Friday, May 31, 2019

SOULFUL SEX VI




Sisters and Brothers,

A personal note and joy.
Please share my happiness 
and gratitude to God.
Fifty years ago today
I was ordained.

Deo Gratias!!

John Frank
  
  *****




      SOULFUL SEX VI


               HELLO !

THIS IS THE CONCLUSION

OF OUR SIX PART SERIES.

FOR THOSE JUST JOINING US,

IT WOULD BE OPTIMAL -

AND TAKE A FAIR SHAKE

OF TIME FOR SURE -

TO READ THE PRECEDING

FIVE POSTINGS PRIOR

TO DELVING INTO THIS ONE.

PLEASE CONSIDER IT

AND GO TO BLOG ARCHIVE,

RIGHT COLUMN ONLINE:

.

      THANKS !

   JOHN FRANK

       *****







HI There !

So, sex and soul

it's been for these six segments.

A lot of time and attention for sure.

Given the significant cultural shifts

occurring in both

         understandings

               and

          experiences

in matters sexual/gender,

         Soul Health 

very definitely calls for 

their careful consideration,

and, pardon the play on words, 

and very definitely
calls for 

naked honesty -

no cover over of convenience

or tries at selfish justifications,

whatever one's sense and persuasion.
.


Soul and sex are zones for Love.

Doesn't get more pivotal than that.

Our spiritual life and health

are in play and at issue.



In this series we've seen 

some of the confusions 

and conflicts clouding

     SOULFUL SEX. 



There's more and better

         for sure.

       Spiritually 

seeking and speaking,

there are a host 

of  truly beautiful,

expansive elements to

this flux and evolution.

Some are renewals,

some are quite new.


 - A new found joy that our

     human bodies are

     sacred images,

     incarnations of God,

     gender and sexuality

     very much included.

              "In the image of God
               they were created,
               male and female
               God created them."

                 Genesis 1:27


  - Jesus is God 

                "bodied,"
                   and
               we are too!!

               "In his body lives
                the fullness
                of divinity,
                and in him
                you too find
                your own
                fulfillment."

              Colossians 2:9


 - The divine indwells, 

         animating

    soul, mind, and body.

    Sense the divine passion

    of all that in the 

    erotic, biblical poetry of

       The Song of Songs.


 - Mystics, well know ones

   like Teresa of Avila,

   and little known ones

   like my mother,

   experienced a love movement

   from separation to divine union

   through all sorts of happenings,

   happenings way wider than conjugal.

   

   Sex from the Latin means separation.

   It is understood here in its widest sense.

   So is its resolution in union.

   The mystics give us a vast field

    of reference and hope.

    In it we can see the more specific

    sexual/gender matter

    of separation and union

    worked out beautifully.

   The mystery is that separations

    of all sorts between:

         -  people,

         -  elements of matter 
         
         -  segments of society,

         -  ideologies,

         -  artistic expressions,

          - religions,

          - earth care,

          - scientific understandings,
         
          - any and all separations

    are transformed into loving union

    through the dynamic

    of ongoing creation working wonder.

   That wonder is the working of all to

                    ALL

            COSMIC UNITY

        and that in splendid, 

        UNIFIED DIVERSITY.

             Mystery it is, 

          marvelous mystery.

   


 A simple and simply lovable example:

    My mother used to go

    for 5:30 AM summer walks

    around our neighborhood.

    She would filch a flower

    every few days

   from some neighbor's yard

   ( never the same neighbor,

    never caught either -

    we kids used to tease

    the living heck out of Mom,

    but assured her that if arrested,

    we would indeed bail her out!!!).

    Coming home, Mom would  put

    the flower in a vase on

    the kitchen windowsill.

    She would get lost

    in the beauty of it

    during the day,

    finding God in it

           and

    being found in God

       through it.

   Creative union.

   Separation overcome,

   a divine unity right there

   in the kitchen

   on Park Street,

   Montclair, NJ



It's so freeing to see sex as

love wanting to be together,

person to person for sure,

and just as sure and widely

that there is no limit to it

in ongoing creation.

In other words, we are discovering

that what we call sex is part

of a vast dynamic of creation 

working separation to loving union.

That goes for people.

It goes for all and everything

as well, and well it sure is!



- The passion of divine love

  becomes wildly free in us.

  Many of us these days are

  warming open to the intensity of

        human/divine love

         as so powerfully,

    so wildly worded for us

  by the Sufi mystic and poet, 

                Hafiz:


 
You Left a Thousand Woman Crazy

       

" Beloved,
          Last time,
          When you walked through the city
          So beautiful and so naked,

          You left a thousand women crazy
          And impossible to live with.

          You left a thousand married men
          confused about their gender.

          Children ran from their classrooms,
          And teachers were glad you came.

          And the sun tried to break out
          Of its royal cage in the sky
          And at last, and at last,
          Lay its Ancient Love at Your feet."

          
  
  What passion.

  What a beautiful balance,

  integration there of

  masculine and feminine.

  Hafiz  knew what we are learning,

  that  gender matters are

             " ...fluid concepts that exist along a

              spectrum, rather than as

              fixed binaries determined

              by biology or genetic imprinting."

                   Incarnation: The New Evolutionary Threshold,

                   Diarmuid O'Marchu, Orbis 2017,  pages 126-127


This is a zone of greatest change

and challenge today.

We are sorting out changes

in our understandings of

          gender

and changes in how

those understandings

     are lived out.

All sorts of traditional things,

and quite new ones as well,

are sensed and experienced

  in  evolving ways.

    SEX

        GENDER

               CREATION
             
                         MYSTICISM

words meaning the beautiful tones

and touches, hues and intensities,

energy and mystery of

                  DIVINE LIFE

                  alive in us,

                  moving us all from

                  separation to union,

                  and that in a cascade

                  of combinations,

                  often varying

                  over time and expression.

                  For example, 

                  strength and  tenderness

                  are not seen and sensed as

                  the reserve of

                  one gender or another

                  Rather they are understood

                  as moving across

                 a freeing and fluid spectrum

                 not limited by one's sex/gender.

                 Other examples/instances:

                   - caring for a baby

                   - challenging injustice,

                   - being rational

                   - feeling deeply,

                   - expressing

                     our intuitions

                     and imagination,

                   - nurturing

                  - defending,

                  - penetrating/being penetrated

                    in all sorts of loving,

                    unitive  bondings;

                     - letting a child's love

                       really get into us,

                     - intervening to save

                       a drug addict
             
                     - lovers getting

                       into each other

                       body and soul,

                     - joyous abandon

                       to God's enfoldment

                       in mystical union,

                     - leading and following

                     - freely passive, freely active

                       to note so few of so many

                       that ebb and flow

                       in us over time and growth.



Another way to see and sense

the sea change in

gender
        and
             sexuality

as understood

and lived,

is to lightly touch

the sense and expression

of the masculine and feminine

as found in mythologies

and in archetypal psychology,

and to realize that

they are no longer

the exclusive purview

of one sex or gender:

     " ...the feminine principle

      has greater interest

      in the inner, the soul, the formless,

      intuition, connection, harmony,

      beauty, and relationality in general...

     The masculine principle...

      is more interested in

      the outer, the mental, exterior form, idea,

      the movement or action of things,

      the naming and differentiation of things

      one from another; solar clarity

      of individual things as it were,

      as opposed to the relationship

      of one thing to another...It often moves

      toward "agency" and action

      before relationship or intimacy."

            Richard Rohr, daily email,
    Center for Action and Contemplation,
            Sunday, April 22, 2018





      "...Even as we acknowledge

      the sacredness

      of gender and sex, we also need

      to realize  there's something deeper

      than our gender, anatomy,

      or physical passion:

      our ontological self,

      who we are

      forever in Christ.

      As Paul courageously puts it,

      "There is neither male nor female;
     
       for you all are one in Christ Jesus"
               
               (Galatians 3:28)...

      Both sexuality and gender are mysteries

      much broader than genitality

      and intercourse. It is the inner drive

      toward the other and beyond

      the small self, which some call eros."

            Richard Rohr, daily email,
 Center for Action and Contemplation,
             Monday, April 23,2018




Eros is divine love creatively uniting,

energizing separation into union.

That's the core of our spiritual lives.

Our spiritual lives are always full of

surprise and mystery.

These days we are in the midst of

surprising and mysterious evolutions

of gender as channels of eros.

It helps me to see that as I see the sunrise.

Masculinity and Femininity are like a

palate of rich colorations in the vast sky

blending in ever various beauty

as they morning move.





Our core self, our spirit,

is embodied in 

a male or female manner

for the majority of us.

Our core self, our spirit,

lives and loves

in a gendered manner.

That is culturally specific.

Our culture is split and contentious

about a lot of that just now.

Whatever our gender understanding

and experience, authentic spirituality

is the flow of Love through us.

It is essentially the same 

and specifically unique be we 

single, married/partnered,

widow/widower, celibate,

LBGTQA.

We honestly face the separation

that is all through and about us.

That's  sex, "secare."

We joyfully let the Love Who Is God

course through us bringing all into One

through our living/loving.

Not only us, but all matter and spirit

are evolving forward into the mystery of 

       Divine Diversity in Unity.

That's what Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

highlighted as the evolution 

of our universe to the

             Omega Point

  That's creation, and it is sure is 

           simply divine!!




So, two people wrapped in love 

        are wrapped in God, 

       because "God is Love." 

So,  i
n soul stillness God possesses us 

       in the Limitless, Cosmic Love 

       that is Very God. 

          Mystical rapture.  

So, our partners in being, elements and energies, 

       move and merge in the paradox and mystery of

             Cosmic and Diversified

                     Unity.





             Every blessing for 

               SOULFUL SEX 

          as we face separation

                     and

            embrace creation 

                    unto

                    ONE.



In God's Dear, Creative Unifying Love,

                John Frank


                     *****


Thanks to all who hung together here 

the six weeks of this series.

Cake it was not.

Protein - I hope so!!



If you wish a fuller consideration

of the interfacing of sex and soul,

please see;


    - Richard Rohr's daily email, free,

      Center for Action and Contemplation,

      ( Meditations@cac.org ),

       "Gender and Sexuality,"

         April 15 - 27, 2018


      - Incarnation  A New Evolutionary Threshold,

        Diamuid O'Murhu, Orbis Books, 2017,

         chapter seven, Sex and Gender


       - Sex God, Rob Bell, Zondervan, 2007

                          *****

Welcome to all joining in here for the first time.

                          *****


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                   THANK YOU!


                         *****








         













                       







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