Soulfully Gay: How Harvard, Sex, Drugs, and Integral Philosophy Drove Me Crazy and Brought Me Back to God

by Joe Pérez

Soulfully Gay is a personal memoir of an intellectually rigorous gay man wrestling with fundamental issues of meaning and self-acceptance. Joe Perez finds himself on a quest to understand what it... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590304187
• ISBN13: 9781590304181
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Shambhala
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Believing

Perez, Joe. "Soulfully Gay: How Harvard, Sex, Drugs, and Integral Philosophy Drove Me Crazy and Brought Me Back to God", Integral Books, 2007. Believing Amos Lassen and Literary Pride "Soulfully Gay" is a book filled with passion. It is intelligent and spiritual and open--wide open. Joe Perez is a man of courage who is not afraid to question his own spirituality, homosexuality, and himself. His analyses are filled with common sense and he bravely explores the literature of the spirit and gay love. Reading his book is taking his journey to self-examination and self-revelation. Perez carefully looks at the relationship between one's individual belief and the values of culture. He makes his own conclusions and then presents them to the reader to consider. The book is personal--a memoir of a man dealing with the fundamental issues of meaning and self-acceptance. By doing so he embarks on a quest to understand what it means to be gay and delves into the relationship between homosexuality and Christianity as well as skepticism and faith and madness and mysticism. He must also face himself and his own problems--of being a recovering addict, having had a nervous breakdown and living with AIDS. What he is able to do is to integrate successfully issues that are contradictory--being Catholic and gay as well as true mysticism versus delusions. He looks at political correctness through the gaze of theology. The book is about the experiences of one man but what he experiences is universal. The quest to be human is part of the majority of all of us and we have all struggled, at some tie, to understand ourselves in light of what we have been taught. Perez raises consciousness and he brings sexuality together with spirituality. His thoughts read like a journal and when he hurts, we hurt. He ultimately brings about a vision of the higher modes of awareness. As a non Christian, I found some of this hard to follow but when I reread certain passages, what Perez had to say became clear. I feel rewarded for having read this and hope that it will help me better to understand myself and others. We are all seeking that inner peace which seems so unattainable but that Perez has managed to find. I cannot think of a better way than reading this book to open yourself to spirituality--I did not say belief--which many of us so badly need.

What a gift!

One way to summarize this book is to say it is a compilation of blog entries written by a very intelligent, articulate gay man over a span of several years. They chronicle his spiritual evolution, as he finds his place on the map of humanity in its psycho-social-spiritual axis. This book is a great gift to all who will read it, particularly gaymen with an awareness of their spirituality. Thanks again, Joe.

A wonderful read

A wonderful read, highly recommended for those who wish to see a different perspective.