LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Coming Out All Over Again |
by Paul Harris |
Ask a gay man about his sex life and the odds are he will tell you all about it. Ask him about his spiritual life and the odds are you will be faced with an odd look followed by incomprehensible mumbling as he looks at his feetin fact anywhere rather than look you in the face. Many gay men and lesbians feel embarrassed discussing their spiritual lives. In part it reflects their own sense of discomfort with spiritual matters which in too many peoples eyes equates with organized religion. Gays and lesbians have, with relatively few exceptions, been made to feel unwelcome in churches, chapels, synagogues and mosques. Their relationships with God, or the Divine, or the Higher Power, whatever you choose to call it, have often suffered to the extent that they feel a profound sense of discomfort when discussing the subject. San Francisco-based Christian de la Huerta, the founder of Q-Spirit, an organization committed to the spiritual development of the gay/lesbian/queer community, has written a book suggesting that gay men and lesbians need to revisit the issue. In his book, COMING OUT SPIRITUALLYthe next step, he urges people to see past the fundamentalists that exist in almost all religions and to make contact with the core beliefs of their faiths. The desire to connect with their spiritual selves is all too obviously there. Matthew Fox, in a helpful foreword, points out that America has 4% of the worlds population yet consumes 64% of the worlds illicit drugs. He asks, "Is the search for what drugs can give us not a search for transcendence? Are addictions not, as in St. Thomas Aquinass words, a quest for the infinite?" Gays and lesbians have in history played many roles in the spiritual lives of their respective societies. De la Huerta identifies ten different roles that we have occupied in different beliefs and at different times in history from being the Consciousness Scouts who are always going first and taking risks, to being the Caregivers, whether it be as teachers and healers, or any one of the multitude of service industries. One of the major stumbling blocks that gays and lesbians encounter is that of a healthy relationship with their sexuality. Far from denying our sexuality de la Huerta urges us to embrace it and to make it a part, a central part, of our spirituality. "Sexuality and spirituality are inseparable," he tells us. This of course opens up a can of worms as to what is, and what is not, a healthy sex life. He quotes from the literature of the gay-founded organization, Sexual Compulsives Anonymous, which states their goal is not to "repress our God-given sexuality, but to learn how to express it in ways that will not make unreasonable demands on our time and energy, place us in legal jeopardy, or endanger our mental, physical or spiritual health." Later he finds favor with Joseph Kramers rhetorical question: "Energetically, do you feel fragmented afterwards, or do you feel whole?" The major plank in what Christian de la Huerta has to say, represents "a call to spiritual arms." For too long, he argues we have not acknowledged our spiritual selves even to each other. He urges that gays and lesbians need to "come out" again as spiritual beings both within the gay and lesbian community and also in the wider world. He urges us to look to our gay and lesbian forbears, from Michelangelo to Harvey Milk, "as they call out encouragement to us." This inspiring book is very long overdue. The forty year old de la Huerta has pulled together the different strands of belief and experience from different religions and provided us with a coherent whole. In his final chapter he tells us "The best way to combat or counteract the effect of those who would do away with us or throw us back in the closet, lock the door, and throw away the key, is for each one of us to shine, to strive for nothing less than excellence, to go for it, holding nothing back. Only we can turn the key to our own closets and let ourselves out. No one can do it for us, but neither can they keep us there against our will. The human spirit is irrepressible, and obviously, so is the lavender spirit." Amen! COMING OUT SPIRITUALLYthe next step by Christian de la Huerta published by Tarcher/Putnam at $14.95 ISBN 0-87477-966-9. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 9, No. 7, June 18, 1999 |