12 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE⠀⠀ May 21, 1999

books

Cast out by religion, gay men must reclaim spirituality

by Kaizaad Kotwal

Journeys into one's self are often painful and fraught with the dangers of exploring the uncharted territories of soul and psyche. But when the journey yields results, the spiritual awakenings are life transforming.

Christian de la Huerta has made these journeys part of his personal and professional life. Huerta, founder and director of Q-Spirit, an international network of gays and lesbians interested in spirituality, is also the host of Spiru Wave, an Internet radio program heard weekly at www.gaybc.com.

His recent book Coming Out Spiritually: The Next Step (Putnam, $14,95) is a result of not only his personal journey as a gay man but the collective journeys of gay people particularly in the age of AIDS.

Born in Havana, Cuba, the same year as the Castro revolution, Huerta and his family moved to the US when he was ten. They moved from Georgia to Miami where he attended the University of Miami before moving to Tulane University to graduate with a degree in psychology. At the age of 29, Huerta was living an enviable life in South Beach.

"I had a sports car, a nice-looking lover." Huerta explained during an interview from his home in San Francisco. "I was sought after professionally and socially, had a nice condo and the Armani suits. But there was a huge void in me so I gave much of what I have away. sold the condo and the car, and went on a spiritual journey."

This sojourn took Huerta to Hawaii, New Mexico and southern California. He eventually settled in San Francisco in 1991.

**I was in community relations within the health care profession," Huerta said, “and I soon became disillusioned. By the time I checked out of this planet I wanted to have more of a purpose. I had, from all outward

appearances, an enviable life, but I was lacking fulfillment.**

This journey for fulfillment wasn't the first such odyssey that Huerta was forced to take. As a gay man he had already traveled on that sometimes rocky road of coming to terms with being gay.

"I had always known that I was gay," Huerta said of his coming out to himself, "because my earliest attractions were to men, and by the time I was eleven or twelve I had a name for it.” Even though Huerta "was very sexually active as a teenager" he felt very alienated and had “an adolescence of depression, conflicted by sexuality with thoughts of becoming a priest.”

Huerta's family is Catholic, and he is one of nine children. When he was 18 or 19 years old he came out to his siblings, who were "totally supportive" and ten years later he came out to his parents who also showed him the same strength.

"I'm sure they wanted a different picture for me, but they loved me and my dad is a psychiatrist." Huerta explained about his relatively easy coming out to his family.

Huerta believes that AIDS "has forced all of us, regardless of our serostatus, to face our mortality and painful as that is, this is good for all of us because it has made us look deeper into who we are and why we are here.**

He is convinced that the gay community in the age of AIDS is much deeper and at a higher level within its own humanity.

The question that arises in the context of Huerta's work and his new book is, how does one convince gay men of the need for spirituality??

"Unfortunately when people hear the word spirituality they turn the other way and run," Huerta acknowledges, "and this is because they wrongly confuse religion with spirituality. It is totally understandable because as gay

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people we have been outcast, condemned and excommunicated by most of the religions of the world."

Christian de la Huerta

claims. Our discussion of the body is catapulted by my assertion that our youth-obsessed culture, straight and gay, may have a lot to gain from Huerta's arguments on reclaiming spirituality.

RAUL MIYAR

"But to reject one's spirituality is as ludicrous, and rejecting something as fundamental as our sexuality,” he concludes, Huerta insists that we have to "reclaim our spirituality because without it, we have been functioning incompletely."

He also is adamant that "we must reclaim this spiritual self in a more conscious way” and as a result "we will see our more destructive sides fall away and there will be a ripple effect that is not just beneficial to the individual and to the gay community but to the world at large."

Huerta's assertion that “our world is offkilter right now" is affirmed by the murder of Matthew Shepard, the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado and the countless events of mindless human destruction occurring every second of the day.

He is also astute enough to know that in order to reclaim one's spirituality he is not advocating "celibacy or a vow of poverty." I asked if gay men could have the perfect bodies, the sports cars, the pool parties and still seek spirituality.

"It's not a necessity to give up all of that," he said, "because you can have all the blessings and still have a spiritual life."

"I believe that the human body is truly beautiful and a miracle of creation," Huerta

"If we become obsessed with beauty and the body alone," Huerta expands, "then we are really limiting who we are as human beings. Without denigrating the body and in fact even by elevating the body, we shouldn't neglect the emotional and spiritual, because the inner beauty is longer lasting and closer to the true essence of who we are as humans," he said.

In fact, one of the main points of Huerta's book is that while coming out is very important for gay men and women, “coming in" is equally important. “Coming in" is not Huerta's way of pushing us back into our closets. Rather, it refers to us going within ourselves to "establish contact with who we really are as gay people and as humans."

What is also immensely appealing about Huerta's work is that we can be both sexual and spiritual. In fact, Huerta even goes so far as to say that the right type of sex is a way into deeper spirituality.

"They are not mutually exclusive," Huerta insists, "and it is crucial to reconcile the two because we will not achieve any integrity as whole human beings until we accept all parts of ourselves.”

Coming Out Spiritually is not only a wisely written book with valid affirmations about the human condition but is also a great compendium to help us achieve our better and best selves.

Huerta's book is valuable to both gays and lesbians. More importantly, Huerta embraces a variety of world religions and traditions to help people on their journeys inward. This use of many strains of spirituality is a powerful reminder that Christianity, Sufism, Islam, Taoism, Hinduism, Judaism, etc. are simply the different roads that lead to the same house of god or a greater force--the temple that is our body, mind and spirit. And the book offers many practical strategies and resources to help us on our way towards the innermost sanctuaries.

Author Mark Matousek said it best when he wrote of Huerta's book: "This book is Jerry Falwell's worst nightmare: an eloquent, comprehensive guide for gay men and lesbians ready to storm the holy banquet without apology or fear."

Christian de la Huerta will be appearing for a reading and signing at An Open Book in Columbus on Friday, May 28 at 8:00 p.m. Call 614-291-0080 for more information.

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