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FINDING
YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned
from Joseph Campbell: The
Myth
of the
Great Secret
III
FINDING
GOD IN THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD: The Journey Expanded
GAY
SPIRITUALITY:
The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness
GAY PERSPECTIVE:
Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the
Universe
SECRET MATTER, a sci-fi novel with
wonderful "aliens" with an
Afterword by Mark Jordan
GETTING
LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE:
A
Fantastical Gay Romance set in two different time periods
THE FOURTH QUILL, a
novel about attitudinal healing and the problem of evil
TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life with
the
Navajo, a collaboration with Walter L. Williams
CHARMED
LIVES: Spinning Straw into
Gold: GaySpirit in Storytelling, a collaboration with
Steve Berman and some 30 other writers
THE MYTH OF THE GREAT
SECRET:
An
Appreciation of Joseph Campbell
IN SEARCH OF GOD IN THE
SEXUAL UNDERWORLD: A Mystical Journey
Unpublished manuscripts
About ordering
Books on
Gay Spirituality:
White
Crane Gay Spirituality Series
Articles
and Excerpts:
Review of
Samuel
Avery's The
Dimensional Structure of Consciousness
Funny
Coincidence: "Aliens Settle in San Francisco"
About Liberty Books, the
Lesbian/Gay Bookstore for Austin, 1986-1996 with a list of topics in
Austin LGBT History
The Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate
A
Bifurcation of Gay Spirituality
Why gay people should NOT Marry
The Scriptural Basis for
Same Sex Marriage
Toby and Kip Get Married
Wedding Cake Liberation
Gay Marriage in Texas
What's ironic
Shame on the American People
The "highest form of love"
Gay
Consciousness
Why homosexuality is a sin
The cause of homosexuality
The
origins of homophobia
Advice to
Future Gay
Historians
Q&A
about Jungian ideas in gay consciousness
What
is homosexuality?
What
is Gay Spirituality?
My three
messages
What is Gay
Perspective?
What
Jesus said about Gay
Rights
Myths, Salvation and the Great
Secret with Rich Grzesiak
Queering
religion
Common
Experiences Unique to Gay
Men
Is there a "uniquely gay
perspective"?
The
purpose of homosexuality
Interview on the Nature of
Homosexuality
What the Bible Says about
Homosexuality
Mesosexual
Ideal for Straight Men
Varieties
of Gay Spirituality
Waves
of Gay Liberation Activity
The Gay Succession
Wouldn’t You Like to Be Uranian?
The Reincarnation of
Edward Carpenter
Queer
men, myths and Reincarnation
Was I (or you) at
Stonewall?
Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality
as Artistic Medium
Easton Mountain Retreat Center
Andrew Harvey &
Spiritual Activism
The Mysticism of
Andrew Harvey
The
upsidedown book on MSNBC
Enlightenment
"It's
Always About You"
The myth of the Bodhisattva
Avalokitesvara
Joseph
Campbell's description of
Avalokiteshvara
The Nature of
Suffering and The Four Quills
You're
Not A Wave
Joseph Campbell Talks
about Aging
Toby's Experience of
Zen
What is Enlightenment?
What is reincarnation?
What happens at Death?
How many lifetimes in an
ego?
Emptiness & Religious Ideas
Experiencing experiencing experiencing
Going into the Light
Meditations for a Funeral
Meditation Practice
The way to get to heaven
Buddha's father was right
What Anatman means
Advice to Travelers to India
& Nepal
The Danda Nata
& goddess Kalika
A Funny Story:
The Rug Salesmen of Istanbul
Nate Berkus is a bodhisattva
John Boswell was Immanuel Kant
Cutting
edge realization
The Myth of the
Wanderer
Change: Source of
Suffering & of Bliss
World Navel
What the Vows Really
Mean
Manifesting
from the Subtle Realms
The Three-layer
Cake
& the Multiverse
The
est Training and Personal Intention
Effective
Dreaming in Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven
Drawing a Long Straw:
Ketamine at the Mann Ranch
Alan Watts &
Multiple Solipsism
How
I Learned Chakra Meditation
Je ne Regrette
Rien
Gay
Spirituality
Curious
Bodies
What
Toby Johnson Believes
The
Joseph Campbell Connection
The
Mann Ranch (& Rich Gabrielson)
Campbell
& The Pre/Trans Fallacy
The
Two Loves
The
Nature of Religion
What's true about
Religion
Being
Gay is a Blessing
Drawing Long Straws
Freedom
of Religion
The
Gay Agenda
Gay
Saintliness
Gay
Spiritual Functions
The subtle workings of the spirit
in gay men's lives.
The Sinfulness of
Homosexuality
Proposal
for a study of gay nondualism
Priestly Sexuality
Having a Church to
Leave
Harold Cole on Beauty
Marian Doctrines:
Immaculate Conception & Assumption
Not lashed to the
prayer-post
Monastic or Chaste
Homosexuality
The Monastic Schedule: a whimsy
Is It Time to Grow
Up? Confronting
the Aging Process
Notes on Licking
(July, 1984)
Redeem Orlando
Gay Consciousness changing
the
world by Shokti LoveStar
Alexander Renault
interviews Toby
Johnson
Mystical Vision
"The
Evolution of Gay Identity"
"St. John of the
Cross & the Dark Night of
the Soul."
Avalokiteshvara
at the Baths
Eckhart's Eye
Let Me
Tell You a Secret
Religious
Articulations of the
Secret
The
Collective Unconscious
Driving as
Spiritual Practice
Meditation
Historicity
as Myth
Pilgrimage
No
Stealing
Next
Step in Evolution
The
New Myth
The Moulting of the Holy Ghost
Gaia
is a Bodhisattva
Sex with God
Merging Religion and Sex
Revolution
Through
Consciousness Change: GSV 2019
God as Metaphor
More Metaphors for God
A non-personal
metaphor God
Jesus and the Wedding Feast
Tonglen in the Radisson Varanasi
The
Closet of Horrors
What is Truth?
The Hero's
Journey
The
Hero's Journey as archetype -- GSV 2016
The Gay Hero Journey
(shortened)
You're
On Your Own
Superheroes
Seeing
Differently
Teenage
Prostitution and the Nature of Evil
Allah
Hu: "God is present here"
Adam
and Steve
The Life is
in the Blood
Gay retirement and the "freelance
monastery"
Seeing with
Different Eyes
Facing
the Edge: AIDS as an occasion for spiritual wisdom
What
are you looking for in a gay science fiction novel?
A Different Take on Leathersex
Seeing
Pornography Differently
The Vision
The
mystical experience at the Servites' Castle in Riverside
A Most Remarkable
Synchronicity in
Riverside
The
Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis
The Techniques Of The
World Saviors
Part 1: Brer Rabbit and the
Tar-Baby
Part 2: The
Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
Part 3: Jesus
and the Resurrection
Part 4: A
Course in Miracles
The
Secret of the Clear Light
Understanding
the Clear Light
Mobius
Strip
Finding
Your
Tiger Face
How Gay Souls Get Reincarnated
Joseph
Campbell, the Hero's Journey, and the modern Gay Hero-- a five part
presentation on YouTube
About Alien Abduction
In
honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke
Karellen was a homosexual
The
D.A.F.O.D.I.L. Alliance
Intersections
with the movie When We Rise
More
about Gay Mental Health
Psych
Tech Training
Toby
at the California Institute
The
Rainbow Flag
Ideas for gay
mythic stories
My first Peace March
Toby Marotta & Sons of Harvard
Toby Marotta's Politics of Homosexuality
People
Kip and Toby,
Activists
Toby's
friend and nicknamesake Toby Marotta.
Harry
Hay, Founder of the gay movement
About Hay and The New Myth
About
Karl
Heinrich Ulrichs, the first
man to really "come out"
About Michael Talbot, gay mystic
About Fr. Bernard Lynch
About Richard Baltzell
About Guy Mannheimer
About David Weyrauch
About
Dennis Paddie
About Ask the Fire
About
Arthur Evans
About
Christopher Larkin
About Mark Thompson
About Sterling Houston
About Michael Stevens
The Alamo Business
Council
Our friend Tom Nash
Our friend Cliff Douglas
Second March on
Washington
The
Gay
Spirituality Summit in May 2004 and the "Statement
of Spirituality"
Book
Reviews
Be Done on Earth by Howard
E. Cook
Pay Me What I'm Worth by
Souldancer
The Way Out by Christopher
L Nutter
The Gay Disciple by John Henson
Art That Dares by Kittredge Cherry
Coming Out, Coming Home by Kennth
A. Burr
Extinguishing
the Light by B. Alan Bourgeois
Over Coffee: A conversation
For Gay
Partnership & Conservative Faith by D.a. Thompson
Dark Knowledge
by
Kenneth Low
Janet Planet by
Eleanor
Lerman
The
Kairos by Paul E. Hartman
Wrestling
with Jesus by D.K.Maylor
Kali Rising by Rudolph
Ballentine
The
Missing Myth by Gilles Herrada
The
Secret of the Second Coming by Howard E. Cook
The Scar Letters: A
Novel
by Richard Alther
The
Future is Queer by Labonte & Schimel
Missing Mary
by Charlene Spretnak
Gay
Spirituality 101 by Joe Perez
Cut Hand: A
Nineteeth Century Love Story on the American Frontier by Mark Wildyr
Radiomen
by Eleanor Lerman
Nights
at
Rizzoli by Felice Picano
The Key
to Unlocking the Closet Door by Chelsea Griffo
The Door
of the Heart by Diana Finfrock Farrar
Occam’s
Razor by David Duncan
Grace
and
Demion by Mel White
Gay Men and The New Way Forward by Raymond L.
Rigoglioso
The
Dimensional Stucture of Consciousness by Samuel Avery
The
Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love by Perry Brass
Love
Together: Longtime Male Couples on Healthy Intimacy and Communication
by Tim Clausen
War
Between Materialism and Spiritual by Jean-Michel Bitar
The
Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion by
Jeffrey J. Kripal
Esalen:
America and the Religion of No Religion by Jeffrey J. Kripal
The
Invitation to Love by
Darren Pierre
Brain,
Consciousness, and God: A Lonerganian Integration by Daniel A
Helminiak
A
Walk with Four Spiritual Guides by Andrew Harvey
Can
Christians Be Saved? by Stephenson & Rhodes
The
Lost Secrets of the Ancient Mystery Schools by Stephenson &
Rhodes
Keys to
Spiritual
Being: Energy Meditation and Synchronization Exercises by Adrian
Ravarour
In
Walt We
Trust by John Marsh
Solomon's
Tantric Song by Rollan McCleary
A
Special Illumination by Rollan McCleary
Aelred's
Sin
by Lawrence Scott
Fruit
Basket
by Payam Ghassemlou
Internal
Landscapes by John Ollom
Princes
& Pumpkins by David Hatfield Sparks
Yes by Brad
Boney
Blood
of the Goddess by William Schindler
Roads of Excess,
Palaces of
Wisdom by Jeffrey Kripal
Evolving
Dharma by Jay Michaelson
Jesus
in Salome's Lot by Brett W. Gillette
The
Man Who Loved Birds by Fenton Johnson
The
Vatican Murders by Lucien Gregoire
"Sex Camp"
by
Brian McNaught
Out
& About with Brewer & Berg
Episode
One: Searching for a New Mythology
The
Soul Beneath the Skin by David Nimmons
Out
on
Holy Ground by Donald Boisvert
The
Revotutionary Psychology of Gay-Centeredness by Mitch Walker
Out There
by Perry Brass
The Crucifixion of Hyacinth by Geoff Puterbaugh
The
Silence of Sodom by Mark D Jordan
It's
Never About What It's About by Krandall Kraus and Paul Borja
ReCreations,
edited by Catherine Lake
Gospel: A
Novel
by WIlton Barnhard
Keeping
Faith: A Skeptic’s Journey by Fenton Johnson
Dating
the Greek Gods by Brad Gooch
Telling
Truths in Church by Mark D. Jordan
The
Substance of God by Perry Brass
The
Tomcat Chronicles by Jack Nichols
10
Smart
Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives by Joe Kort
Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same Sex Love
by Will Roscoe
The
Third Appearance by Walter Starcke
The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann
Surviving
and Thriving After a Life-Threatening Diagnosis by Bev Hall
Men,
Homosexuality, and the Gods by Ronald Long
An Interview
with Ron Long
Queering Creole Spiritual Traditons by Randy
Conner & David Sparks
An Interview with
Randy Conner
Pain,
Sex
and Time by Gerald Heard
Sex
and the Sacred by Daniel Helminiak
Blessing
Same-Sex Unions by Mark Jordan
Rising Up
by
Joe Perez
Soulfully
Gay
by Joe Perez
That
Undeniable Longing by Mark Tedesco
Vintage: A
Ghost
Story by
Steve Berman
Wisdom
for the Soul by Larry Chang
MM4M a DVD
by Bruce Grether
Double
Cross
by David Ranan
The
Transcended Christian by Daniel Helminiak
Jesus
in Love by Kittredge Cherry
In
the Eye of the Storm by Gene Robinson
The
Starry Dynamo by Sven Davisson
Life
in
Paradox by Fr Paul Murray
Spirituality for Our Global Community by Daniel
Helminiak
Gay & Healthy in a Sick Society by Robert A.
Minor
Coming Out: Irish Gay Experiences by Glen O'Brien
Queering
Christ
by Robert Goss
Skipping
Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage
The
Flesh of the Word by Richard A Rosato
Catland by
David Garrett Izzo
Tantra
for Gay Men by Bruce Anderson
Yoga
&
the Path of the Urban Mystic by Darren Main
Simple
Grace
by Malcolm Boyd
Seventy
Times Seven by Salvatore Sapienza
What
Does "Queer" Mean Anyway? by Chris Bartlett
Critique of Patriarchal Reasoning by Arthur Evans
Gift
of
the Soul by Dale Colclasure & David Jensen
Legend of the Raibow Warriors by Steven McFadden
The
Liar's
Prayer by Gregory Flood
Lovely
are the Messengers by Daniel Plasman
The Human Core of Spirituality by Daniel Helminiak
3001:
The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Religion and the Human Sciences by Daniel Helminiak
Only
the
Good Parts by Daniel Curzon
Four
Short
Reviews of Books with a Message
Life
Interrupted by Michael Parise
Confessions of a Murdered Pope by Lucien Gregoire
The
Stargazer's Embassy by Eleanor Lerman
Conscious
Living, Conscious Aging by Ron Pevny
Footprints Through the Desert by Joshua Kauffman
True
Religion by J.L. Weinberg
The Mediterranean Universe by John Newmeyer
Everything
is God by Jay Michaelson
Reflection
by Dennis Merritt
Everywhere
Home by Fenton Johnson
Hard Lesson by James
Gaston
God
vs Gay?
by Jay Michaelson
The
Gate
of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path by Jay Michaelson
Roxie
&
Fred by Richard Alther
Not
the Son He Expected by Tim Clausen
The
9 Realities of Stardust by Bruce P. Grether
The
Afterlife Revolution by Anne & Whitley Strieber
AIDS
Shaman:
Queer Spirit Awakening by Shokti Lovestar
Facing the Truth of Your Life by Merle Yost
The
Super Natural by Whitley Strieber & Jeffrey J Kripal
Secret
Body by
Jeffrey J Kripal
In
Hitler's
House by Jonathan Lane
Walking on Glory by Edward Swift
The
Paradox
of Porn by Don Shewey
Is Heaven for Real? by Lucien Gregoire
In
Search of Lost Lives by Michael Goddart
Queer
Magic by Tomas Prower
God
in Your Body by Jay Michaelson
Science
Whispering Spirit by Gary Preuss
Friends
of Dorothy by Dee Michel
New by
Whitley Strieber
Developing Supersensible Perception by Shelli
Renee Joye
Sage
Sapien by Johnson Chong
Tarot
of the Future by Arthur Rosengarten
Brothers
Across Time by Brad Boney
Impresario
of Castro Street by Marc Huestis
Deathless
by Andrew Ramer
The
Pagan Heart of the West, Vol 1 by
Randy P. Conner
Practical
Tantra by William Schindler
The Flip
by Jeffrey J. Kripal
A New World
by Whitley Strieber
Bernhard
& LightWing by Damien Rowse
The
Mountains of Paris by David Oates
Trust
Truth by Trudie Barreras
How to be an Excellent Human Being by Bill Meacham
The
Deviant's War by Eric Cervini
What
Is the Grass by Mark Doty
Sex
with God by Suzanne DeWitt Hall
The Sum of All the Pieces by Paul Bradford
All the Time in the World by J. Lee Graham
Jonas and the Mountain by Janis Harper
Two
Hearts Dancing by Eli Andrew Ramer
Where's My Pizza? by Larry Armstead II
A New Now by Michael Goddart
Heavenly Homos, Etc by Jan Haen
The Erotic Contemplative by Michael Bernard Kelly
Our Time by Chuck Forester
Queer God de Amor by Miguel H. Diaz
Scissors,
Paper, Rock by Fenton Johnson
Toby
Johnson's
Books on Gay Men's Spiritualities:
Gay Perspective
Things Our
[Homo]sexuality
Tells Us
about the
Nature of God and
the Universe
Gay
Perspective is available as an audiobook narrated
by Matthew Whitfield. Click
here
Gay Spirituality
Gay Identity
and
the Transformation
of
Human Consciousness
Gay
Spirituality is now
available as an audiobook, beautifully narrated by John Sipple. Click here
Charmed
Lives: Gay Spirit in Storytelling
edited by
Toby Johnson
& Steve Berman
Secret
Matter
Lammy Award Winner
for Gay
Science Fiction
updated
Getting Life in
Perspective
A Fantastical
Romance
Getting
Life in Perspective is available as an
audiobook narrated by Alex Beckham. Click
here
The Fourth Quill
originally
published
as
PLAGUE
The Fourth Quill
is
available
as an audiobook, narrated by Jimmie
Moreland. Click here
Two Spirits: A Story of
Life
with the Navajo
with Walter L.
Williams
 Two
Spirits is available as an
audiobook narrated by Arthur Raymond. Click
here
Finding
Your Own True Myth: What I Learned from Joseph
Campbell
The
Myth
of the
Great Secret III
In Search of God in the Sexual Underworld
Finding
God In The Sexual Underworld: The Journey
Expanded
2020 Revised Version
The Myth of the Great
Secret: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell.
This
was the second edition of this book.
Toby
Johnson's
titles are
available in other ebook formats from Smashwords.
|
Queering the Mysticism of
Saint John of the Cross
Queer God de Amor
by Miguel H. Díaz
Fordham University Press; 1st edition (September 13, 2022)
160 pages,
paperback,
$25.95
ISBN: 978-1531502485
Available from Amazon in print and digital
Queer God de Amor
Description:
Queer God de Amor
explores the mystery of God and the relationship between divine and
human persons. It does so by turning to the sixteenth-century writings
of John of the Cross on mystical union with God and the metaphor of
sexual relationship that he uses to describe this union. Juan’s
mystical theology, which highlights the notion of God as lover and
God’s erotic-like relationship with human persons, provides a fitting
source for rethinking the Christian doctrine of God, in John’s own
words, as “un no sé qué,” “an I know not what.”
In critical conversations with contemporary queer theologies, it
retrieves from John a preferential option for human sexuality as an
experience in daily life that is rich with possibilities for
re-sourcing and imagining the Christian doctrine of God. Consistent
with other liberating perspectives, it outs God from heteronormative
closets and restores human sexuality as a resource for theology. This
outing of divine queerness―that is, the ineffability of divine
life―helps to align reflections on the mystery of God with the faith
experiences of queer Catholics. By engaging Juan de la Cruz through
queer Latinx eyes, Miguel Díaz continues the objective of this series
to disrupt the cartography of theology latinamente.
"This creative and stimulating
exploration of San Juan de la Cruz's ‘Living Flame of Love’ will help
the reader re-imagine the possible intimacy of God, self, and
sexuality. Building on San Juan’s awareness of erotic experience as a
potential opening to the divine, Díaz highlights how queer, Latiná, and
Catholic approaches to the mystery of sexual love might lead us into
deeper relationship with our Queer God de Amor."
—Brian Flanagan, President, College Theology Society
With this intensely scholarly and
profoundly personal book Miguel Díaz has set a radical trajectory for a
fresh grace-filled flowering of our understanding of God and the divine
gift of sexuality, capable of consigning to history the damage
inflicted by centuries of brutal legalism, sin, and shame. His fresh
interpretations of the mystical and sensual writings of John of the
Cross offer reassurance to those who believe in an omnisexual God who
embraces all, is always and ever, the lover and beloved of all.
—Mary McAleese, former President of Ireland, author, Quo Vadis? Collegiality in Canon Law
Review:
For
traditional Catholics, the unusually erotic imagery in the poetry of St
John of the Cross is confusing. It must be symbolic and fantastical
because John was a Carmelite monk with a vow of chastity, and so
couldn't possibly have been sexual; he must have meant those words in a
purely poetic way, and he couldn't have actually been talking about
sex, he must have been talking about deep emotional bonds with God,
like the emotional bonds in marriage. And when he wrote about his love
for Jesus, as though it were sexual, he is poetically imagining himself
as a woman. He wrote in Spanish which is a gender-inflected language.
Now Miguel H. Díaz, the John Courtney Murray, SJ, University Chair in
Public Service at Loyola University Chicago, who served under President
Barack Obama as the ninth U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, and himself
a queer-identified man, seriously addresses the sexual imagery and
discovers that St. John was, in the modern sense, queering God, i.e.,
overturning the sexual negativity in Christianity and honoring sexual,
erotic feelings as meaningful analogues to the spiritual feelings of
love of God.
Díaz first places his understanding of sexual feelings within the
interrelational nature of the Trinity and explains how to understand
the Trinity as God's self-communication and demonstrating that both
divine and human persons are ecstatic and relational beings. Love—both
divine and human—is about union with Christ as the beloved spouse, and
"in union with Christ persons come to 'know' God, all that is not God,
and all things in God."
This book is an important contribution to Catholic spirituality—if only
because it takes the homosexual imagery seriously and honors queer sex
as another acceptable and authentic model of God's love. The book is
written by an official Catholic theologian. His words demand to be
respected by other Catholic theologians. His interpretations of
Catholic mystical theology allow for what we now would call
homosexual/gay/queer feelings as potentially sacred and spiritual.
Thus, he reclaims queer love as sacred and honorable. And he
understands John's most famous idea—"the dark night of the soul"—as
LGBTQ people's struggle to refind their religiousness after being
alienated by the anti-gay forces in conventional Christianity. For
Díaz, the rich emotional sentiments of LGBTQ people's love for their
partners gives insight into their love for God. The experience of
merging with your lover during sex is a metaphor for how the soul
experiences merging with God in prayer and mystical ecstasy.
Reconciling Catholic doctrine and mystical experience is always a bit
of a stretch. According to doctrine, God and creation are of totally
different substances. Except maybe in what is called hypostatic union
in Jesus, God and man can never combine; they are like apples and
oranges at the level of metaphysics. But the experience of mystics—and
of psychedelic voyagers—is that one becomes God, that the distinction
between God and man disappears as God is realized to be the witness
Self, the one who is always experiencing Itself as us.
With the metaphor of lovers merging in sexual union, the two people DO
remain separate people; sex doesn't actually merge anybody. Tho'
metaphorically, of course, that is what the offspring which intercourse
produces is. And at the level of DNA this is true.
In the poem, "On a Dark Night," the lover and beloved are said to be united in the darkness—the unknowability:
Oh night, that was my guide
Oh night, more loving than the rising sun
Oh night, that joined the lover to the beloved one
Transforming each of them into the other.
I think what John is alluding to is the mystical
insight that the man he is making love with—any man—IS Christ. That is
what Jesus meant when he said: "what you do to the least, that you do
to me." The great mystical insight is that God and man are One from the
very start. In Hinduism: Tat tvam asi, Thou art That, Atman is Brahman, the Self is God. But that's not Christian doctrine and it ignores the fundamental myth of original sin.
There is another major theme in this book which I am not discussing at all, and that's "Doing Theology Latinatamenta." This book is part of a series, called Disruptive Cartographers, which
seek to acknowledge the roots and perspectives of Latinx and Hispanic
cultures and contexts.
John of the Cross lived in al-Andalus,
Andalusia— Islamic- influenced Spain—and wrote in Spanish. This context
was different from that of British ladies, like Evelyn Underhill who
helped popularize Christian mysticism in the 50s, or "Oxford dons," like E.
Allison Peers who did one of the major translations of John of the
Cross's work.
Díaz seeks to recontextual the saint as a flesh and blood
Iberian man.
(The artwork for the cover, "Yolitzli" by Jesus CIMI
Alvarado, is a self-portrait of the artist within his complex Chicanx
culture bearing the Sacred Heart of Jesus.)
Good to have a Catholic theologian (who hasn't been burned at the
stake) find the goodness in LGBTQ love: Our longing for a loving
partner is a taste of our longing for oneness with God.
For Catholics to whom Church approbation is important, this book breaks
from the past and gives a new way to understand homosexual feelings.
This is a good book that needs to be read. It is a big step in the right direction.
On the other hand, there's a lot of queering still to do. And there are
other—less orthodox—spiritual writers (this reviewer included) who have
found a much more mystical, and queerer, message in John of the Cross.
Googling "St John of the Cross, gay" brings up a variety of
websites—including Kitt Cherry's Qspirit.net—and
articles, like mine, that outright call St. John gay, and explain the
sexual imagery in the poems not just as disembodied imagery but as real
physical sex, and offer techniques for experiencing the sacred life of
God within sexual arousal and lovemaking. Gay/queer love is the love of equals—as Will Roscoe explains in Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-sex Love. It's that equality of lovers that is the mystical experience "that
joins the lover to the beloved one/ Transforming each of them into the
other." This is also what jars with Catholic doctrine.
Miguel Díaz never looks beyond orthodox Catholicism; he doesn't identify sexual arousal with the awakening of the "life force"—kundalini—as in Hindu/Buddhist mythology or chi
in Taoism. He doesn't discuss whether St John's mystical ecstasy
included orgasm or whether during orgasm humans might experience
oneness with God. He "queers" God without questioning if that
necessarily redefines God entirely. He honors queer love as sacred
without moving to the next step—which I think is what the poem "On A
Dark Night" is actually about—that our making love with our beloved IS our experience of loving God and God loving us back.
And, by the way, Díaz never mentions Thomas Merton, the popular Catholic writer/Trappist monk whose autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain and book The Ascent to Truth
were the introduction of St. John of the Cross to American Catholics in the
1950s. Merton seemed to emphasize the "suffering" and "darkness" in
John's writing more than the ecstatic joyful love. (See below for
quotes from John of the Cross) It was in that context that I, as a
devout Catholic high school kid in the early 1960s, discovered John of
the Cross and got way too deep into the mortification, self-sacrifice, self-denial, and self-effacement (i.e., religious shame for being
human) —that Catholic doctrine took way too deep for everybody!
(But these are not entirely bad traits, especially in a world that
lionizes sociopaths—and perhaps they are even "naturally gay" traits,
founded in generosity, compassion, and goodwill to others.)
Another theme in John of the Cross is the notion of "nothingness"; God
is beyond words and ideas altogether. This is a mystical idea in
Christianity that is contradictory to the popular devotion to Jesus as cosmic
friend and personal savior. The experience of God is an experience of
nothing. "Nothing, nothing, nothing, even on the Mount, nothing," says
St. John. Díaz acknowldges this theme in rethinking the Christian doctrine of God, in John’s own
words, as “un no sé qué,” “an I know not what.”
The "nothingness," "emptiness," "unknowing" of apophatic mysticism (i.e., without words) is paralleled in Buddhism as sunyata.
This is more a Buddhist notion than a Christian one: Anatta, "no-self,"
is one of the pearls of the Dharma: "nothing above, nothing below, not
one square inch on which to stand."
Maybe it is too much to say that John of the Cross was a gay Buddhist, but you know…
Queer God de Amor is a wonderful book—and quite readable
and interesting in spite of the obscurity of its main subject. It is an
important first step, an opening up of Catholic spiritual theology. And it is
just a first step.
Reviewed by Toby
Johnson, author
of Finding God in the Sexual Underworld, and other books and novels.
Read Toby Johnson's Saint John of the Cross and the Dark Night
Quotes from John of the Cross
Here are some heavy-duty verses from The Ascent of Mount Carmel
Strive always to prefer, not that which is easiest, but that which is most difficult;
Not that which is most delectable, but that which is most unpleasing;
Not that which gives most pleasure, but rather that which gives least;
Not that which is restful, but that which is wearisome;
Not that which is consolation, but rather that which is disconsolateness;
Not that which is greatest, but that which is least;
Not that which is loftiest and most precious, but that which is lowest and most despised;
Not that which is a desire for anything, but that which is a desire for nothing;
Strive to go about seeking not the best of temporal things, but the worst.
Strive thus to desire to enter
into complete detachment and emptiness and poverty, with respect to
everything that is in the world, for Christ's sake.
Here's John talking about his paradoxical method:
In order to arrive at having pleasure in everything, Desire to have pleasure in nothing.
In order to arrive at possessing everything, Desire to possess nothing.
In order to arrive at being everything, Desire to be nothing.
In order to arrive at knowing everything, Desire to know nothing.
In order to arrive at that
wherein thou hast no pleasure, Thou must go by a way wherein thou hast
no pleasure.
In order to arrive at that which thou knowest not, Thou must go by a way that thou knowest not.
In order to arrive at that which thou possessest not, Thou must go by a way that thou possessest not.
In order to arrive at that which thou art not, Thou must go through that which thou art not.
When thy mind dwells upon anything, Thou art
ceasing to cast thyself upon the All. For, in order to pass from the
all to the All, Thou hast to deny thyself wholly in all. And, when thou
comest to possess it wholly, Thou must possess it without desiring
anything. For, if thou wilt have anything in having all, Thou hast not
thy treasure purely in God.
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