Everything You Need to Know About Sex in Order to Get to Heaven

Everything You Need to Know About Sex In Order to Get to Heaven
A Synopsis

The Title:

The above title is an eye catching twist on a best selling book that was written by David Rubin in the seventies. Woody Allen went on to make a movie based on the title which took lots of liberties with the text. My book connects human sexuality with human spirituality. While that connection is nothing new in literature, the way it is done in this book is very refreshing, creative, and humorous. Theres a good deal of pop theology of the sort we havent seen much from the mainstream. The title brings a smile to the face, and a curiosity as to what might lie under the covers. The title will appeal to many inside and outside the church. To my amazement church people seem to like it at least in my congregations. Most of the folks I know are impatient with the media frenzy and the churchs skittishness about sexuality and orientation. Even more gratifying, I have found the book to be of interest to the LGBT crowd in several colleges in Southwestern West Virginia and among my children and their friends, all of whom are 20 Somethings.

The Dedication:

In a departure from customary book dedications, Ive written a short chapter for my immediate family. Two of my children are gay, the middle child is a rebellious poet. My wife counts these as her blessings. So do I. Thus I dedicate my book to each of them. I think it important to go on record at the outset that my love for my children is unconditional. Still I let the reader know that I have some ambivalence about homosexuality as the whole culture does. This is a story of how a Priest who was brought up by a gay uncle and then who became the father of two gay kids can make peace within himself. The pilgrimage to that peace is what this book is all about.

The Introduction:

As a reader, I like to know what Im getting into when I open up a book. I try to give my readers some helpful handles to guide their way from chapter to chapter. I think that what I have produced here is a readable, interesting, and thought provoking treatment of a hot topic in the church and the culture. In point of fact my family and my church are a microcosm of what is tearing us apart as a nation. We are deeply divided over questions of personal morality while at the same time we look the other way when the weightier issues of justice that are staring us in the face. The introduction gives a good summary of what is to follow in the rest of the book. It is a well executed treatment of what confuses many people in the pews. Thus church people as well as the unchurched may very well be attracted to these pages since it makes sense of what confuses so many.

Just a Simple Parish Priest:

It makes sense to introduce myself to the reader. It seems especially appropriate to share the story of how I came to be a priest. The context of that call comes out of the experience of the loss of my dad at Christmas when I was a child. Tracing the events of that death, to a grandmothers love, to an experience of the reality of God, I invite the reader to consider how childhood becomes the parent to the adult; another familiar theme in literature. Still, as familiar as that theme is, it is a good hook to help the reader go on. What happens in this chapter is the use of the utterly ordinary to help the reader see God in the midst of the living and breathing of life itself. The question of heaven then arises and how to get my daddy there. Most of my readers find this some of my most compelling writing.

All I Want to Do is Get my Family to Heaven:

A father who frittered away his earnings and died godless for all we know, a mother with several divorces and an abortion, an uncle who is gay; how in the world do we get a crowd like that into hea