Before I went on a Roman pilgrimage with Christopher West, I thought I should delve into some recommended reading by Christopher West.
Too many religious text skirt around the topic of sexual desire. But this goes full-force. It doesn’t tiptoe around “sensitive topics,” but instead goes in the opposite direction: West shows not only that sex and desire are good, but how they’re part of God’s design.
Being raised with an abstinence-only education, it’s unsettling to think about sex at all—never mind thinking of the God of Creation in such a way. But sex is a bodily metaphor for spiritual love, the kind of love He wants to share with His creation. Not just with humanity, either. In the beginning, God poured himself into the world and gave birth to all of life itself.
What struck me most is a focus, over and over again, on feeling. For much of my spiritual life, I was instructed to repress. The “starvation” diet, as the book calls it. Don’t feel. Don’t fall to anger. Don’t feel desire. But that’s not healthy, nor is it normal. God gave us emotions, and urges. There’s no fault in feeling, but rather in the way we’ve misdirected its application. When we try to fulfill our desires with temporary, worldly matters, it fails. This is the most basic of Christian teaching, but there’s more to it than “Turn your eyes upon God.” He doesn’t want just the happy, loving parts of our lives. Like human relationships, this causes an incomplete and dishonest connection. He wants all of us—we are to desire Him with all our being, in all our anger and sexuality and fear and frustration. You don’t give a spouse just the good things, so why wouldn’t you extend that same respect to the God of Creation?
“Our bodies are designed to make visible what is invisible, the spiritual and the divine.”
This book is a fairly quick read, and obviously a “starter” for a much larger topic. There’s an entire institute dedicated to this Theology of the Body, and many more books that delve deeper into its understanding. But this is a good place to start. Especially for those who may feel a little squeamish with the idea at first.
