Thursday, October 26, 2017

What is Sacred Intimacy?

While facilitating a small private retreat this last weekend, I offered participants the option of individual Sacred Intimacy sessions during the unstructured periods that punctuated the schedule. It was a rare experience of using the term to a group without immediately needing  to explain myself.

In some circles I move in, the term “Sacred Intimacy” has currency.  If you’re reading this, you may have heard it at least in passing. But even most gbq men don’t have a clear idea what it means. Declaring a calling as Sacred Intimate involves giving an endless series of elevator speeches and hoping your explanation doesn’t sound like a transmission from Mars.
So here goes. Just what is “Sacred Intimacy” anyway? For me, it’s a heart-centered connection that uses the erotic energy between a practitioner and his visitor for the good of the latter.
You’re likely to get a slightly different answer from every Sacred Intimate you ask. There’s no standard training that we all go through--and certainly no regulated standard that we conform to. So if you’re drawn to the possibility of working with an S.I., it’s a really good idea for you to have a clear sense of what you want and need from the interaction, so you have a clear idea going forward whether the two of you are in sync.
Below, I unpack what I view as essential to Sacred Intimacy as I practice it with men who come to me. You may agree or disagree.  I hope that sharing my understanding of what my visitor and I are doing together may help you clarify for yourself what you hope to receive when you begin working with an S.I.
1. “Sacred”
What passes between me and my visitor is holy.
I would call it the presence of God. You as visitor may not. But what I count on you sharing with me is an awareness of a living and enlivening energy, bigger than us and enfolding us. I do what I can to encourage you to pay attention to this sacred dimension of what passes between us. Whatever unfolds in the session, the presence of this transpersonal love makes our connection possible and worthwhile. It’s not for me to influence how you understand this energy or the language you’d use to describe it.
Staying grounded in this energy enables me to open my heart to you and to desire your healing, integration, and growth.  My ability to function as an S.I. depends on the integrity of my own spiritual practice. Meditation, prayer, and study are the foundation stones for this work. 

2. “Intimacy”
Our heart-to -heart connection, in service to you as visitor, forms the essential core of the session. You’ve come to me willing to spend an irreplaceable hour of your life with me, and for that time, being with you for an irreplaceable hour of mine should be the only thing in the world that matters to me. Whatever else happens, that’s the most important gift I can offer.
Above all, I strive to listen with my heart, and to trust my intuition of how to help you clarify your intention for the session and move forward. I encourage you to drop down into the deep wisdom already present within you. Words are important, but they can quickly become a distraction from what we can best access in the relatively brief time we have together. So we move as soon as we can into more embodied interaction. This might be simple, gentle touch, or quiet,  full-bodied holding.
More erotically engaged touch is always possible, and there’s good reason to move in that direction if it feels right to both of us. The poet and queer utopian visionary James Broughton said, “the penis is the exposed tip of the heart, the wand of the soul.” There are few means more powerful than erotic play to help you drop swiftly down into the fullness of who you are, providing our hearts are open.  You may well arrive with a focus to the session that already explicitly involves your erotic life.
The intimacy of the session is precious, and protected by the boundaries around it. Sometimes the urge is strong to want the intensity and openness between us to continue beyond the end of the session, but it’s essential to stay mindful that as visitor you need  to carry away within yourself whatever has happened.  As S.I., I need to be released from the energy of the session in order to move on with my own life--as well as in order to be as fully available as I can be to other men who come to me. The session is over when it’s over, and what’s happened in the session stays in the session, for the good of us both.
This is no way compromises the reality of what you’ve experienced, of what I feel for you, or of the connection we’ve shared. Instead, it ensures that you take it away with you, instead of believing that you’ve lost it and need somehow to get it back after our session ends.
I started by observing that if you talk to several Sacred Intimates about what they do, you’ll probably get several significantly different answers. You’ll decide for yourself who feels like the best fit with your own intentions and needs. When you find a good fit, I wish you wholeness, growth, adventure, surprise, expansion, and deep joy.
 
 

Monday, October 9, 2017

A Queer Creed

Here is Rev. Brenda Bos's queer rewriting of the Christian Apostles' Creed. She is pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in San Clemente, California and a member of Proclaim, an organization for out LBTQ+ clergy and other church professionals in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Proclaim is a community within the queer-inclusive Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries. It's reposted here from interMISSION, ELM's weekly e-newsletter.

I believe in God the Creator,
who designed all good things,
including people of all gender expressions and sexual orientations.
 
I believe in Jesus Christ,
God's perfect Child,
who came to earth to live among us.
Jesus was born into a non-conventional family who adored Him even when they did not understand Him.
He confounded authorities and comforted the oppressed.
Because He represented the marginalized, He was crucified, His body mocked by others, died and was buried.
He knew personal Hell.
On the third day God celebrated the wonder of the human body and raised Jesus from the dead.
Jesus ascended into the realm of beauty, continually moving among us, blessing and sustaining us.
 
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
all music, wonder and strength.
I am a member of the Body of Christ.
I cherish the communion of the saints,
live because of the forgiveness of sin,
emulate the resurrection of the Body
and already experience life everlasting. Amen