Sexuality

“[D. H. Lawrence] taught me what I believe is the only true solution to the problem [of sexuality], namely that sex is essentially a ‘holy’ instinct. It is not merely good in itself… but it is something ‘sacred.’ The evil of immorality in sex is not merely that of self-indulgence, but the profanation of something sacred, the desecration of a holy instinct which arises from the depths of our unconscious being and is the bearer of life or death. I think that Lawrence first made me begin to see that the evil of our civilization lay in this, that it had desecrated the sources of life. Primitive man might often be immoral and cruel and superstitious, but he retained a sense of ‘holy’; he was still in contact with the inner sources of life, and therefore there were beauty and dignity in his life. We, with all our science and reason and morality had lost this sense of the ‘holy’ and therefore all our works were ugly and our minds were sterile.”

Bede Griffiths