|
Also on this website:
Toby
Johnson's books:
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,
GETTING
LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE
PLAGUE:
A NOVEL ABOUT HEALING.
Articles
and Excerpts:
The
Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate
Why gay people should NOT Marry
Wedding Cake Liberation
Gay Marriage in Texas
What's ironic
Shame on the American People
The "highest form of love"
The
cause of homosexuality
What Jesus said about Gay
Rights
The purpose of homosexuality
Mesosexual Ideal for Straight Men
Varieties
of Gay Spirituality
Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality
as Artistic Medium
"It's Always About You"
The myth of the
Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara
Joseph Campbell's description of
Avalokiteshvara
You're
Not A Wave
Curious
Bodies
What
Toby Johnson Believes
The Joseph Campbell Connection,
The Nature of Religion
Being
Gay is a Blessing
Freedom
of Religion
The
Gay Agenda
Gay
Saintliness
Gay Spiritual Functions
The subtle workings of the spirit in gay men's lives.
"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
Teenage
Prostitution and the Nature of Evil
Allah
Hu: "God is present here"
Adam
and Steve
Gay
retirement and the "freelance monastery"
Seeing with Different Eyes
The
mystical
experience at the Servites' Castle 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
About Alien Abduction
In honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke
The
D.A.F.O.D.I.L. Alliance
Toby's friend
and nicknamesake Toby Marotta.
About
Michael Talbot, gay mystic
About Guy Mannheimer
|
Books on Gay Spirituality
The most valuable
asset taken from an oppressed people is their history. As a result, the
GLBT community is a people constantly coming out of erasure. Because of
oppression and bigotry, each generation seems destined to go through
the same process of self-discovery, coming out, and finding one’s place
in the larger community.
The White Crane Institute, dedicated to researching, exploring and
documenting the variety of spiritual roles and stories among
contemporary GLBT and gender variant men and women and the publisher of
WHITE CRANE: the Journal of Gay Wisdom & Culture, is
pleased to enter into a partnership with Lethe
Press to make classics
of gay spirituality and culture available again to a new generation of
readers. It is our hope that by making our rich history more widely and
easily available, new generations can move beyond erasure, bigotry and
hate and find their rightful role in the larger community of the world.
White Crane
Gay Wisdom Series
Mark Thompson's Gay Spirit: Myth &
Meaning is arguably the book that started the Gay Spirituality Movement
Publishers Weekly wrote: Cultural
editor of the Advocate, Thompson here collects previously published
articles and book excerpts from the magazine, each an attempt to define
the status of gay men. In an introduction he distinguishes between
homosexual (a form of sexuality) and gay: "A social identity and
consciousness actively chosen." The text discusses the gay's role in
politics, religion, culture, identity. Among the contributors are Judy
Grahn, author of lesbian/feminist works; Malcolm Boyd, activist
Episcopal priest; Harry Hay, a founder of the Mattachine Society; and
writer William S. Burroughs, . . . [including] Geoff Mains's "Urban
Aboriginals and the Celebration of Leather Magic," an approving,
detailed description of sadomasochism.
Find Buy Links here
Toby Johnson's Gay Spirituality describes the Gay Men's
Spirituality Movement and offers a realistic, but satisfyingly
mystical, explanation of religion based in the ideas of Johnson's
teacher, renowned religions scholar Joseph Campbell
R. Boerner (Tempe AZ) writing in an unsolicited review
on the Amazon.com site says: ". . . being gay is a spiritual asset, not
a liability. Where some look down on same-sex love as defective,
because it does not express the male-female duality, Johnson turns it
around and proudly declares that to be the precise reason why same-sex
love is spiritually superior. It transcends the duality.
Johnson's vision of a life-affirming, sex-positive spirituality of
love, cooperation, mutual respect and acceptance is in sync with modern
scientific knowledge, and does not ask the reader to suspend logic or
critical thinking. Gay christians who are struggling with their sexual
orientation will especially appreciate Johnson's convincing refutation
of common "biblical" anti-gay arguments. A powerful book for personal
change, a wonderful antidote to the negativity of the Religious Right,
and a great gift to a gay friend who is unhappy with his life or
suffering from low self-esteem.
Find Buy Links here
In this companion volume
to his critically acclaimed, Lambda Literary Award-winning Gay
Spirituality,
Toby Johnson further explicates his visionary stance that gay
people's nature as outsiders gives them a uniquely powerful
perspective on the nature of God and religion.
In what way does this
"outsider's perspective" differ from the traditional outlook on
spirituality? It provides a distance from establishment viewpoints,
allowing for a deeper critical analysis of commonly accepted beliefs.
By living outside what
are considered gender norms, gay people are more open to seeing
across boundaries of gender and gain access to a less dualistic
outlook on the nature of life. Because of this, gay people are far
more attuned to the needs of a rapidly evolving society in which
quickness and nimble thinking are in demand, gender equality is
rapidly becoming an expected norm, and traditional religions are
beset with internal conflicts, exposing inherent contradictions
between organized religion and the true nature of God.
Once again Johnson
approaches this potentially controversial subject matter with
erudition, empathy, and visionary speculation and gives meaning to
gay consciousness beyond superficial issues of sexual
behavior.
Find Buy Links here
Andrew Ramer's Two Flutes Playing is a classic of gay
mythopoesis.
Michael Bails (Seattle WA) writing an unsolicited
review on the Amazon.com site says: "I was recommended this book after
having taken a Body Electric workshop a few weeks before. From the
first page I began to re-live the entire bonding rituals that we had
experienced over that weekend. How to connect, how to communicate, and
how to intimately bond on a higher plane! Although some of the prose is
repetitive, it helps instill a spiritual base on which the reader can
pull from. A definite "must have" book for the gay tribe who would like
to interact spiritually and emotionally!"
Another Amazon customer wrote: "Tonight, my partner and I read sections
of Andrew Ramer's Two Flute Playing together. It was a moving
experience for both of us to read a loud to ourselves, a chapter tittle
A Ritual for Male Lovers. This chapters, like other chapters of this
book, gives very poetic as well as practical ways of understanding,
experiencing, and living a life of Gay Love."
Find Buy Links here
Andrew Ramer’s new book, Queering the Text: Biblical, Medieval, and Modern Jewish Stories,
grapples with traditional midrashim, plays with homoerotic love poems
from medieval Spain, and envisions alternate versions of the present.
Inspired by the pioneering work of Jewish feminists, working with the
narrative tools of the rabbis of old, Ramer has crafted stories that
anchor LGBT lives in the three-thousand-year-old history of the Jewish
people. “The universe is made up of stories, not atoms,” wrote poet
Muriel Ruckeyser. The stories in this book will transport you to a new
universe – the one we are striving to create, right here and now.
Find Buy Links here
Mark Thompson has a website showing his
photo exhibit
Fellow Travelers with links to all his books
White Crane Institute is currently sponsoring Mark to take his photo
exhibit on the road.
The Fire in Moonlight:
Stories from the Radical Faeries
1975-2010
Edited by Mark Thompson and
Richard Neely (Osiris) and Bo Young, Associate Editors
Foreword by Will Roscoe, Ph.D.
The most valuable possession a people have is their story…their history.
Many years in the making, with over fifty contributors from around the
world, The Fire in Moonlight is the first anthology of its kind.
Beginning with Walt Whitman and Edward Carpenter in the nineteenth
century and moving through the liberation movements of the late
twentieth, The Fire in Moonlight speculates far into the twenty-first.
It offers a timely compendium of culture wisdom, provocative wit and
challenging sensuality.
The Fire in Moonlight gives witness to a groundbreaking movement that
painstakingly emerged from the Gay Liberation era. Rooted in the
history of radical visionaries, this little known, essential
community informs the modern world with new meaning, offering
fresh definitions of faith, identity, purpose and gender.
The Fire in Moonlight is a series of personal reflections on who
the Radical Faeries are, where they’ve been and where they are going:
Radical Faeries in their own words. It is about how a movement has
changed lives—and how Radical Faeries contribute to healing a fractured
Earth.
Find Buy Links here
 ALL is
an anthology of writings (some
previously unpublished) by gay wise man James Broughton, compiled by
his friend Jack Foley.
In a life that stretched from 1913 to 1999 James
Broughton witnessed and commented on the twentieth century from the
point of
view of an outsider. In a time aghast at its own horrors, Broughton
championed laughter. He was a poet, not of the ivory tower but of the
innovative street, a playful, urban voice with the notion that a poet
could change the world. In a rational century, he asserted mystery.
All: A James Broughton Reader collects the range of this acclaimed poet
and fi lmmaker.
Find Buy Links here
Charmed Lives: Gay Spirit in Storytelling edited Toby Johnson &
Steve Berman includes stories by some 30 authors
This anthology of gay-positive stories--some
fiction, some autobiographical, some funny, some sexy, some touching,
some profound--demonstrate the "charm" of being gay.
This book was nominated for Best Anthology 2007 by the Lambda Literary
Foundation
Find Buy Links here
Take Off the Masks: An autobiography by Malcolm Boyd
For over sixty years, Malcolm Boyd has written
truthfully about his own journey to fullness. From theologian to civil
rights pioneer to coffee house troubadour to
gay rights icon, Boyd has courageously and whole-heartedly shown the
way to a
deeper, more honest examination of all our lives, leading by example.
White Crane Books is proud to re-release Boyd’s classic spiritual
biography
and coming out story, Take Off the Masks, for a new generation of
readers
hungry for its insight, honesty and soulful perception. With a new
introduction
by Boyd’s life partner, Mark Thompson, and a newly added postscript
by Rev. Canon Boyd himself.
Find Buy Links here
A
Prophet In His Own Land
A Malcolm Boyd Reader
Edited by Bo Young and Dan Vera
For over sixty years,
Malcolm Boyd has written truthfully about his own
journey to fullness. From theologian to civil rights pioneer to
coffee house troubadour to gay rights icon, Boyd has courageously and
whole-heartedly shown the way to a deeper, more honest examination of
all our lives, leading by example. Bo Young and Dan Vera interview
Malcolm and his partner Mark Thompson about their years together. Many
of Boyd's previously unavailable articles are reprinted here.
Find Buy Links here
In Jewish Gentle and Other Stories of Gay-Jewish Living, Daniel M. Jaffe
explores various aspects of gay-Jewish life.
Coming out to self and
family; (re)defining one’s relationship to tradition and faith;
surviving child abuse and teenage sexual identity angst; experiencing
the adult joys and heartbreaks of dating, of forming relationships, and
of losing them; coping with HIV/AIDS; considering parenting; and dealing
with old age.
Mirroring the diversity within contemporary American Jewish life, the
main characters in these twenty-four stories are Jewish, but in various
ways—some wrestle with religion, others with their place in tradition
and community. Yet for other characters here, Jewish identity is not at
issue in the pursuit of happiness, love, and inner peace; rather,
Jewishness is a cornerstone given, a foundational lens through which
these characters see and examine the world and self.
Find Buy Links here
For ordering information see White Crane Journal:
Books We Recommend
Buy links for all these titles are available at Lethe Press -- Gay Spirit Books
|
