Spirituality & Prayer Booklist

BOISVERT: Out on Holy Ground

GLASER: Coming Out to God

GLASER: Coming out as Sacrament

GLASER: Come Home

HELMINIAK: Sex and the Sacred

O'BRIEN: Praying From the Margins

MATTMAN, Urs: Coming In

McNEILL: Sex as God Intended

BOISVERT: Out on Holy Ground

Boisvert, Donald L.

Out on Holy Ground

Meditations on Gay Men's Spirituality

(Pilgrim Press, 2001)

Catholic, Spirituality, Gay Male.

From Google Books:

"Is gay spirituality a genuine type of religious expression, or is it simply another example of identity politics? Since the onset of the AIDS epidemic that has disproportionately struck their community, gay men have published a wide range of materials, from autobiographies to theologies, that ask, What is gay spirituality as a religious expression in North America? The first book to weave together these various strands into an organized response, "Out On Holy Ground" culls information from diverse sources both within and outside religious institutions. Gay scholar Donald Boisvert presents his findings topically as theology, myths and symbols, rituals, and spiritual culture to paint a compelling portrait of gay spirituality as a serious cultural expression. "Out On Holy Ground" takes the conversation about gay spirituality to the next level so we can understand spirituality as a pivotal factor in the development of gay identity."

GLASER: Coming Out to God

Glaser, Chris

Coming Out to God

Prayers for Lesbians and Gay Men

168 Pages

Catholic, Spirituality, Prayer, Lesbian & Gay

This is a collection of prayers written from an explicitly gay perspective. I particularly liked Glaser's introduction, in which he argues that contrary to popular practice, sensuality and sensousness is deeply embedded in ancient traditions of worship:

"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….. The body was not originally confined in worship to sitting, standing and kneeling, as in most churches today. Worship was an invitation to dance, in celebration and in service. Worship was a bodily and sensual experience."

"Sexuality and spirituality are not opposing g forces, as is frequently supposed today. Instead, both draw people into relationship. Sexuality draws us into physical relationships: touching, hugging…… kissing and intercourse. Spirituality draws us into relationships that both incl ude and transcend bodies because it includes and transcends that which is visible……Both our sexual and spiritual powers are holy, and therefore both my be profaned. At their holiest, these powers lead to love in all its many expressions. At their most profane, they may lead to apathy or hate. The integrity of both sexual and spiritual powers is called the soul.

Christianity sanctifies both body…and spirit …clearly by its single most revolutionary theological assertion: God’s “Word became flesh” (John 1:14)

He then continues the dancing theme but creating an image of Sensuality and Spirituality as two strangers at a dance, wary of each other, trying to assert superiority before finally finding a true partnership in dance. In this partnership, Glaser argues, lies integrity.

"For most of us, our spirituality dances awkwardly with our sexuality, if at all. Because we are taught that sexuality and spirituality are opposing forces, we either allow our spirituality to intimidate or dominate our sexuality, or we ignore our spirituality to enjoy our sexuality, or we do a little bit of both. "

"Yet in Christian tradition there have been moments of insight that serve as correction to the tendency to separate sexuality and spirituality. In the late fourteenth century, Julian of Norwich wrote, “Our sensuality is grounded in Nature, in compassion, and in Grace…in our sensuality, God is… God is the means whereby our Substance and our Sensuality are kept together so as never to be apart”.

He concludes:

"So let us enjoy our spiritual as well as our sexual lovemaking and the intimacy and integrity they may afford us, for, therby, we aqre reminded hat we belong in God's world: created in God's image, called for community, and citizens of a spiritual commonwealth."

Strongly Recommended

From Google books:

"In this collection of sixty prayers . . . Chris Glaser opens new vistas to us in prayer, discipleship, and the relationship between spirituality and sexuality. . . . This book is a classic in devotional literature which one will return to again and again".--Merrill M. Follansbee, co-founder of the Sacramento chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays."

HAGERTY, BB: Fingerprints of God

The Search for the Science of Spirtuality

From the award-winning NPR religion correspondent comes a fascinating investigation of how science is seeking to answer the question that has puzzled humanity for generations: Can science explain God?

Is spiritual experience real or a delusion? Are there realities that we can experience but not easily measure? Does your consciousness depend entirely on your brain, or does it extend beyond? In Fingerprints of God, award-winning journalist Barbara Bradley Hagerty delves into the discoveries science is making about how faith and spirituality affect us physically and emotionally as it attempts to understand whether the ineffable place beyond this world can be rationally even scientificallyexplained.

Hagerty interviews some of the worlds top scientists to describe what their groundbreaking research reveals about our human spiritual experience. From analyses of the brain functions of Buddhist monks and Carmelite nuns, to the possibilities of healing the sick through directed prayer, to what near-death experiences illuminate about the afterlife, Hagerty reaches beyond what we think we know to understand what happens to us when we believe in a higher power.

Paralleling the discoveries of science is Hagertys own account of her spiritual evolution. Raised a Christian Scientist, she was a scrupulous adherent until a small moment as an adult triggered a revaluation of her beliefs, which in turn led her to a new way of thinking about God and faith.

An insightful examination of what science is learning about how and why we believe, Fingerprints of God is also a moving story of one persons search for a communion with a higher power and what she discovered on that journey.

Review by Daniel Burke, National Catholic Reporter

Harvey, A: Essential Gay Mystics

Pilgrim Press, 2001

290 pages

Lesbian and Gay Spirituality

A collection of mystical writings from Sappho to Whitman, Virgil to Audre Lorde, this book celebrates the poetry and songs of those who love others of the same sex, covering the period of time from early Greek writers to the twentieth century.

The Essential Gay Mystics is a collection of readings filled with great emotion, with over sixty selecions, helpful for individuals planning a union/commitment ceremony or as a gift for a special friend or yourself.

JOHNSON, T: Gay Spirituality

The Role of Gay Identity in Transformiung Human Consciousness

KELLY: Seduced by Grace

MATTMAN, Urs: Coming In

Gays & Lesbians Reclaiming the Spiritual Journey

Wild Goose Publications, The Iona Community, 2006 (English edition, translated from the German by Urs Mattman)

230 pages. (Includes extensive bibliographical notes and resource listings)

Christian / Inter-faith, Spirituality, gay & lesbiann

McNEILL: Freedom Glorious Freedom

McNeill, John

Freedom, Glorious Freedom

SpiritualJourney to the Fullness of Life for Gays, Lesbians and Everyone Else

(Beacon Press, 1995)

McNEILL: Sex as God Intended

McNeill,John

Lethe Press, 2008
(Scripture, Theology,

Sexuality)

This valuable book restates and summarises the sould arguments presented in McNeills'earlier publications, as well as presenting new material. By looking a fresh at Scripture and theology, he shows clearly how sexuality is not something to hidden, taken out only in the confessional but is a fundamental part of out human essence and should be celebrated and enjoyed as a gift from God.

The book also includes a "festschrift" , a collection of essays by friends and collaborators of McaNeill over many years, recording and celebrating the huge contribution he has made to gay & lesbian theology & mental health over many years as a theologian, psychtherapist and writer.

This is truly a book to treasure and reread.

Strongly recommended by QTC