The Spirituality of Sex

For almost 2000 years, people in the West have been taught that sex and spirituality don't mix, that sex is a stumbling block, an obstacle we must overcome if we want to realize our full spiritual potential. For generations, we've been encouraged to deny the importance of the body and sexuality, in the name of religious purity and piety. We've been made to feel guilty about our sexual needs and desires. As a result, many have turned to secular culture to validate their deep, intuitive sense that the body and sex are good, only to be met with superficial definitions of beauty, pressures to conform to "ideal" body types, sexual obsessions, and shallow relationships. In The Spirituality of Sex, Michael Schwartzentruber, Lois Huey-Heck, Mary Millerd, and Charlotte Jackson embrace a more holistic possibility. With evocative prose and beautiful images, they add their voices to an ever-growing chorus inviting people to recognize sex and sexuality as inherently sacred - as a divine way of being, as a potential window and way to know God. They show the role sexuality and the erotic has played in religion and spirituality from the dawn of human history, to ancient Greece and Rome, to the evolution of the world's great religions. Following this golden thread, they reveal the presence and power of the erotic in the traditions of the West - in the Kabbalah in Judaism, in the poetry of the Sufi mystics in Islam, and even in the writings of the Christian mystics of the Middle Ages - as well as in the traditions of the Orient. They realize, too, that spirituality encompasses more than just religious practices and beliefs. Our sense of personal identity; our need for love and intimacy and meaningful relationships; our experience of touch, sight, taste, smell, and sound; our ability to perceive and appreciate beauty; our unbidden experiences of the divine - all of these things are part of human spirituality and all of them are inextricably interwoven with our sexuality. In other words, they invite readers to celebrate sex and sexuality as an innate part of our humanity and as a sacred gift that has always been ours to claim and enjoy.