The most constant reminder to us of our homosexuality is being attracted to certain of the men we meet in the routine activities of our lives and seeking to recognize in them both reciprocal interest and a mutual experience of being attracted to other men. We look for gay men around us and are generally aware of them when we see them. And we look for men we find attractive in order, at least, to experience the joy of beholding male beauty. Indeed, we live in a web of desires, hopes, expectations, judgments, and self-judgments--all revolving around being attracted to other men.

One can relegate this experience to the purely biological and psychological. But it sometimes feels like there is so much more to it. It seems magical. How do we recognize each other? Is this telepathic? Are we seeing something in the others' auras? And what is the source of the joy we feel in beholding male beauty? It can seem to hint at something profound about the nature of consciousness itself. Is it inherent divinity we recognize in one another? And are we thereby reminded of our true spiritual nature? That's the subject matter of this issue of White Crane Journal.

You'll notice a touch of imagery from the Tarot. Divination oracles are based on the intuition that there is a complex interaction of patterns of meaning underlying experience. Gaydar itself is such an oracular phenomenon: it's about discovering patterns, and out of those patterns finding--and creating--spiritual destiny. In the following pages, there're some very interesting, as well as entertaining, pieces about that destiny. Christopher Penczak offers some wise advice about falling in love from his book Gay Witchcraft. Daniel Helminiak gives us a profoundly orthodox, and delightfully outrageous, analysis of Catholic doctrine to show that heaven just might be a never-ending orgasm. Patrick McNamara calls us to fulfill our gay attraction to one another by organizing the gay spirit movement. Mo Hanan reminds us of the power of exchanging glances. Marty Smith contributes a cute fairy tale with a marvelously gay and compassionate twist on the three wishes motif. We'll read about finding and giving true love, acting like a diva, and wrestling with angels. Bill Weintraub calls us to reconsider promiscuity. And there are lots of book reviews--all revealing a spiritual side of gay sexuality.

In 1963, after graduating from high school, I went off to novitiate in rural Wisconsin with the Brothers of Mary. One fall afternoon--to this day I remember the moment vividly!--I was assigned to help unload a truck parked behind the refectory. I went out to find a load of bushel baskets of apples being unloaded by a young man in blue jeans. He was about my age, of medium height and slender build, with close cropped blond hair and light blue eyes. Neither of us spoke (the novitiate practiced monastic silence), but our eyes met. Something ineffable passed between us, a recognition of mutuality. It is hardly exaggeration to say that his eyes glowed. My heart was filled with joy. And helping him unload the baskets was light work.

I knew that I saw into his soul and recognized kinship. I knew--in some very pious way--that we "loved one another." At the time, I understood that what I'd recognized was that he was also a seminarian, like me a young man with earnest intention and good will. I was not surprised when later it was announced we were having pie for dessert because the nearby Christian Brothers novitiate had sent over a gift of apples.

Of course, this was an experience of gaydar. The young Christian Brother was a homosexual, and I was a homosexual, though neither of us would have understood that then. We'd experienced something spiritual. For gaydar is about something deeper than just sexual attraction, and male beauty is about something more than just biological reproductive strategies.

With this issue, I am completing my seven year term as editor of White Crane Journal. The topic of Attraction seems an appropriate way to commemorate that first experience of mine of "gaydar," when I inchoately discovered the spiritual roots of the webs of recognition and attraction. My effort over these seven years has been to communicate this sense that being gay is more than just sexual, for it also reaches deep into the so-called "spiritual" roots of personality and of the soul.

"Gaydar" works both ways: it is not just receiving, it is also sending. For the sake of our own joy, and of the mutual joy of those around us, we should want those energies, those "vibes," radiating from us to be good vibes, loving vibes, vibes of pleasure and joy and beauty.

I am grateful to the subscribers to White Crane for giving me the opportunity to celebrate and spread our mutual good gay vibes these past seven years.

And I'm excited for Bo Young and Dan Vera who'll be taking over my job. They'll bring new enthusiasm and new vibes to this project in gay men's spirituality started some 14 years ago by Bob Barzan (another one-time seminarian with eyes that glowed). I pray the subscribers continue to support the next generation of White Crane Journal. And I pray you enjoy this issue.