Devotions based on David Benner’s book, Soulful Spirituality
Our body plays a vital role in our life-enhancing spirituality. Until we feel at home in our bodies, we can never truly be home any where. Our body, the senses, and the emotions, all have a crucial role to play in spirituality. Sexuality is connected to spirituality because it involves our deepest sources of vitality, and can help in the integration of our personhood. Sex is spiritual as it can lead us out of self-centered isolation toward togetherness and community. Through the sharing and mutuality, it can open us up to our depths and connect us to all that transcends our individual self. “Human sexual longing is the expression of spirit, not just the body. It is our reaching out to touch and to be held by the Infinite. … We are all yearning to surrender body, soul, and spirit not just to an other but to the Wholly Other.” No person can fill the yearning that is part of our sexuality. Part of the pain of love is that no person can complete our desire for love. There is always a remainder because love goes beyond human flesh and puts us in touch with the ultimate object of desire. Sexuality is more than specific behaviors for it is a sacred energy flowing through our bodies that calls us out of isolation and loneliness into communion. Song of Solomon is full of sexual language but points us beyond human intimacy to ultimate fulfillment that we have in union with God. Let us live with passion and find fulfillment in Him.
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