I was very honoured when Joe asked me to read Soulfully Gay and write a review of it: a published author and respected member of the gay blogosphere entrusting his work to a relative newbie (outside of my own circles) gives one a sense of arrival. This sense of gratitude increased when I realised I had received the book before release… I feel, in a sense, two weeks late with this review.
How do you grow a soul? It’s been pointed out that, generally, some religions say you have a soul and it’s your job to keep it pure. Other paths say a soul is what you get – by presence, by holy living (as defined within that path) or by loving connection with Holy (again, as defined with in that path). How to be a Soul-Full gay man is an important, valid question. Does it require celibacy? Does it imply a “cure”? Is there a way to move, as a gay man, in a life where one might either develop a worthy soul, or even to maintain a pure one from the get go? How can one be soulfully gay? These are the questions I brought to this book based on the title, and even on the rainbow cross that sits on the front cover of the book.
The book was taken from the pages of the Author’s old blog. If, like me, you’re prone to using your blog as, at times, a bully pulpit, a commonplace book, a love letter, a mother’s day card, a sounding board and a photo album, the concept of turning the entire ego-centric collection into a book may horrify you. I don’t mind living a public life on Teh Internets, but I do think there’s a difference between my public life and the novel on my hard drive. The only real connexion I feel is that both require typing. Yet google turns up some 26,800,000 hits on “Turn a blog into a book“.
Blogging is – or can be – part of a conversation: a real exploration of issues, a sharing of life between people who, otherwise, might not get to share. The thing about conversations – even recorded ones in the net – is that they are (reasonably) live. A blog lives. A book does not. Turning your blog into a book is rather like taking that really cool party you were at last weekend and trying to turn it into a stage play. Like most blogs this reading is at turns painful, enjoyable, educational, downright pointless, silly, pompous and always rambling. And, like a good reviewer I read the whole thing… but I suspect it was more enjoyable in blog form, when comments were allowed and conversation happened. Joe notes comments from other blogs – links in from Mark Shea, for example, or things said by Shea’s conservative, catholic readers, but the conversation is stilted. As all authors get to do, Joe gets the final word in print. In book form it tends to come off as if I’m being lectured rather than being invited into a life.
There were a few places in the book where I not only identified with what Joe was blogging, but they felt like I might have written them myself. Joe’s explorations of what it means to be gay, of what being gay actually implies about the world and about self were parallels of my thoughts back in the 80s and 90s. I think some of them even made it into the blogging period of my life.
The subtitle of the book is, “How Harvard, sex, drugs and Integral Philosophy drove me crazy and brought me back to God.” I don’t think that’s 100% accurate. In fact, rather than “back to God”, the last 16 pages of the book are a painful record of the author dropping into madness. It’s as if the entire journey of the book – from closeted catholic boy, to out ex catholic boy, to person living with AIDS, to Integral philosphy – only resulted in madness. This is not a journey one wants to take! It’s hard even in printed form. I found myself pitying him, but also his friends who would have been reading his blog in growing concern, fear and sadness.
Like all blogs, the topics are a little scattered: to resolved this Joe opens with 25 pages of backstory, including his growing up, his schooling, etc. Joe’s experience of (Roman Catholic) Christianity is at once like mine (Protestant) and very different. There were a few places where I wanted to say, “that’s not the whole story” or “the church isn’t like that all the time!” These are lessons we all need to learn – I thought I knew all of how Orthodox could be, or how Anglicans could be, etc, until I met more than just the local ones. The author’s trip to Harvard paralleled my own to NYU – including the coming out, the dealing with non-religious teachers, etc. Here the book opens into blogging and, while some of the threads continue through the whole book, the easy story quality of the first 25 pages ends. This is not a diary made into a book: this is a diary.
If there is a theme to the book, it’s not expressed in the rainbow cross on the front cover, but rather in Joe’s conversion to Ken Wilber’s Integral philosophy. I call this a conversion because I recognise in his writing the exact same pattern that happens in my own life. I could easily substitute “Orthodoxy” for “Wilber” in all that follows.
There is a beginning – I heard about this man today.
There is an introduction – one of my friends mentioned the same man to me today, maybe I should read up on him?
There is the obsessive reading phase – Joe manages to read thousands of pages of Wilber’s writings over a few months. During this time Wilber’s words start to creep into the blog posts. The flavour goes from being “maybe this is one of those places where Wilber might work” to “Wilber would work here, too” to “OMG, Wilber was right!”
Defensive phase (this will continue through the next one as well) – “I like Wilber and, perhaps (later certainly) there’s something wrong with those who don’t.”
And then, on page 210, this: Joe is at a meeting with other readers of Wilber’s works.
As I sat among this motley crew, I began to experience something that I haven’t felt for a long while: a sense of belonging. It felt as if we were united by something I almost want to call a common creed. I need to be very careful about using a loaded phrase like that. I recently read a comment on the Integral Naked online forum from someone who said, “The integral movement is getting dangerously close to becoming a religion! Don’t you think we’ve had enough of those?” Gasp… a religion! Horror of horrors! Could anything be worse than that? ;-)
I don’t mean to imply that everyone at the coffee shop had identical opinions. However, I sensed we had a detailed, common framework for understanding and an overarching sense of agreement as to the value, meaning and purpose of our lives. We may have been Buddhists, Christians, Jews or atheists… who knows. But I imagine that we were brought together by a very general common vision of The Way Things Are, an attitude of openness to truth, a willingness to question and challenge all orthodoxies, and a conviction that living in accordance with our common vision is the heart of wisdom. If that’s the beginnings of a religion, then so be it.
I’ve side-lined the passage twice and in the margin I wrote “conversion”: “A “common creed” and ” a very general common vision of The Way Things Are” and “living in accordance with our common vision” is the very definition of “religion”. Not the “beginning” of one, but a full blown one.
That you’re convinced it’s the “heart of wisdom” is a sign of a new Orthodoxy…
Recently in the Orthodox Christian blogosphere a word has turned up, taken from Judaism: uberfrum meaning hyperpious. Over the top, really: fanatical. I tended to this form in Orthodox Christianity (which is why Orthodoxy didn’t work for me) just as I tended to this form in my “Tridentine Liturgy” phase. By Grace, I managed to avoid it in some other paths… For example, after 10 years of “ok”, only when I took a sharp right in paganism (into Aleister Crowley) did I become a Frum Pagan.
The following comment showed up on my Bible blog today:
The description of your apotropaic spiritual life sounds like a classic case of überfrommity to me. Given what you’ve written elsewhere about your previous leaps from the frying pan into the fire, is there perhaps an underlying condition which manifests itself differently according to your surroundings? That you identify yourself as a “church geek” seems like it might be significant…
To be honest, I worried that I was the only one so afflicted until recently. And I assumed that maybe “uberfrum” was a problem – for me – in all possible paths… I’ve met the uberfrum in Christianity, paganism, Mac users, whatever. But Joe’s book was the first time I read the making of one. The parallels were scary for me. It seems such enthusiasm leads directly to “The Dark Side”.
Speaking from my own journey through Orthodoxy, I know I’m not typical – but I am of a type. There were certainly other uberfrum Orthodox out there! We’re all online, it seems. So while I might expect someone to get a taste of Orthodoxy in my blog, I pray (now) that they might realise the error of my ways and, if there is something useful, they might follow that to their own living of God’s life in the Way of Jesus (”Orthodox” or not). Equally I know Joe doesn’t speak for “Integral Philosophy” but only as one man on that path.
I confess to not having a handle on Integral Philosophy: I confess to having a great deal of trouble in getting one. The goal seems to be uniting into one whole all systems, even ones that were hitherto seen as antithetical: the assumption begin that, really, all is one thing and we only need to stand far enough back to see it. Still, as when I read a lot of post-modern theory, my eyes start to just slide off the page no matter how interesting it starts out sounding or how drawn I might be to its OCD-style charts of charts of charts within systems of systems. It may be integral – but it doesn’t feel organic. It may be logical, but it’s not alive for me. Most of what I read doesn’t “witness with my spirit” as the Bible puts it: for rather than lift me up, it seems to want to classify me in a box or, to use their words, on a level far below the “right thinking” Integral people. A valid level, yes, and one that is an important part of the integral system, but not as high up as the really Integral folks, led by the author and exemplar of the faith.
I don’t need that kind of judgement levelled at me: I’m fully human. I’m not a very good Christian. I’m not even a very good gay activist. I’m a bad boyfriend sometimes. I don’t need to be told I’m not at all a well-evolved being: further down the rungs of the ladders than those fully integral folks. Such was often the message of “pity” I got at my Alma Mater, for whom even my avant-garde and theologically wild St Gregory of Nyssa Church was too Christian: nice you have a spirituality, it’s the wrong one… but you might grow up someday, we hope. Sadly, by saying such (I know from reading the book) I’m certain to warrant some pitying glances from those more-evolved souls who will simply say, “He couldn’t understand it so he made fun of it.” But I well understand religion – any religion at all – that says “we’re so much smarter/better/holier than you”. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. I made (and sold) the t-shirts. It does, in fact, lead to madness.
But how is it soulfully gay? Even as it became clear my questions, asked at the opening of this review, were not the questions joy was addressing, I learned from this reading.
It’s interesting to have read this journey so soon after finishing Sara Miles’ Take This Bread. She’s a lesbian, active in her community because of her growing commitment to the Life of God moving through her in the way of Jesus. Both writers document life-long spiritual journeys, drawing highlights to tell a specific story. Yet Sara’s seems to be one of surprise and wonder: of increasing love. Joe’s journey seems to be rather different, although sadly, I recognise more of my own journey in Joe’s than Sara’s. I’m going to work to be more like Sara. She seems the more soulfully gay.
