struggles of ordinary living that we must learn to become open to grace, that we must discern the movement of God’s seduction.
As expressions of my own flawed process of giving in to grace, the writings in this collection have very particular personal and historical contexts. Many of them emerge from the wrestling and reflection of this man who happens to be both gay and Catholic, and who is living at a time when this experience is just beginning to find a little breathing space and some tentative articulation. I regard it as profound grace to find myself in this historical and personal place, and to be one of those called to speak some words of hope and challenge, where before there was only silence or condemnation.
At the same time, as the quote from Jeremiah suggests, opening oneself to this kind of grace comes at a cost, and there are times when one feels one has gambled everything on the folly of faith, and lost. God, our seducer, is not what we think God is, and if we give in to this seduction we will, sooner or later, lose everything – including any notion we have of God or faith or grace. Mystics like Meister Eckhart may say that the soul grows by a process of subtraction, modern writers like Simone Weil may claim that there is a kind of atheism that is a purification of the notion of God, but in the midst of radical loss all of this can seem bitter and foolish. ‘My one companion is darkness’, says the Psalmist, and if we follow the lead of the Spirit, we too will find we are walking with just such a companion. This desolate experience comes to everyone who trusts in God, and when it comes perhaps the only comfort we have is the knowledge that we are in the company of people like Jeremiah – and, of course, Jesus. In such company we endure and abide. This book is a record of one gay man’s particular version of what it looks like to gradually give in to God, and gamble with losing everything he once valued.
In saying this, I am expressing one of the key principles that has guided the writing in this book: that life as a gay person in the contemporary world, with all of its ordinariness, anguish and beauty, can open us at depth to the journey into the mystery of the Divine. For some people it may seem shocking and even blasphemous to claim that life as a self-affirming, sexually expressive gay man can – indeed, must – become a pathway into maturity and holiness. This type of reaction, which I have faced often enough, is hardly surprising, since the voices of gay people have been silenced for so long that any articulation at all tends to seem both novel and startling. This makes it all the more urgent that we speak.
This speaking is not simply for the sake of ourselves and other gay people. Almost any passing engagement with thoughtful adults in the developed societies of our time quickly reveals the deep disillusionment and even cynicism with which organised religion in general, and Christianity in particular, are regarded.
If Christianity is to be credible – let alone inspirational – to people of our time, its leaders will have to get over their addiction to power and learn to listen to the wisdom and pain of those who speak about embodiment, erotic grace, radical justice and the incarnate love that flourishes beyond the bounds of the officially sanctioned ‘sacred’.
One of the blessings and liabilities of a collection such as this, which ranges over a decade of the writer’s life, is that it is not the product of a grand thesis. Rather, it shows the evolution of several key ideas, of a certain approach to life and to spirituality, of the ongoing process of shaping a public voice. This public voice has been expressed in newspaper articles, reflective essays, chapters in anthologies, formal lectures and informal talks, and my publisher and I have chosen to retain the different textures and styles of the original pieces, avoiding extensive footnotes and keeping contextual information to a minimum. We have also kept the writings in their original chronological order except in a few cases where, for reasons of balance and variety, it has seemed prudent to make adjustments.
However, both the first essay and the last have their place not because of chronology, but because they represent key movements in my own life. They are like bookends, the first leading us into the collection and the last ending it by pointing to a new chapter that is yet to be written.
The first essay speaks of a movement that pre-dates all of the writing in this collection. It was a movement into a contemplative way of living that emerged strongly in my life in 1988. I have no doubt that this simple, unobtrusive, relentless movement into contemplative spirituality prepared me for the letting go of my career, my dreams, my security, and the affirmation of my ecclesial community – the Catholic Church – which lay some years ahead. The gradual opening of my life to the hidden demands and gentle grace of contemplative life is the first of two foundations on which these writings stand.
The second foundation, my claiming the freedom to speak the truth of my experience as a gay man, took shape as I was losing my career in the Catholic Church, back in 1993. This process unfolded over several months. I had already given an initial ‘yes’ to the call to come out publicly, just as I was leaving my position as a campus minister in a Catholic college. Some months later, in the midst of personal and financial difficulties, I was offered another position in ministry, in another Catholic college. All that was required was that I sign a document that would have guaranteed that, though I might be privately known to be gay, I would not be a ‘troublemaker’. Of course, the actual words used were more elevated than that, but that’s what they meant. It was at this point that my practice of ‘letting go’ not only allowed me but, as I experienced it, called me to refuse the deal being offered, a deal which would have made it impossible for me to speak the deep truths of my body and my soul. To have signed would have been not only to collude in the lie that the Church tells about gay people, it would have been to refuse to trust the God who had been leading me, often in spite of myself, on a path of surrender, simplicity and trust. I feel a certain gratitude towards the person who offered me the document – his action helped make it clear that my life as a closeted Catholic educator was over. I was now free to be who I was, and say what I thought, both for my own sake and the sake of others.
So, being gay and contemplative has been for me a kind of ‘double-whammy’: through being gay I have faced losing everything I once thought I valued and hoped to be; through being contemplative I have been freed to let the losing happen. This seems to me to be the shape that the seduction of grace has taken in my life. Not coincidentally, it was only at this point that the writings in this collection became possible.
Throughout this same period, including the entire period covered by this collection, I began to face chronic health problems. So, where I might otherwise have just gone out and found a job of some kind, my feet were kept to the fire of loss by the collapse of my health. Though I have faced this with some kicking and screaming, it has also freed me to say what I needed to say, to write what I needed to write, to travel when invited, to walk the empty beaches and sit in the empty silence, to look at life and spirituality from the margins, to become something of a troublemaker.
Many of the essays that follow give expression, in diverse ways, to the kind of ‘troublemaking’ I have engaged in. Some of that has meant reflecting in my public writing on new ways to explore, embrace and integrate the mystery of incarnation, of embodiment – so long preached, and feared, by the churches. Some of it has meant exposing the flaws, brokenness, hypocrisy and hard-heartedness that have so diseased the church, and calling for honest dialogue and radical change. Some of it has taken the form of public activism with the Rainbow Sash Movement in Australia1, as, with other friends and companions, we created a voice for gay and lesbian Catholics where before no voice existed.
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1 The activities and ethos of the Rainbow Sash Movement are discussed in several articles in this collection. See the Appendix at the end of this volume for a more extensive history and discussion of the Rainbow Sash Movement.
Through it all lies the story of one man’s faltering attempt to discern and respond to the call of Divine Love in his life. It is this movement of the heart and soul that I invite you to listen for as you read this collection. There is a seduction going on here, both in my writing and
