A Letter to Alex (Part 1)

For around a month now I’ve been chatting on ICQ to Alex, a 16 year old who is gay. Like a lot of other people who are gay or lesbian, he has huge difficulty in reconciling his faith with his sexuality. It’s not his fault, surely – that lays squarely on the joint shoulders of church and society. Alex deperately wants to believe he is a good person and also wants to be part of the church. But there’s that part of him, that is part of me and many others, too, that also finds it hard to believe we are good people and that God could love us – whether we are homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual. Why are we so quick to believe we are evil and that God rejects us?

So I share with you an email I sent Alex earlier today. I hope it makes sense to you, just as I hope it makes sense to Alex.

“Alex, I’ve been trying to think of a way in which I can explain your sexuality. You are a beautiful creation of God, and it hurts me to think that you would think God would turn his back on you for being gay – something which you had no say about, and a gift which God gave you anyway, so he must have known what he was doing! I know how you feel about yourself is coloured by your upbringing in the church. And I love the church, Alex; I love the church as much as anyone, but the church, like all human communities, does get things wrong from time to time. The church once taught that the earth was flat, that the sun revolved around the earth, that slavery was a good thing, that only Catholics would be welcomed into heaven. We know, now, of course, that all these things were wrong. One day, the church will know it was wrong about homosexuality, too, Alex. That will be a great day!!!! But in the meantime I hope the following helps.”

“Think about your spirituality and your sexuality as being like two partners in a dance. And dance is a very appropriate activity for all people. The prophet Miriam led women in a dance celebrating God’s deliverance of her people from Pharaoh’s armies. King David danced almost naked in the religious procession bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. We forget that dance was an important part of early religious worship. Worship was an invitation to dance, in celebration and in service. Worship was a bodily and sensual experience, and everything done by the body had spiritual implications.”

“Sexuality and spirituality are not opposing forces, as we are frequently led to believe. Instead, they both draw people into relationships. Sexuality draws us into physical relationships, touching, hugging, holding, caressing, and, most intimately as lovers, kissing and intercourse. Spirituality draws us into relationships that include our bodies and take us out of our bodies. These relationships are found in worship, service, commitment, political action, and, most intimately, prayer and meditation. Both our spiritual and our sexual powers are sacred and holy. They can, of course, be sinned against, too, when we hurt others in various forms of abuse, violence and hate. The partnerships between our spiritual and sexual beings is what we call our soul. Our soul is made of our sexual and spiritual powers.”

“Try to think of these two powers as partners in a dance. Initially both are afraid to dance, perhaps as you have been at a high school dance. Our spirituality is afraid to dance because it remembers what it has been told about rules and beliefs and black and white answers. Our sexuality is afraid to dance because it has been forced to hide in a closet, ashamed of itself. But sometimes our sexuality begins to emerge, and our spirituality freezes in fear and almost runs out of the room. But then it notices other souls dancing, gracefully, and it realises that they are missing each other. Our spirituality wonders if the lack of grace had something to do with rejecting the stranger on the other side of the room, our sexuality.”

“Rather shyly, one invites the other to dance. At first, they can’t look each other in the face – they are embarrassed and timid. They’re hopeless dancers. Then they quickly glance at each other, sometimes angry, sometimes seductive. Each takes turn to lead the dance, to control the dance, while the other feels crowded and backs away. Finally, though, the found times when the dance leads them, and for some brief moments they become perfect dancers, full of grace, true to each other. They dance together as our souls.”