{"id":1007,"date":"2009-07-29T00:31:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-29T00:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2009\/07\/1007\/"},"modified":"2009-07-29T00:31:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-29T00:31:00","slug":"1007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2009\/07\/1007.html","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

RESPONSES TO \u201cROMOEROTICISM\u201d: Post #1, anonyreader.<\/strong> (this is a repost\u2013accidentally posted it in a messed-up form earlier, which I hope nobody noticed! And it\u2019s actually about my Commonweal <\/em>piece<\/a>, but I thought it was apropos.)<\/p>\n

I have just read your essay or reflections on Homosexuality & the Church in Commonweal<\/em>. I liked your voice \u2013 but I ended up feeling confused\u2026<\/p>\n

I remembered once, many years ago, I had my little niece visiting me \u2013 she was only three, four or five years old \u2013 don\u2019t remember exactly and I was out of the church at that time, and we were talking about God and I think I said Where is God? \u2013 and she pointed her finger towards the heaven \u2013 and I smiled and said No, she is down there pointing towards the ground. She looked at me bewildered first and then giggling\u2026.<\/p>\n

I think I did it because I had just discovered how different it would have felt for me If our creed had been talking about the Mother, the Daughter and the Holy Spirit \u2013 very estranging\u2026.<\/p>\n

I know what Fatherly love is and I know the thrust in the Father \u2013 but the metaphor of relationship is not gendered? Being a son is not different from being a daughter? I hope not! To love God with all my heart \u2013 is loving a You\/ a Thou \u2013<\/p>\n

Relating to the Word, the Son, The Christ, Jesus \u2013 and loving Jesus \u2013 How is that for a man and a woman? Is it a gendered face or is it Compassion, Lovingkindness in eyes \u2013 in a bodylanguage which still is not a masculine body? Just Human? Or is it not? Like when we don\u2019t differentiate between he and she in our prose and let he be both? \u2013 because for me there is a difference reading he and\/or she\u2026.<\/p>\n

I am a man who is longing for another man \u2013 a thou embodied in a male body \u2013 still my love is for a thou. Some men and women fall in love with another man or woman with the same personality profile \u2013 some fall in love with someone who has another personality profile then their own \u2013 no matter if they are hetero- or homosexual\u2026<\/p>\n

But then there is the question of energy \u2013 that prototypes of Man and Woman even though they conceal all differences in those categories \u2013 they help molding the feeling of wholeness \u2013 for most gendered people \u2013 and this is based on the man longing for a woman and a woman longing for a man\u2026 maybe\u2026 and that\u2019s why children have to protect those bounded categories. We have all kinds of labels for lesbians and gays \u2013 and people identify with those roles, even though they might know that they are more than that identity. Some of those roles seems to me to be somewhat not autentic to the self\u2026<\/p>\n

I think there is a problem with the dicotomy of Man and Woman \u2013 if we don\u2019t ask what kind of man and what kind of woman \u2013 and I don\u2019t mean a real man and not a real man\/ a real woman and not a real woman \u2013 or a good woman or a bad woman. I think polytheistic religions may have more opportunities for personal fullfillment through prototypes than we have through Jesus and Mary\u2026.<\/p>\n

These are just some impulsive reflections\u2026 I would like very much to read what you think about these things.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eve says<\/strong>: I do think our longings are often, though not always, very strongly gendered. That\u2019s where I was going with the \u201cBeatrice\u201d passage in the IC piece<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t require rigid gender roles<\/a>, but a more subtle sense that Woman and Man have some iconic reality<\/a>. There\u2019s a very lovely thing in Thomas a Kempis\u2019s Reflections on the Passion of Christ<\/em> where he reworks the Song of Songs as a hymn to the Christ crucified, which is deeply attentive to the body, very much attuned to the sublime aspect of the flesh; you might appreciate that. I\u2019ve found praying the Anima Christi is also very striking.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RESPONSES TO \u201cROMOEROTICISM\u201d: Post #1, anonyreader. (this is a repost\u2013accidentally posted it in a messed-up form earlier, which I hope nobody noticed! And it\u2019s actually about my Commonweal piece, but I thought it was apropos.) I have just read your essay or reflections on Homosexuality & the Church in Commonweal. I liked your voice \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nEve Tushnet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"RESPONSES TO "ROMOEROTICISM": Post #1, anonyreader. 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