Or John of the Cross:<\/p>\n
O sweet cautery, O delightful wound! O gentle hand! O delicate touch That tastes of eternal life\u2026\u00a0 How gently and lovingly You wake my heart\u2026\u00a0 And by Your sweet breathing, How tenderly You swell my heart with love!<\/em><\/p>\n Or Rumi:<\/p>\n The wakened lover speaks directly to the beloved, \u2018You are the sky my spirit circles in, The love inside love, the resurrection place\u2026 Are these words or tears? Is weeping speech?\u00a0 What shall I do, my love?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n So he speaks, and everyone around Begins to cry with him, laughing crazily, Moaning in the spreading union Of lover and beloved.<\/em><\/p>\n This is the true religion.<\/em><\/p>\n It was no secret to the mystics! Eros<\/em>, that creative, life-giving energy that fuels our sexuality is the same energy within the divine. Actually, it\u2019s the reverse: God is the wild and beautiful dance between eros\u00a0<\/em>(desire, longing, creative energy) and agape\u00a0<\/em>(self-giving, fruitful love). When we make love, we participate in that dance.<\/p>\n And so we do when we pray.<\/p>\n Now, perhaps you\u2019re thinking, I\u2019ve<\/em> never prayed like that! And desire and sex\u2014what do those have to do with spirituality?<\/p>\n Listen up, young Padawan, for there are a few lessons about divine intimacy that they may not have taught you in Sunday school.<\/p>\n Orgasm is like Prayer<\/strong><\/p>\n Lovemaking requires vulnerability. At the very least, it requires you to bare a private part of you, physically. At the very best, it asks you to bare your most intimate parts\u2013 emotionally and spiritually.<\/p>\n Prayer is simply another word for \u201crelationship with the divine.\u201d It, too, requires vulnerability in order to be intimate. You can have a surface-level relationship with Infinite Love just as you can with your spouse. You can hide, perform your perceived duties, and live separate lives while still calling yourself \u201cspiritual\u201d or \u201choly\u201d or \u201cChristian\u201d (or \u201cmarried\u201d!). Or\u2013 you can be in a rich, satisfying, jovial relationship with the divine. It is as real and nuanced as your relationship with your spouse.<\/p>\n Consider the amount of trust it takes to be truly naked with someone. It might be easy to take off your clothes; but how easy is it to bare your heart? To share your fears? To be seen in all your flaws and imperfections\u2014and be loved there? It\u2019s like your husband kissing that flabby spot you\u2019re secretly ashamed of, or your wife revering that hairy mole you find revolting. But she loves it because it is a part of YOU.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the kind of tenderness God shows us. He caresses our pride. He reveres our epic failures that spark shame in us. While we beat ourselves up (\u201cHow could I be so stupid and selfish?? How could I hurt the friend who loves me so well?\u201d), the divine pours mercy in that spot. He soothes the shame, washing it out with the waters of tenderness. He doesn\u2019t pour out wrath: we\u2019re the ones who do that.<\/p>\n I once was talking to a friend of mine who was having a hard time in her prayer life. I also knew that it had taken years after getting married for her to experience an orgasm. (Which is not a rare experience for women.) I asked, \u201cWhat made the difference when you were finally able to come?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0She pondered for a moment. \u201cYou know,\u201d she replied softly, \u201cit was when I finally allowed myself to surrender. I had to let go of all my fears and rigidity. You really have to relax and let go in order for climax to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n If we come with our rigidity and our misled beliefs (\u201cSex is bad! I mean, not bad, but NEVER do it unless you\u2019re married. Be AFRAID! STD\u2019s, people! Emotional heartache! Eternal damnation! Monsters and rabies and hurricanes!\u201d)\u2014how difficult it is to be intimate! Why would anyone be willingly naked and vulnerable when surrounded by that kind of fear?<\/p>\n What kind of rigidity and fear do you bring to prayer? \u201cAm I doing this right?<\/p>\n She looks so much holier when she prays.\u201d \u201cI must squash all of my anger and sadness: we\u2019re supposed to be joyful and grateful.\u201d \u201cI won\u2019t ask God for anything big\u2014I don\u2019t want to inconvenience him.\u201d \u201cGod expects me to sacrifice. It\u2019s part of the cross.\u201d<\/p>\n Do you believe God is mercy and compassion? Or do you believe he is primarily Judge and condemnation? Does he look down his nose at your shortcomings, or does he look in your eyes with tenderness?<\/p>\n The answer to this question will make a radical difference in your prayer life.<\/p>\n Intimacy requires trust. And if you do not trust your lover to be loving, your defense mechanisms will automatically guard your heart. And guarded means you don\u2019t come. Physically or spiritually.<\/p>\n Prayer is Like Orgasm<\/strong><\/p>\n The way mystics pray is very different from how we are taught to pray in Sunday school. They may have started in similar places: saying the Our Father, reading Scripture, praising or thanking God. However, those things are just the conversation starters. In the spousal analogy, we\u2019re not even in the bedroom yet.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not that any of these practices are bad. They are just step one. Imagine you were a sheltered Victorian flower who had never been told the birds and the bees before getting married. You thought that marriage meant the woman tended the home and the man provided income. Intimacy was the quick kiss you saw your parents exchange on occasion. They discussed family matters behind closed doors. That\u2019s what marriage was to you, so you intended to follow suit.<\/p>\n If this were you, and sex existed, wouldn\u2019t you want someone to tell you??<\/p>\n \u201cPsst. Hey, kid. Did you know you could experience bliss by doing this thing with another person?\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m afraid in prayer, all we know is the \u201cVictorian marriage.\u201d Traditional roles (God= provider, Judge, Father; I am a sinner, speck, insignificant); conversation is generally limited to family matters; intimacy might include some basic acknowledgment of love.<\/p>\n WHAT IF THERE IS A PROFOUND INTIMACY NO ONE EVER TOLD YOU ABOUT?<\/p>\n WHAT IF A BLISS EVEN DEEPER THAN ORGASM EXISTS?<\/p>\n Prayer as Desire<\/strong><\/p>\n In my book\u00a0Spiritual Wanderlust<\/em><\/a>, I talk about desire as the path to divine union. The commonality between sexuality and spirituality is this.<\/p>\n Desire.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Longing.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Eros<\/em>.<\/p>\n The erotic is not just sex toys and pornography. The erotic is this fierce, beautiful, positive energy that fuels everything that is good in the world. It fuels not only lovemaking, but all our actions:<\/p>\n You get the idea. There are deeper longings under our every action. It\u2019s what makes the world go round.<\/p>\n Yet when we sink down to the common root of all of these, we run into a desire so deep we do not have a name for it. It\u2019s a longing for something so vast it seems it cannot be found in this universe. It\u2019s like that bittersweet ache you feel when you see the Milky Way spilled across the sky. It\u2019s wonderful, but you long for more<\/em> of it. Maybe you feel it when reuniting with family members who live far away. You\u2019re so happy you could burst\u2013 but it\u2019s tinged with a longing to have them with you all<\/em> the time. You want something much wider than a weekend reunion, or a brief glimpse of the night sky. John of the Cross, one of my favorite mystics, calls it a longing for the I Know Not What. You might call it a longing for happiness or fulfillment. But it is so much more.<\/p>\n This longing has the shape of the Infinite.<\/p>\n That is one of the simplest ways to divine union: sitting in your longing. Open up that space to the divine and ask him to fill you, much like a husband fills his wife. We are all feminine before the divine. Spread wide your cavern, your longing, and he will hasten to fill you with himself. How could he resist such beauty?<\/p>\n If the genital analogy doesn\u2019t work for you, leave it. But for millennia, it is the best analogy mystics have come up with to explain the delicious ecstasy found in the heights of prayer.<\/p>\n Please note: these \u201cheights of prayer\u201d are not the property of the chosen few. No more than climax is reserved for a few! (Thank God!) In the physical realm, it may take a little practice to get both people to climax. For some, the gift comes easily. For others, it might depend on the day\u2019s activities, your mood, or whether your lover touches you just right.<\/p>\n In prayer, it is our job to show up. Leave time to chat with your divine Lover on the couch, or in the bedroom. Make time to connect. This might show up in a traditional way\u2014reading Scripture, meditating, reading a book, journaling\u2014or it might be a little more nontraditional, like sipping coffee in the morning, going fishing, riding horseback, painting, dancing, or any other way in which you feel connected to God. The ways we connect are as varied as we are\u2014perhaps as varied as what warms us up sexually.<\/p>\n The point of it all is connection\u2014nay,\u00a0union<\/em>. For an orgasm to reach the heights, it must include a deep connection between two people. A union of body and heart. There are plenty of times when it\u2019s not perfect bliss\u2014but you will certainly remember the times when it got close!<\/p>\n Prayer is similar. No human\u2014mystics included\u2014experiences bliss every time they pray. But when we make space for divine encounter, for being with our lover, sharing our day, our struggles, or even some mutual silence\u2014we are making space for intimacy. The divine\u00a0longs<\/em>\u00a0to be one with you. In fact, he already is! But when he allows us some felt sense of that union\u2026 no words can describe the exhilarating, wordless, \u2014-!<\/p>\n Now it\u2019s Your Turn<\/strong><\/p>\n I imagine this idea is a bit mind-blowing for some people. \u201cPrayer like orgasm? Disgraceful!\u201d But this only suggests your idea of sexuality or spirituality might be a bit rigid. Who is your God? What is the deepest calling of the human person?<\/p>\n To be \u201csexed,\u201d male and female, is to be separated. \u201cSex\u201d comes from the verb, secare<\/em>, which means to separate. The whole point of sex\u2014and of prayer\u2014is to restore union.<\/p>\n We are made for union.<\/p>\n Do you feel it in your bones?<\/p>\n About Kelly Deutsch:<\/strong> Kelly is an author and personal growth coach whose aim is to support seekers\u2014the open, the curious, the restless\u2014to become more fully alive. Learn more her work here.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Photo by\u00a0Sylvie Tittel<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I can\u2019t remember the first time it happened in prayer. But I remember the first conversation I tried to have about it. \u201cMy prayer has been\u2026 I mean, it\u2019s been wonderful.\u201d My eyes sparkled, but I struggled to find the words. \u201cIt\u2019s like\u2026 it\u2019s spousal. It\u2019s like my heart blooms open, to a place deeper […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4030,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1186\/2019\/08\/sylvie-tittel-ViGKnqI9r8o-unsplash-768x1024.jpg\")
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