Centering Prayer and Sexual Thoughts

 

Q: My experience with Centering Prayer in the last few years is that often when I sit down and close my eyes,  sexual thoughts and images come in that very moment. Since it has been going on for years I am becoming suspicious that I must be doing something wrong. Since I don’t repress these thoughts, sometimes I am just sitting there thinking about sex because I don’t want to strengthen them. But sometimes I wonder if it is a prayer at all, especially because I have never experienced the unloading of the unconscious. In the first few years sometimes it was hard to sit for the whole 25-30 minutes session but for several years it is a kind of a relief for me to being able to sit there for 2×30 minutes. Is it normal? Should not it be harder?

A: Thank you for your courage and honesty in asking this important question.

I want to affirm your experience of the prayer. It sounds like your practice is sound. You are not repressing your thoughts; you are allowing them to be there without focusing on them. Centering Prayer is a prayer even when it doesn’t feel like it because of your intention to be there in prayer.  For the time being, you can enjoy the gift that you are finding the practice less difficult, but be ready for it to become difficult again!

You say you have never experienced the unloading, but anyone who practices as long and consistently as you have is sure to have experienced it and the sexual thoughts you are having represent one form that the unloading might take.

There is so much shame in our culture around sexuality, but God created us and saw that we are good and feels tenderness and love for our sexual selves. Many of us have experienced sexual shame or sexual abuse that needs to be healed and unloading of sexual content may be a part of that healing process.

Mystics of many faith traditions have found that there is no better metaphor to describe the longing for oneness with the Divine than sexual experience, and the biblical Song of Songs uses sexual imagery to celebrate human love and the intimacy between human beings in God. Teresa of Avila is one of many mystics who uses the language of ecstatic embrace in her spiritual writings. Perhaps God is using sexual imagery to draw you closer in an intimate embrace. You don’t need to understand what is happening. Just continue to give yourself to the prayer as you are doing and allow it to transform you.

Many people think of the Christian tradition as disapproving and judgmental towards sex. Yet Jesus had very little to say about sexuality as distinct from the love of one’s neighbor.  He never forbade any form of sexual activity other than adultery.  The influence of Augustine and other church fathers with ascetical personal attitudes towards sexuality has created a tradition of sexual repression and a false impression that Christian theology forbids any kind of sexual pleasure.

We have a responsibility to treat the potentially dangerous vitality of our sexual urges with appropriate caution.  Yet our sexual energy, when used rightly, can lead us into greater fullness of being and deeper intimacy with the Divine. Mystics affirm the deep affinity between erotic and sacred longings and celebrate their goodness before God. They teach us that our sexual feelings can provide us with a model of how to surrender ourselves spiritually.

You might find it helpful and supportive to practice regularly with other Centering Prayer practitioners, and you can find a wonderful and rich network of online groups in many countries and time zones at the Meditation Chapel.

Again, thank you for your question, which gives us an opportunity to discuss something that is not spoken of enough. May the Spirit support and guide us as we gather all of ourselves, including our sexuality, into a loving relationship with the Divine, resulting in fruits of greater aliveness and wholeness of being.

Warm regards,

Lindsay Boyer