20. Fragile, handle with care! Sexuality and Spirituality

Aim
To help the process of integrating our sexuality and spirituality

Focal Point
Images, pictures, postcards and photographs of children, women and men of all ages.

"That which God has joined together let …"
The leader can select from the following material:

• Invite people in a period of quiet to think about, reflect on and respond to the following questions:
  
• How do you define sexuality?
• How do you define spirituality?

Time of sharing

• What attitudes towards sexuality did you learn from your immediate family?
• What attitudes towards spirituality did you learn from your immediate family?

Time of sharing and exploring the positives and negatives

• If we affirm our sexuality as God-given, we might possibly describe it using words such as:

• If we affirm our spirituality as God-given, we might possibly describe it using words such as:

• What other words could we add?
• Discuss how these words together connect with our sexuality.

• What might this exercise say about the integration of our sexuality and spirituality?

Leader's introduction (Distribute copies)
From birth until death, women and men are both sexual and spiritual, for both are an integral part of what it is to be human; both are gifts through which we can glimpse God; both are personal and relational; both have to be lived out in the world we live in; both are the source of strong attractions; both offer deep insights; both attract the most sensitive of feelings; both bring out the fiercest of opinions; both have the potential to be creative and life-giving; both have the potential to be destructive and life-diminishing; both offer and invite inclusivity; both are often the source of cruel divisiveness. It would seem that to tiptoe into the arena of both is undoubtedly to be confronted with "mess, muddle and mystery".

• With a copy of the introduction as a handout, invite a time of reflection and then a sharing of responses.

• What we do not tell the youth group.

• Invite people to write down on slips of paper, without their name, the one question they think young people might be asking about sexuality and then spirituality. Gather the slips and redistribute, forming buzz groups of three or four to listen to the responses and discuss.
  
• How does an exercise like this feel?
• Is the Church addressing these issues? If so, how? If not, why? How could they be better addressed?
  
• Repeat the exercise, inviting people to write down on slips of paper, without their name, the one question they struggle with around the area of sexuality and then spirituality. Gather the slips and redistribute as before, raising the same questions.

Prayer exercise
Invite people, in a period of quiet, to pray out of these words (distribute copies):

• "The fullness of joy is to behold God's glory in everything" (Julian of Norwich)
• "God, lover of life, you whose imperishable spirit is in all." (Wisdom)

• Dreaming of Eden - Kathy Galloway (Wild Goose)
• Memories of Bliss - Jo Ind (SCM Press)
• Pleasure, Pain and Passion - Jim Cotter (Cairns)

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