SENSUAL

Hi There !

So, just how sensual are you anyway?

Say, on a scale of one to ten,

where do you show up sensually?

As a matter of fact, let's get more basic

and start from scratch.

Even better, let's start from itch.

What's the very first,

completely unfiltered, sense/image

that pops up when you hear the word "sensual"?

Come on now, let's be honest and candid here.

Does "sensual" pretty much register as "sexual,"

and/or some sort of sloppy to suspect self indulgence?

Put another way, could you be

unabashedly and enthusiastically sensual

in front of the children,

or your local librarian?

I hope so!

No, I haven' gone over the edge

and fallen into demented hedonism.

But too many of us have fallen away

from a vigorous,

jubilant, holy sensuality.

That's a pity !

We are way to much disconnected

from five marvelous channels

of engagement with the divine creativity:

sight, sound, taste, touch, smell.




Way back with the Greeks

the unity of creation

was split up into matter and spirit.

Often matter didn't matter,

 or did matter as an obstacle,

if you were after "higher" things.

The Stoics insisted on the necessity

 to escape matter, the sensual,

as much as possible in the pursuit of perfection.



 Augustine was a wild, flagrant hedonist

 until his conversion.

Then he did a 180 and

shut down on the sensual.

He even insisted that married couples

could only have intercourse

when they were trying to get pregnant.

Otherwise, sexual love was seriously sinful.

How non-sensual, nonsensical.



Origen, a Father of the Early Church,

castrated himself.

"So much did he flee from pleasure..."

  ( Jerome )



A lot of western spirituality

over the cnturies,

Roman Catholic and Reformist Protestant,

fearfully convulsed, decrying the sensual.

It talked centuries of Christians

out of holy, comfortable sensuality.

A sorry example close to home were the Puritans.

Contrary to their name

they made dirty pure sensuality.




In my early seminary days

we were taught to "Mortify the senses."

We were also taught Latin and in Latin

"mors, mortis" means "death."

So, death to the senses.

You were well on your way to holiness

if you slept on a hard bed, took cold showers,

didn't  look at pretty girls, and all but mixed ashes

into your mashed potatoes.

We were pushed away from sensual delight.

Well, once in awhile there was a cold beer,

"But don't enjoy it too much!"

Then there was The Discipline,

a cat o' nine tails

to whip our bodies to painful numbness,

deadening the sense of feeling,

and our spirits as not so well.

It was downright nutty.

We were to practice "Modesty of the eyes."

Free translation, look down if you want to go up.

Holiness was a disembodied thing.

Now, all that in a seminary

supposed to be based in Jesus.



Well, check out Jesus.

He didn't back off from good food and drink.

No ashes in his mashed potatoes.

In fact, the Pharisees accused him  of being

a glutton and drunkard. ( Matthew 11:19 )

He made sure folks had plenty to eat

with the multiplication

of the loaves and fishes. ( Matthew 14: 13-21 )

He made sure the daughter of Jairus

had something to eat

after he raised her from the dead.

( Mark 5:21-43 )

He partied at the wedding feast in Cana

and jumped right in, well,

with a healthy nudge

from his dear Jewish mother,

when they ran out of wine.

He changed barrels of water,

not into Welsch's Grape Juice,

but into the choicest vintage

of the celebration.( John 2:1-11 )

Jesus regularly connected

with people suffering sensual,

bodily  impairments,

restoring sight, hearing,

bodily integrity,

as well as smell and touch

for those with leprosy

( Matthew 8:1-3, 12:10, 15:30 )



The beautiful goodness here is that God

created our material universe

 and us as part of it

"...and saw that it was good."

( Genesis One )

We're given five sense

to see, taste, touch, hear and smell,

that goodness.

They connect us with God, each other

and all of creation.

What a sin to shut down

that kind of sacred sensuality.

It's basically a sick perversion

that fouls a free, exuberant  flow

between us, God, others and all creation.



Sure, we could flip wrong and unreal,

becoming selfish hedonist.

In many ways, sadly way too many ways,

our current culture has done that,

flipping from the mistake of puritanism

to the mistake of the prurient.

Well, we are free

to be happily counter cultural

in response to both "mis-takes."

Way better is to live a free,

flat out, joyous

and sacred sensuality.



As I write early this spring morning

the sky is a vast quilt of ruffled blue gray

with a gentle, soft, luminous edge to the east.

                ( Ten Minutes Later )

Now that edge has warmed to a creamy red.

How wonderful to spend these moments

"sensing" magnificence  in Creation's Studio.



 There's so much God  to sense:

- get down and dirty potting

  some pansies for the front porch

- sink into a symphony

- let the morning shower

   baptize us unto freshness

- hold a baby and feel sweet newness

- watch middle schoolers playing

   a vigorous game of soccer

- chew every mouthful of food

    twenty five times

   just like Mom said,

   tasting every texture and tone

   of flavor anxious to delight our palate

 - listen to the joyous babble

   of  spring runs out on the back forty

 - let our ears catch the crack of the bat

    at a baseball game

 - hear the trees singing their heaven reach

  - bask in the warmth of spring sunning

 - slowly sip and savor every tannin, sweetness and oak

    ready to share their euphoria with us

 - feel the fibers and textures as we fold the laundry

 - take in all the layers of aroma as supper is cooking

    ( especially the garlic in the marinara sauce !!)

 - listen to the spring rains doing  their sound dance.

Hey, don't let any anal retentive, churchy, scaredy cats

stifle or steal your soulful sensuality.

We started out questioning just how sensual you are.

Hope to heaven you are wonderfully,

wildly, soulfully sensual

no matter what the Stoics, Augustine, Origin

( in his neutured falsetto voice ),

the impure Puritans,

much "mis - taken" western spirituality,

and the prurient  hedonism of our culture

say is the matter with matter.

We have it on the best of authority

that matter matters beautifully, divinely -

that body and all creation " ...is good."

( Genesis One )



God has endless ways to make love to us.

Five of them are Spirit sensitive senses.

So, let's slow down to be enfolded

into the bliss of divine intimacy,

free opened in the

            Sacred Sensual.





Hope Spring is doing just that for you.

If you reside in a different atmosphere

than I do here in the mid-Atlantic USA,

may your special atmosphere mean a season

that enlivens with its unique goodness.

Most of us have never met face to face,

yet we have this marvelous soul union each week.

Thanks for the gift of you in union.

A joyous welcome to new folks

joining in with us here

from Kenya,Pakistan

Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia.

Holding all in

God's Dear Love,

   John Frank


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