The White Crane Institute “promotes the study of the role of gay men, queer sexualities and gender variation and orientation in the evolution, psychology, sociology, and practice of spirituality, ritual, and religion,” primarily by publishing White Crane: The Journal of Gay Spirit, Wisdom & Culture. Unfortunately, most of us are not aware of our culture. As White Crane editors Bo Young and Dan Vera put it, “The most valuable asset taken from an oppressed people is their history. As a result, the GLBT community is a people constantly coming out of erasure.”

Because the publishing business is primarily a business, many good gay books invariably go out of print. That is why we welcome White Crane’s new Spirituality Series. “White Crane is pleased to enter into a partnership with Lethe Press to make classics of gay spirituality and culture available again to a new generation of readers. It is our hope that by making our rich history more widely and easily available, new generations can move beyond erasure, bigotry and hate and find their rightful role in the larger community of the world.” Thus far, Lethe and White Crane have published two books in this series.

TWO FLUTES PLAYING: A SPIRITUAL JOURNEYBOOK FOR GAY MEN by Andrew Ramer; with a Foreword by Mark Thompson; Lethe Press; 160 pages; $12.95. This series of essays on gay spiritual life began in 1980 as a series of small channeled pieces. It was first published in 1990 and then in 1997. In his Introduction to the current edition, author Andrew Ramer calls Two Flutes Playing “a book of love poems, a book of affirmations, a celebration of the love of one man for another, of a tribe of men for all other men.” Later in his book, Ramer writes that “we had many saints, many heroes, both female and male, but I want to speak here of the saints and heroes of the gay tribes. For this is a period of human history that has been lost through time, whose return is vitally needed. For you know the heroes of the other tribes. But of this small, sacred tribe, whose history has been obscured, you remember nothing.” Two Flutes Playing is not easy reading, for it “ambles and babbles off in strange directions. But if you are patient with it you will find that there’s an underground current, a spring of meaning, that runs through it.”

GAY SPIRIT: MYTH AND MEANING, edited by Mark Thompson; Lethe Press; 314 pages; $19.95. According to Mark Thompson, “the word gay should not be confused with homosexual....Gay implies a social identity and consciousness actively chosen, while homosexual refers to a specific form of sexuality.” What separates the gays from the homosexuals is a major theme of Thompson’s Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning. When Gay Spirit first appeared in 1987, it was this column’s “Book of the Year.” This new edition proves that this book is as relevant today as it was 18 years ago. Thompson, in his Introduction to the new edition, writes that “Gay Spirit is primarily a history book. A history of dreamers, perhaps, but also of lovers, families, doers, seers, and necessary friends.” Consisting of articles and book excerpts that originally appeared in the Advocate, Thompson and his fellow contributors try to answer the questions that the late Harry Hay first posed over 50 years ago: “Who are we? What have we come from? What are we here for? These are questions that the likes of Judy Grahn, Michael Bronski, Malcolm Boyd, Tobias Schneebaum, Geoff Mains and Thompson himself, just to name a few, proceed to answer in the pages of Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning.

GAY SPIRITUALITY: THE ROLE OF GAY IDENTITY IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS by Toby Johnson; Lethe Press; 276 pages; $16.95. For many years, Toby Johnson was publisher and editor of White Crane. While the Lethe Press edition of Johnson’s 2000 classic Gay Spirituality was first released a year ago, Lethe now plans to reissue it as part of the White Crane Spirituality Series. Like Ramer and the contributors to Gay Spirit, Johnson argues that “we as gay men have a special role to play in the evolution of consciousness. We are playing it through the various incarnations of the ‘Gay Spirituality Movement’ and, whether we mean to or not, by our very existence as self-identified gay people.” “There is an enlightenment that goes with being gay, an understanding of the real meaning and message of religion.” In Gay Spirituality, Johnson details our tribe’s unique contributions to the transformation of human consciousness.

Speaking of Spirituality . . . this week’s “FAVORITE BOOK” is by Rabbi Harold F. Caminker, D.D., the spiritual leader of Congregation Etz Chaim in Wilton Manors: “As the Jewish community observes Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur for the new Hebrew year 5766, I find myself reflecting on one of my favorite books, The Sunflower by famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. Sadly, the author died on September 20th at the age of 96. He was a survivor of 9 different concentration camps! In The Sunflower, Wiesenthal relates an experience he had while in one of those camps. He was taken to the bedside of a dying S.S. officer who needed to speak to a Jew. The Nazi confessed his involvement in an atrocity. He felt the need to confess this hideous act to a Jew, before dying. He wanted Wiesenthal to forgive him, so that he, the Nazi, could die in peace. Wiesenthal kept silent. His silence has been interpreted in many different ways. Did he actually forgive the dying S.S. officer, or not? The question is left as a haunting challenge to the reader.” If you, Dear Reader, have a favorite book you wish to share, e-mail me the title, author and a sentence or two explaining why you like the book (along with your name of course) to jessemonteagudo@aol.com. Subject: "Book Nook Favorite Book."

Jesse Monteagudo is a freelance writer and gay book lover who lives in South Florida with his life partner and many books. You may reach him at jessemonteagudo@aol.com.