Sexuality is no barrier

For many years there has been an understanding of sexuality as either incidental or detrimental to the experience of God and spirituality.

This means if you were heterosexual you could be part of worship and spirituality, but nothing really was special about your sexuality. If you were homosexual, you could not worship or be in touch with your spiritual side, and your sexuality was wrong.

In this view, which has been common for much of the Christian tradition, the body and the spirit have been seen as separate, and that sexuality is either a non-important or limiting factor in being able to connect spiritually to God.

I find there is an irony to this as to separate spirituality and sexuality does not make sense. Spirituality is supposed to bring harmony and unity, and sexuality is so deeply ingrained as a part of who we are that, to come before God discounting, hiding or ashamed means we come forward as not a complete person.

There needs to be a rethink in how we view ourselves and reconcile our sexuality and spirituality. No matter what religion you are, or how your see yourself spiritually, unless you can worship and pray as a whole complete person, then there is going to be a disconnect between you and the higher power. There needs to be a reunion between sexuality and spirituality.

How this looks and occurs will differ for each person. Each of us will go about this in a different way. For some it will be hard and for some it will be easy, depending on our backgrounds.

As a Christian I spent some time reconciling my spirituality and sexuality, and it was hard. But it was worth it. I know that God loves me just as I am and just as I have been created to be and I can come forward in worship as a whole person.

Sexuality can never get in the way of this, and in fact I know that it actually brings me closer to God and to those around me