Sometimes I Wonder . . .

.

. . . if I know myself
as well as I know you.

But it’s you I know
and no one else will do.
Yes, it’s you I know,
with all you put me through.
When I was drifting down,
you pulled me up again.
And it’s you I know,
you’ll love me to the end.

“You I Know”
Jenny Morris

I often find myself listening to the lyrics of the classic Australian pop song, “You I Know,” and hearing not only the words of a love song between two people, but also a spiritual ode – a psalm, if you like – directed by any one of us to our deep sacred core, the “partner of [our] most intimate soliloquies,” in the words of Viktor Frankl.

I guess for me such a comparison isn’t that surprising. After all, gay men by nature possess, I believe, a unique aptitude for ecstatic approaches to spirituality. Thus I find it both natural and helpful to image God as a lover – a lover who gently calls me to feel his loving touch and embrace. In the language of the mystics, such an ecstatic image serves as the “Beloved of my soul” – and a potential mirror image of God, the Divine Lover.




Shocked? Well, get over it.

Anyway, it’s really not such an outlandish idea – even for Catholics (actually, especially for Catholics!). I mean, if you’re going to dismiss what I’m suggesting, then you’d better be willing to also dismiss any number of saints and their highly erotic experiences of the sacred.

Erotic experiences of God?! (Okay, if you’re still shocked, maybe this blog isn’t for you.) But seriously, I appreciate the perspective of Jean Houston, who points out that: “Eros has a mission with the soul. Without Eros, the soul cannot grow; the psyche remains infantile. Eros gives psyche its yearning, its impetus, its desire for the fullness of life.”

In her book, The Search for the Beloved, Houston also writes:

The lure of Eros may not necessarily be sexual, but it is often a lure of “muchness,” a lure into deep gestating patterns of reality where you see the great forms of things, the Patterns that Connect. This lure calls you to the places of re-creation in the soul where you are seeded, spiced, excited, stimulated, evoked into becoming. You become much, much more than you were, and you create much, much more than you could have before.

Eros connects the personal to something beyond, and brings the beyond into personal experience. . . . Without Eros in some form, creativity suffocates; the soul does not grow. . . . Creativity is grounded in the longing for the beloved, the extended archetype of the self within the soul.

It would seem that for some of the saints, the “lure of Eros” was indeed sexual. And in the case of St. John of the Cross, homosexual. Take for instance John’s beautiful poem, “On a Dark Night.” In setting this poem to music in 1994, singer/songwriter Loreena McKennitt observed that it is “an exquisite, richly metaphoric love poem between [John] and his god. It could pass as a love poem between any two at any time. . . . His approach seems more akin to early Islamic or Judaic works in its more direct route to communication to his god.”

Of course as a gay man, the thing that appeals to me most about John’s poem is that it depicts his lover as another man.

On a dark night,
Kindled in love with yearnings
– oh, happy chance! –
I went forth without being observed,

My house being now at rest.
In darkness and secure,
By the secret ladder, disguised
– oh, happy chance! –
In darkness and in concealment,
My house being now at rest.

In the happy night,
In secret, when none saw me,
Nor I beheld aught,
Without light or guide,
save that which burned in my heart.

This light guided me
More surely than the light of noonday
To the place where he
(well I knew who!) was awaiting me
– A place where none appeared.

Oh, night that guided me,
Oh, night more lovely than the dawn,
Oh, night that joined
Beloved with lover,
Lover transformed in the Beloved!

Upon my flowery breast,
Kept wholly for himself alone,
There he stayed sleeping,
and I caressed him,
And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.

The breeze blew from the turret
As I parted his locks;
With his gentle hand
He caressed my neck
And caused all my senses to be suspended.

I remained, lost in oblivion;
My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself,
Leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

Writes Toby Johnson of John’s beautiful “On a Dark Night”:

The allegorical explanation is that this is about the stage of depression and aridity in the religious life, the so-called “dark night of the soul.” The secret ladder is living faith; the disguise, the three theological virtues, faith, hope and charity. But that is not what’s in the poem! There is nothing about depression or spiritual suffering, much less the theological virtues. It’s about sexual passion. Perhaps the lover and beloved represent the soul and Christ, but that is still a homoerotic image.

Indeed.

Of course, in any discussion of the erotic in one’s spiritual life I think it’s important to remember that the ultimate goal is union with the Divine. I may post an image of a sexy guy as representing my “Beloved,” but I know full well that if I stay focused solely on his physical appeal, there is little spirituality involved. This image of the Beloved is a focal point, an icon, if you will; and like all icons its purpose is to attract and draw one in, while at the same time direct and encourage one ever deeper into the mystery that is Divine Love. Staying forever at the surface level does not serve one well spiritually; it doesn’t facilitate that wondrous transformation of which St. John of the Cross, along with other mystics across time and cultures, speak.

I guess it’s like one’s relationship with one’s earthly beloved - one’s husband or wife or partner. For the record, I’m not in a relationship. But if I was, I would like to think that as the years go by and both my beloved and I age, our love will have deepened to the point where we would not be seeking to satisfy our physical needs with others whose looks have yet to fade. (I’m thinking that forging that deeper, spiritual dimension to a relationship must be hard work, judging from the number of people – gay and straight – who either abandon their long time partner or opt for an “open relationship.”)

In his essay, “Gay Love as Spiritual Path,” William Schindler offers similar thoughts:

At the physical level we experience the erotic through the instinctual drives that are rooted in our biological being, hunger, sexual desire, physical comfort, and through sense perception. At the subtle level the erotic gets expressed as thought, feeling, and imagination. At a subtler spiritual level the erotic connects us with the divine being in an intimate relationship. At the deepest spiritual level all forms, identities, and aspirations merge into one Being. The ecstatic aspirant does not automatically give up the lower expressions to try to experience the higher, as ascetics do, but strives to apprehend the divine erotic presence in every expression. As his experience of the divine deepens, however, the physical expressions drop away of themselves, finding their fulfillment in a more comprehensive experience. The sexual desire for a particular body type, for example, gets replaced by a generalized love for all beings that is experienced as more pleasurable, more deeply satisfying than any less-comprehensive experience. The ecstatic aspirant literally follows his bliss, never resting satisfied until he reaches the Source of bliss within and without.

Hmm . . . This all gives an added depth to Jenny Morris’ lyrics, don’t you think?

Some men have muscles,
they are muscle bound
and on display.

. . . But it’s you I know
and no one else will do.
Yes, it’s you I know,
with all you put me through.
When I was drifting down,
you pulled me up again.
And it’s you I know,
you’ll love me to the end.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Officially Homophobic, Intensely Homoerotic
• The Inherent Sensuality of Roman Catholicism
• The Archangel Michael as Gay Icon
• Gay People and the Spiritual Life
• The Gifts of Homosexuality
• The Holy Pleasure of Intimacy
• The Sexuality of Jesus
• St. Francis of Assisi and Human Sexuality
• Joan Timmerman and the “Wisdom of the Body”
• Getting It Right
• The Onward Call

For more of Jenny Morris at The Wild Reed, see:
• Saved Me
• Crackerjack Man

Previous artists featured on “Music Night” at the Wild Reed: Cass Elliot, The Church, Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield, Wall of Voodoo, Stephen “Tin Tin” Duffy, Pink Floyd, Kate Ceberano, Judith Durham, Wendy Matthews, Buffy Sainte-Marie, 1927, Mavis Staples, Maxwell, Joan Baez, Tee Set, Darren Hayes, Wet, Wet, Wet, Engelbert Humperdinck, The Cruel Sea, Shirley Bassey, Loretta Lynn & Jack White, Foo Fighters, Jenny Morris, Kate Bush, Rufus Wainwright, and Dusty Springfield.