In this newly revised edition of Sexuality and Holy Longing, author Lisa Graham McMinn beautifully describes how people are created by God for relationship, and our sexuality guarantees that we will long for and be drawn toward others. McMinn provides a blueprint for understanding sexuality--and our longing to be loved--at all stages of life (childhood, teen years, early adulthood, midlife, and old age). In the context of faith and a changing culture, she explores sexual awakenings in adolescence, choices, opportunities and challenges of single people, and mysteries of committed covenantal relationships. She addresses tough topics, including reproductive issues, sexuality for those who are single (divorced, widowed, or never married), and in this new edition, LGBT issues and same-sex marriage. The author details practical solutions for ways that parents, educators, and churches can nurture others and ourselves in the quest to understand sexuality as a longing that draws us toward God and others, and to embrace it as a God-given gift. Thought-provoking study questions at the end of each chapter inspire readers to reflection and action in reclaiming our sexuality through grace.

In this newly revised edition of Sexuality and Holy Longing, author Lisa Graham McMinn beautifully describes how people are created by God for relationship, and our sexuality guarantees that we will long for and be drawn toward others. McMinn provides a blueprint for understanding sexuality--and our longing to be loved--at all stages of life (childhood, teen years, early adulthood, midlife, and old age). In the context of faith and a changing culture, she explores sexual awakenings in adolescence, choices, opportunities and challenges of single people, and mysteries of committed covenantal relationships. She addresses tough topics, including reproductive issues, sexuality for those who are single (divorced, widowed, or never married), and in this new edition, LGBT issues and same-sex marriage.The author details practical solutions for ways that parents, educators, and churches can nurture others and ourselves in the quest to understand sexuality as a longing that draws us toward God and others, and to embrace it as a God-given gift. Thought-provoking study questions at the end of each chapter inspire readers to reflection and action in reclaiming our sexuality through grace.

This powerful book shows how many Christians, including pastors, parents and leaders, have unwittingly absorbed many cultural ideas about sexuality that are not supported by the Bible. As people created by God for relationship, our sexuality guarantees that we will long for and be drawn toward others, McMinn provides a blueprint for understanding sexuality--and our longing to be loved-- at all stages of life (childhood, teen years, early adulthood, midlife, and old age), and addresses tough topics including sexuality for those who are single (divorced, widowed, or never married). She also details practical solutions for ways that parents, educators, and churches can nurture others and ourselves in the quest to understand sexuality as a longing that draws us toward God and others, and to embrace it as a God-given gift. Thought provoking study questions at the end of each chapter inspire us to action in reclaiming our sexuality through grace.

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.

Ronald Rolheiser makes sense of what is frequently a misunderstood word: spirituality. In posing the question "What is spirituality?" Father Rolheiser gets quickly to the heart of common difficulties with the subject, and shows through compelling anecdotes and personal examples how to channel that restlessness, that deep desire, into a healthy spirituality. This book is for those searching to understand what Christian spirituality means and how to apply it to their own lives. Rolheiser explains the nonnegotiables--the importance of community worship, the imperatives surrounding social action, the centrality of the Incarnation, the sustenance of the spiritual life--and how spirituality necessarily impacts every aspect of human experience. At the core of this readable, deeply revealing book is an explanation of God and the Church in a world that more often than not doubts the credibility of both.

Christian discourse on sexuality, spirituality, and ethics has continued to evolve since this book's first edition was published in 1994. This updated and expanded anthology featuring more than thirty contemporary essays includes more theologians and ethicists of color and addresses issues such as the intersection of race/racism and sexuality, transgender identity, same-sex marriage, and reproductive health and justice.

"Longing is the core of mystery. Longing itself brings the cure." Rumi In every tradition, saints and poets speak of the soul's search for the beloved, the seeker's yearning for the divine. This holy longing, a secret feeling with many disguises, leads us to pursue religious discipleship, spiritual practice, romantic union, or an ideal community. It guides us to timeless wisdom and transcendent experience. But it also can go awry, when we misplace it onto objects, such as food, alcohol, drugs, or sex, believing that they will satisfy our craving. Or when we misplace it onto an authoritarian personality, believing that he or she will meet our unmet needs. If this teacher or priest abuses power, we encounter the shadow side of spiritual life. Whether the abuse is sexual, financial, or emotional coercion, we may feel forsaken and lose faith, even in God. The Holy Longing tells the stories of teachers in many traditions Sufi poet Rumi, Hindu master Ramakrishna, Christian saint Catherine of Siena whose lives unfolded as they followed their longing. And it tells the tales of many ordinary people Catholic believers, students of Zen and TM, followers of Trungpa Rinpoche and Rajneesh and their encounters with spiritual shadow. Finally, it offers wise counsel for rekindling the flame of faith-moving through the shadow to the light by reclaiming sacred parts of the self that were lost along the way.