The Fire Within
Desire, Sexuality, Longing, and God
Published on 16. March 2021
112 pages
978-1-64060-667-8 (ISBN)
Description
For most religious people, the words God
and sex
never go together.
God is conceived of as holy, pure, sexless, and as morally above the raw desires that so powerfully beset us. Sex, on the other hand, is conceived of as earthy and unholy, something we must snatch, and not without guilt, from the gods. Christianity has struggled mightily with sex; so too have most other religions. And yet when we look at sexual desire and ask where it comes from, there can be only one answer. It comes from God.
This is a book on desire, its experience, its origins, its meaning, and how it might be generatively channeled. Sexuality is inside us to help lure us back to God, but dealing with this fire inside us is a lifelong struggle. Ron Rolheiser sheds light on this mystery and the journey it takes us on in these tantalizing fragments that help give us permission to feel what we feel and know that God is still smiling on us.
God is conceived of as holy, pure, sexless, and as morally above the raw desires that so powerfully beset us. Sex, on the other hand, is conceived of as earthy and unholy, something we must snatch, and not without guilt, from the gods. Christianity has struggled mightily with sex; so too have most other religions. And yet when we look at sexual desire and ask where it comes from, there can be only one answer. It comes from God.
This is a book on desire, its experience, its origins, its meaning, and how it might be generatively channeled. Sexuality is inside us to help lure us back to God, but dealing with this fire inside us is a lifelong struggle. Ron Rolheiser sheds light on this mystery and the journey it takes us on in these tantalizing fragments that help give us permission to feel what we feel and know that God is still smiling on us.
More details
Person
Ronald Rolheiser is a specialist in the fields of spirituality and systematic theology. He is president emeritus of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas, and is a full-time professor of spirituality there. His books, notably The Holy Longing, Sacred Fire, and Insane for the Light are popular throughout the English-speaking world. His recent books Domestic Monastery and Bruised and Wounded are bestsellers, and his weekly column is carried by many newspapers worldwide.
Content
Part One: Who We Are
1/ We Are Made for Longing
2/ Raw Desire
3/ Feeding off Sacred Fire
4/ Restless Hearts Yearn for God
5/ Caverns of Feeling
6/ Dark Memory
7/ Our Congenital Complexity
8/ Our Struggle with Grandiosity
9/ In Praise of Skin
Part Two: Applications
10/ Sex as Sacrament
11/ The Sacramentality of Everyday Life
12/ Understanding the Desert of Loneliness
13/ An Honest Anger
14/ Desire into Prayer
15/ Sexuality
16/ Re-imagining Chastity
17 / What Is Purity?
18 / Living with Feeling and Soul
19/ A Plea for the Soul
20 / What We Long For
1/ We Are Made for Longing
2/ Raw Desire
3/ Feeding off Sacred Fire
4/ Restless Hearts Yearn for God
5/ Caverns of Feeling
6/ Dark Memory
7/ Our Congenital Complexity
8/ Our Struggle with Grandiosity
9/ In Praise of Skin
Part Two: Applications
10/ Sex as Sacrament
11/ The Sacramentality of Everyday Life
12/ Understanding the Desert of Loneliness
13/ An Honest Anger
14/ Desire into Prayer
15/ Sexuality
16/ Re-imagining Chastity
17 / What Is Purity?
18 / Living with Feeling and Soul
19/ A Plea for the Soul
20 / What We Long For
