Sex stimulates imagination and touches the soul

For National Catholic Reporter, Rich Heffern blogs "Human sexuality — a great and holy mystery" in which he shows spiritual aspects of sexuality after contrasting liberal views of sex with fundamentalism. He suggests writers such as Thomas Moore, Sarah van Gelder, Fr. Diarmuid O’Murchu, Fr. Richard Rohr, Joan Timmerman, and Sam Keen explore how sexuality is a feature of our humanity:

"To say that sexuality is just an animal instinct, an obstacle to holiness, is to say that sexuality has nothing to do with our humanity. But in fact our sexuality is an integral part of our personal and interpersonal identities. From childhood it looms large in our lives, and we must deal with it one way or the other. Thomas Moore, in his best-selling book The Soul of Sex, writes:

"We have a habit of talking about sexuality as merely physical, yet nothing has more soul. Sex takes us into the world of intense passions, sensual touch, exciting fantasies, many levels of meaning and subtle emotions. It makes the imagination come alive with fantasy, reverie and memory. Even if the sex is loveless, empty or manipulative, still it has strong repercussions in the soul, and even bad sexual experiences leave lasting, haunting impressions.”

There is an ancient wisdom, even within the Judeo-Christian tradition, that maintains that sexuality is primarily spiritual, possibly the single greatest source of spiritual vitality in the human psyche. Sexuality is a mode of interaction with divinity."

Heffern mentions the Biblical Song of Songs and writings by St. John of the Cross.