. i5.
7.
Susan Cady, Marian Ronan, and Hal Taussig, Sophia (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986), p. 80. .
8.
Milenko Matanovic, Lightworks (Issaquah, Wash.: Lonan Press, 1985), p. 29.
9.
Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, "God-In-Here-And-Everywhere," Daughters of Sarah, March/April 1985, p. 6.
Carolyn Henninger Oehler is director of the Council on Ministries of the Northern Illinois Annual Conference, a Reconciling Conference of the UMC.
Open Hands 21
L~r-----.~ __ P R_EPOR_T__
R_C _
FOur new local churches became Reconciling Congregations last fall, bringing the total to 29 at the end of 1987. As we have in the past, we present a brief introduction to the congregations that have joined this growing movement.
University UMC (DeKalb, Illinois)
University is the congregation affiliated with the Wesley Foundation at Northern Illinois University. Its congregation of about 50 members is comprised of faculty, staff, students, and their families. As a campus congregation, its miOlstries are primarily directed to the university community.
Currently University is engaged in ministries in three areas: peace with justice, racism, and homophobia. The congregation has supported a variety of activities in these areas.
The congregation has been dealing with issues related to lesbians and gay men since the early 1970s. Currently the Lambda Christian Fellowship operates from the church. In conjunction with other campus ministries, University has supported educational programs on AIDS and alcoholism in the gay/lesbian community. A resource collection of writings on religion and homosexuality has been developed at the church.
St. Mark's UMC (New Orleans)
St. Mark's was founded around the turn of the century as a community center in the French Quarter of New Orleans by the national women's agency of the Methodist Episcopal Church. A congregation grew out of its ministries to the needs of the Irish and Italians living there then.
Although a small congregation, St. Mark's is a very close-knit community. Its membership of about 90 persons is interracial and includes a number of lesbians and gay men. Sunday morning worship is regularly joined by many tourists visiting the famous French Quarter.
22 Open Hands
The community center is still active and now houses a street academy, an accredited alternative school for youths who have not functioned well in the public schools. As the Greater New Orleans Urban Ministry, St. Mark's and two other UM congregations cooperate in providing other community services. The church building is also home to the New Orleans Gay Men's Chorus.
Metropolitan-Duane UMC
(New York City)
One of the early Methodist parishes in New York, Metropolitan-Duane traces its roots back to First Wesleyan Chapel in 1833. After several moves and mergers with other congregations, it acquired its current name and building in the 1930s.
A small, but very active congregation, Metropolitan-Duane emphasizes development of the spiritual life and social justice for all persons. A Bible study group meets regularly. An excellent music program enhances weekly worship and provides many special events through the year. The congregation provides social activities for community youth, as well as several other community services.
In addition to the many ministries supported by the congregation, its building houses many other community and religious organizations, including a Korean UM congregation, the Metropolitan Community Church of New York, the Greenwich Village branch of the NAACP, and Parents of Lesbians and Gays.
The Church in Ocean Park
(Ocean Park, California)
The original Ocean Park congregation was founded about 90 years ago. Faced with a dwindling membership, the church was closed in 1972 and then reopened as a new congregation in 1973. Its current pastor, James Conn, began the new congregation as a new model of Christian community.
The core group of about 75 persons in the congregation (Ocean Park does not have "members" per se) is a diverse group of persons from many different religious backgrounds and covers a wide age range. A large number of single and transitional persons are part of the congregation.
The focus of its ministry is on establishing community and care for each other and the larger community. Several different groups meet regularly for spiritual development and personal support.
Members of the community are engaged in many different social justice activities-world peace, justice in Central America, and the sanctuary movement. The building also houses several programs for empowering persons in need, including a homeless shelter, battered women's shelter, food bank and crisis counseling, and a child care center.
CURRICULUM DEVELOPED
FOR
LESBIAN/G AY COUPLES
T he Sacramento Affirmation group has initiated an enrichment program for lesbian or gay couples. The Affirmation group requested and received a $400 grant from the California-Nevada Annual Conference to develop the curriculum. Perry Wiggins, a marriage enrichment counselor and clergyman in the California Pacific Annual Conference, was retained to develop the curriculum.
The first retreat was held on December 4-6 with six couples participating. The retreat was led by Wiggins and the Rev. Jane Spahr, a Presbyterian clergywoman. All participants rated the weekend very highly.
The retreat became nationally known through press reports of the weekend and the fact that the California-Nevada conference had provided some funding. The largely negative response that this provoked is once again evidence of the prevalence of
____R C_PR_EPO
R_T------'l,iiiJ
homophobia in the denomination.
The curriculum is being revised based upon the experience of the first retreat and should be available in March. For more information, contact Jeanne Barnett, 2340 Gila Way, Sacramento, CA 95864.
RCP WORKSHOPS IN
C OLUMBUS
A ND I NDIANAPOLIS
"Developing Intentional Ministries with Lesbians and Gay Men" was the title of a workshop held in Columbus, Ohio, on February 6. More than 30 persons from the West Ohio Annual Conference of the UMC, representing more than a dozen local churches, participated.
After opening with a presentation on the current situation of lesbians and gay men in our church and society, the workshop focused on the Reconciling Congregation Program as a means to engage in ministries with lesbians and gay men. Participants viewed the videotape from the Rep convocation in March 1987 and grappled with how to begin a reconciling process in their local churches. The day closed with a strategy session on how to have a larger impact on the annual conference.
Members of Central UMC (a Reconciling Congregation in Toledo) were instrumental in planning the workshop and ensuring a lively, enthusiastic dialogue on a cold wintry day.
On the following day, 15 members of the Indianapolis chapter of Affirmation gathered to view the RCP videotape and to plan for promotion of the
RCP
in
the
South
Indiana
Annual
Conference.
These are
examples of many local
efforts to empower local church ministries with lesbians and gay men and to evangelize about the Reconciling Congregation Program. Several other local events are being planned around the country this winter and spring. For more information on what is happening in your area, contact the RCP national office, P.o. Box 24213, Nashville, TN 37202.
U M GENERAL CONFERENCE P LANS P ROCEED
P lans for witnessing to the lesbian/gay presence in the United Methodist Church at the quadrennial policy-making gathering of the denomination are unfolding. The General Conference will meet April 26-May 6 in St. Louis, Missouri.
Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns has written a platform statement which will be mailed to all 998 delegates to the General Conference. (A copy of the platform statement can be obtained by sending $3.00 to Affirmation, address below.) Affirmation members will be present throughout the 11 days of the General Conference to talk with delegates and visitors about the ministries of Affirmation. Affirmation also plans a celebrative dinner and a worship service, during the first week of the gathering, to memorialize persons who have died from AIDS.
The Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA) has issued a "Reconciling Ministry Pledge for United Methodists." This 14-point pledge identifies ways in which concerned individuals can proclaim their solidarity with lesbians and gay men in the UMC.
MFSA has included "removal of homophobic/heterosexist statements and strictures" from official denominational policies as one of its legislative priorities for the General Conference. MFSA also will be celebrating its 80th Anniversary Jubilee during the General Conference on Saturday, April 30. The dinner will celebrate the writing of the Social Creed of the denomination and the founding of MFSA 80 years ago.
Affirmation and MFSA will each provide low-cost housing to supporters who will be present for any part or all of General Conference. For more information on housing or other activities, contact:
Affirmation
P.O. Box 1021
Evanston, IL 60204
or
MFSA
Shalom House
76 Clinton Avenue
Staten Island, NY 10301
NATIONAL AFFIRMATION TO
MEET THIS S PRING
The upcoming biannual meeting of Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns will be April 22-24 in St. Louis, just preceding General Conference. In addition to a special program, Affirmation members will select a new Coordinating Committee and complete plans for its presence at the General Conference. For more information on the meeting, contact Affirmation (address above).
R CP CHALLENGED TO
MEET GROWTH
"God's Spirit is moving across the church" and "the Reconciling Congregation Program is on the move" were proclaimed in a January meeting of the Affirmation Coordinating Committee and the RCP Advisory Committee. This special meeting was called to address the rapidly increasing demand for information and support for the RCP across the country.
In the meeting, decisions were made to: 1) expand the RCP Advisory Committee from four to eight persons, 2) devote more resources to fundraising in the next four months, and 3) begin the process of selecting a new program coordinator to replace Beth Richardson, who will retire from the program in May. It was also agreed that a recom-
Open Hands 23
RC P REPORT
mendation to hire two half-time cocoordinators be made at Affirmation's spring meeting.
While recognizing that all the funds are not in place to make these moves, participants in this meeting made these decisions in response to the everincreasing amount of volunteer activity on behalf of the RCP across the country. As the RCP and Open Hands were initiated as a leap of faith, so these decisions will test the amount of support for ministries with lesbians and gay men in the church.
Current members of the RCP Advisory Committee are: Ann Thompson Cook, Washington, D.C. Reva Anderson, Toledo, Ohio Tim Tennant-Jayne, Minneapolis Duane Wilkerson, San Francisco
NATIONAL TOUR OF
AIDS QUILT
The NAMES Project, the national memorial to the tens of thousands of Americans who have died from AIDS, will begin its eagerly awaited national tour this spring. The quilt, formed of panels individually sewn by survivors and friends of those who have died, was unveiled at the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights last October. The quilt received such an overwhelming positive response that its coordinators decided to expand the project and take it on a national tour.
The quilt will be displayed in 20 cities across the country. Funds raised from the tour will stay in the communities displaying the quilt to support local organizations providing direct services to persons with AIDS.
The NAMES Project is seeking local volunteers to support the tour in each community (see list below). For more information or to volunteer your support in your city, contact the NAMES Project, P.o. Box 14573, San Francisco, CA 94114. They will let you know who the local coordinator in your city is.
24 Open Hands
The cities and dates of the tour as
Metropolitan-Duane UMC
clo Takayuki Ishii 201 W. 13th Street New York, NY 10011
Washington Square UMC
clo Don Himpel 135 W. 4th Street New York, NY 10012
Park Slope UMC
clo Beth Bentley Sixth Avenue & 8th Street Brooklyn, NY 11215
Calvary UMC
clo Chip Coffman 815 S. 48th Street Philadelphia, PA 19143
Dumbarton UMC
clo Ann Thompson Cook 3133 Dumbarton Ave nue, NW Washington, DC 20007
Christ UMC
clo Kay M oore 4th and I Streets, SW Washington, DC 20024
SI. John's UMC
clo How ard Nash 2705 SI. Paul Street Baltimore, MD 21218
Grant Park-Aldersgate UMC
clo Sally Daniel 575 Boulevard, SE Altanta, GA 30312
Edgehill UMC
clo Hoyt Hickman 1502 Edgehill Avenue Nashville, TN 37212
Central UMC
clo Chuck Larkins 701 W. Central at Scottwood Toledo, OH 43610
University UMC
clo Steven Webster 1127 University Avenue Madison, WI 53715
Wesley UMC
clo Tim Tennant-J ayne Marquette at Grant Streets Minneapolis, MN 55403
University UMC
clo Dave Sc hmidt 633 W. Loc ust DeKalb, IL 60115
Wheadon UMC
clo Carol Larson 2212 Ridge Avenue Evanston, IL 60201
Albany Park UMC
cio Ted Luis, Sr. 3100 W. Wilson Avenue Chicago, IL 60625
Irving Park UMC
clo David Foster 3801 N. Keeler Avenue Chicago, IL 60641
Kairos UMC
clo Richard Vogel 6015 McGee Kansas City, MO 64113
SI. Mark's UMC
clo David Schwarz 1130 N. Rampart Street New Orleans, LA 70116
St. Paul's UMC
clo George Christie 1615 Ogden Street Denver, CO 80218
Church in Ocean Park
clo Judy Abdo 235 Hill Street Santa Monica, CA 90405
Wesley UMC
clo Della Campbell 1343 E. Barstow Avenue fresno, CA 93710
Bethany UMC
clo Kim Smith 1268 Sanchez Street San Francisco, CA 94114
Trinity UMC
clo Arron Auger 152 Church Street San Francisco, CA 94122
Trinity UMC
clo Elli Norris 2320 Dana Street Berkeley, CA 94704
Albany UMC
clo Jim Scurlock 980 Stannage Albany, CA 94706
Sunnyhills UMC
clo Cliveden Chew Haas 335 Dixon Road Milpitas, CA 95035
St. Paul's UMC
clo Dianne L. Grimard 101 West Street Vacaville, CA 95688
Wallingford UMC
clo Margarita Will 2115 N. 42nd Street Seattle, WA 98103
Capitol Hill UMC
clo Mary Dougherty 128 Sixtee nth Street East Seattle, WA 98112
announced are:
Los Angeles
San Diego
Phoenix
Denver
Kansas City
St. Louis
Dallas
Houston
New Orleans
Atlanta
Cleveland
Baltimore
Boston
New York
Philadelphia
Detroit
Chicago
Minneapolis
Seattle
Portland
April 5-11 April 11-14 April 14-18 April 20-24 April 25-28 April 28-May 2 May 3-6 May 6-10 May 10-16 May 25-31 June 1-6 June 6-13 June 15-20 June 20-28 June 28-July 4 July 5-8 July 8-12 July 13-18 July 22-26 July 26-31
RECONCILING
CONGREGATIONS
RECONCILING CONFERENCES
California-Nevada
New York
Northern Illinois
Troy