Sexuality and Spirituality

A few weeks ago I went on a retreat at Wisdom House in Connecticut. The retreat leader was Don Bisson, a Marist Brother from upstate New York. The topic of the retreat was “Sexuality and Spirituality.” We spent three days listening and writing and being quiet with ideas about God and bodies, the Incarnation, sex and shame, and because Don is also a Jungian analyst, we talked a lot about Jung’s ideas of sexuality and spirit, and that holy, psychic intersection of sexuality and spirituality.

I’m still burbling over much of this material but I want to share a few of the things that I want to ponder more –and likely will ponder more with you here on this blog. Here are some of my take-aways from Don Bisson:

“The skills of intimacy with another person are the same skills needed for intimacy with God.”

“Intimacy with another person IS intimacy with God—it’s not a separate thing.”

“St Francis of Assisi became compassionate and whole by accepting his anima and his animus—he called them Brother Sun and Sister Moon.”

“Sexuality is not exclusively procreative. The purpose of marriage is to find the right person to force you to individuate. The goal of life is not happiness but individuation.”

“All relationships are sexual because we are in human bodies.”