Sexuality as love energy

Tender Fire: The Spiritual Promise of Sexuality by Fran Ferder and John Heagle. New York: Crossroad, 2002. 224 pp.

As you read this review, old flames are sipping wine together, a woman is choosing flowers for a dying friend, a young man is discovering that he's gay, a husband is tending to his wife with advanced Alzheimer's disease, a Canadian goose is staying behind to tend a wounded partner, a couple is reaching orgasm. All of these things are a part of the sexual energy that moves the universe--so say Fran Ferder and John Heagle in their new book, Tender Fires: the Spiritual Promise of Sexuality.

This book addresses the wide spectrum of the life-giving possibilities of sexuality from within the spiritual covenant of marriage to the non-genital aspects of sexuality embodied in deep friendship, and it was fittingly sandwiched between gospels and books on re-discovering the inner artist.

At once, the authors address my question, namely, how can a nun and priest speak with authority on sexuality? As psychotherapists and spiritual counsellors, Ferder and Heagle assert that they, too, struggle as all humans do with intimacy and the universal desire to find our place at the table of love. The writers spend many short, thought-provoking chapters looking at what sexuality is and what it isn't. It is, they suggest, the male and femalehess in all peoples, our bio-gender, social roles, reproductive realities, sexual behaviour, physical feelings, emotional experiences, intimate relationships and spiritual commitments and more. It is not merely genital activity and the sex-appeal images pasted all over the media to sell every thing from cookies to cars.

The book explores sexuality as "love energy present everywhere in the cosmos," from a lovers' first kiss to a molecular attraction. It investigates the erotic as "the sacred attraction to beauty, with a deep desire for human fulfillment," not the love-craft toys or movie pap that facades as romance. It also reflects on the church's history of separating the spiritual and carnal aspects of sexuality, and asks, did the church dissect the whole at great expense? Because, for the authors, "human sexuality is the energy for relationships involving the WHOLE person." The church may be responsible, in part, for the shaming of sexuality; the media is to blame for the advocacy of "sexuality without spirituality," but neither is whole or complete.

Ferder and Heagle insist convincingly that we can find authentic relationships despite our fatigue, stress, caution of commitment and cultural diversions. They comfort by stressing that "the forces that fragment our relationships are not as powerful as the healing presence (of love energy everywhere) that can make us whole." Creativity, passion, scientific discoveries, art, music, theology, philosophy, humour and more, are all part of our yearning for a union with the Great Creator. That God himself is relationship, and, as we struggle with relationships, we remember that Jesus literally pitched his tent with us, put skin on, became man, became, thus, a sexual being, longing, too, for intimacies in his life.

For me, the most striking chapter of this book is the description of Jesus' most clear moments of intimacy taking place at meals, where breaking bread together gives the message of abundance, forgiveness, respect, compassion. Many parables were about including the marginalized and the outcasts in these meals. The book asks some moving questions: Are we welcoming the marginalized to our Masses? Can we widen our membership in faith? Do we break bread in love with gay couples, divorced members, those in non-traditional relationships, or those outcast?

Tender Fires dares to believe that, as sexual persons, there can be a place for each of us at love's banquet.

Katie Marshall Flaherty writes and teaches in Toronto.

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