Sensual Spirituality

A sermon prepared by Rev. Tim Kutzmark
Sunday, February 11, 2007 • Unitarian Universalist Church of Reading

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Late in the night, when the house had settled deeply into its foundation; late in the night when the only light filtering through the curtains came from the winter moon hanging heavy in the 2 AM sky; late in the night, when personal demons came chewing through the veil of uncertain sleep; late in the night, my father would sit in the downstairs family room and stare into the television set.

It was an odd picture.  He would sit, lost in his thoughts, watching old John Wayne westerns on a 12 inch black and white TV, with the volume turned completely off.  Flat black and white images would silently move across the screen, little figures with no colors, no vibrancy.  Tiny mouths would move soundlessly, mouthing words, questions and curses no ears would hear.  It was a tiny little world—without color, without sound, without depth.  It was a world to be stared at, blankly, late, late in the night.

I often think of that image when I look at my life, and I see how I have chosen to live it.  I often think of that image when I look at our world and I see how we have chosen to live within it.

Meister Eckhart, the German theologian and mystic of the early 14th Century once asked: “How long will grown women and men in this world keep drawing in their coloring books an image of life that makes them sad?”

And so this morning, I invite each of us to consider a few questions:
—How do we choose to experience life?
—Have we shrunken down our life to a few dull little moving black and white images? 
—Are we allowing the colors and the sounds and the sensations of life to permeate us? 
—Have we lost touch with the wonder of what is around us and within us?
—Do we feel, do we really feel the deep power of Being in all?

Feeling is the operative word here.  I am talking about sensation, not intellectualization.  I am not talking about concepts or explanations of what gives life meaning and purpose.  I am talking about the deeply felt experience of being alive!

What is it that touches us, deeply?  What is it that awakens a passion within us?  What is it that allows our spirit to let go and fly high?  What are the things that allow us to taste life, hear life, see life, smell life, touch life, and be connected to our life, no matter how wonderful or how screwed up it might be at this moment? 

And what is it that keeps us from that experience?

Oriah Mountain Dreamer, the poet and spiritual teacher writes:

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare
to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

 . . . I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own: if you can dance with the wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

I want to know if you can see the beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from its presence . . .

It doesn't interest me who you are,
or how you came to be here,
I want to know if you will stand in
the center of the fire with me and not
shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or
with whom you have studied. I want to know
what sustains you from the inside when
all else falls away . . .

I want to know if you can live with failure,
yours and mine, and still stand on the edge
of the lake and shout to the silver
of the full moon, "Yes!"

This is being alive.  This is sensual spirituality. This is not spirituality that hides in categories created by our mind.  This is not religiosity that hides in books, or prayers, or creeds, or definitions.  It does not hide in debates or defenses.  It encompasses every aspect of our being.

Do you know that in India, they don’t have separate words for mind and heart?  They have just one word—man—which combines them both.  They don’t have a separation between that which we think and that which we feel.  They only experience that which we are. Likewise, according to scholar Neil Douglas-Klotz, the language spoken by Jesus—Aramaic—did not have separate words to divide mind, body, spirit, and soul from each other.  It was all together one word and one experience of being “enfleshed!”  It was an assertion of the life force within us all.

Audre Lorde, the late beloved African American, lesbian, feminist, poet, scholar, mother of two children, activist, professor, and cancer survivor gives this assertive “enfleshed” spirituality a name.  She calls it “the erotic.”  In doing so, she invites us to take the word “erotic” beyond its usual sexual connotations and connect it back to its deepest spiritual meaning.  Audre Lorde writes, “We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings . . . We have come to distrust that power which rises from our deepest and non-rational knowledge . . . There are many kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise.  The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply . . . spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling . . . The word erotic comes from the Greek word eros, the personification of love in all its aspects—born of Chaos, and personifying creative power and harmony.  When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the lifeforce . . . of . . . creative energy empowered.” (From the article “Uses of the Erotic” by Audre Lorde)

The “erotic” is not surface sensuality. It is our deepest feelings, our deepest longings, our deepest passions, of which sexuality is but one small part.  The erotic is the surging, pulsing vitality of our life, an eruption of Spirit from within every cell of our being. It is the yes waiting within ourselves. It is turning off the little 12 inch soundless black and white television, and turning inside to be informed by richer colors and sounds. In this way, the erotic becomes a form of knowledge.  We discover our “erotic knowledge.”

In her article entitled “Uses of the Erotic,” Audre Lorde shares a wonderful image:

“During World War II, we bought sealed plastic packets of white, uncolored margarine, with a tiny intense pellet of yellow coloring perched like a topaz just inside the clear skin of the bag.  We would leave the margarine out for a while to soften, and then we would pinch the little pellet to break it inside the bag, releasing the rich yellowness into the soft pale mass of margarine.  Then taking it carefully between our fingers, we would knead it gently back and forth, over and over, until the color had spread throughout the whole pound bag of margarine, thoroughly coloring it.  I find the erotic such a kernel within myself.  When released from its intense and constrained pellet, it flows through and colors my life with a kind of energy that heightens and sensitizes and strengthens all my experience.”

But if the erotic allows us to touch our deepest knowing, it will, if it is true eroticism, ultimately lead us beyond our own self.  For the erotic is, in the end, about connection.  The erotic leads us first into connection with ourselves, but then into connection with others, into community with others.  The erotic leads us to feel the yearnings of the world around us.

Audre Lorde writes: “When we begin to live from within outward, in touch with the power of the erotic within ourselves, and allowing that power to inform and illuminate our actions upon the world around us, then we begin to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense.  For as we begin to recognize our deepest feelings, we begin to give up . . .  being satisfied with suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness that so often seems like their only alternative in our society . . . In touch with the erotic, [we] become less willing to accept powerlessness . . . resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial.”

As we begin to refuse to accept those states within us, we begin to refuse to accept those states around us.  And we begin to refuse to accept those individuals and groups that perpetuate powerlessness, resignation, despair, depression and denial.  In this way, sensual spirituality, erotic religion, moves us squarely into the arena of social justice and, yes, even politics.

Audre Lorde writes: “The dichotomy between the spiritual and the political, [between spiritual and social justice] is . . . false, resulting from an incomplete attention to our erotic knowledge.  For the bridge that connects [the spiritual and the political] is formed by [sharing] the erotic—the sensual—those physical, emotional, and psychic expressions of what is deepest and strongest and richest within each of us. [The bridge connecting the spiritual and the political is formed by our desire to share eros] . . . love, in its deepest meanings.”

This bridge is what we invoke each week in our chalice lighting words as we say: “In the light of truth and the warmth of community, we gather this day. May the flame we now kindle be to us a symbol of the holiness we seek.”

The holiness we seek is the awakening of eros, of love, within us and around us.   Love—living out the value of everyone and everything—is our message and our mission and our purpose in gathering together.  Eros, love, is the sacred responsibility that binds us together.  We are saying that we must live out this empowerment of love personally as well as communally.  We are saying that together we must reach out beyond our safe sanctuary walls to challenge any individual, or group, or elected official that does not love—that does not live out the value of everyone and every living creature on this earth.  We are saying that we must challenge anyone or any group or any law that attempts to deny, diminish, or discriminate against any individual or group.  We are saying that the future of holiness, the future of wholeness, the future of love and justice in the world begins here and now with us.

We are saying that we are part of a highly sensual religion.  We are saying that we are part of a wholly erotic religion.  For Unitarian Universalism does not hide in books, or prayers, or hymns, or creeds, or definitions. Unitarian Universalism does not hide in debates or defenses. Unitarian Universalism does not hide in categories created by the mind. Unitarian Universalism is not a religion that builds up walls to separate one from another.  No.  We are attempting to feel the wholeness inherent in all.  We are attempting to feel the interconnectedness of all.  We are attempting to feel the deep power of Being in all.  Unitarian Universalism is attempting to do nothing less than reconstitute our world.  We are attempting to rebuild our world, one life at a time, one person at a time, one moment at a time, one church at a time, one community at a time, one city at a time, one country at a time—so that we will be one world at some time.

May we open ourselves to the saving grace of this, our chosen faith.  May we open ourselves to the sensuality of this, our chosen faith.  May we open ourselves to the challenge of this, our chosen faith.

And may we open our fists clenched in wanting
and see what we already hold in our hands.
May we remember who we are . . .
And let a deeper knowing
color the shape of our humanness.

 May it be so.  Blessed Be.  Amen

©Copyright 2007 Rev. Timothy A. Kutzmark
All rights reserved.