Things I've overheard / seen in places which made me pause and go "Yup!"
"He's a really great drummer, he's like flying business class." "So what do you look for in a woman?" "Spiritual maturity. No selfies." "This conversation will get harder, before it gets simpler." "Does the way you communicate give value, or take value?" "Now that we know one another better I am gonna google you, ok?" "Well I don't know where YOU'RE from, but here at (name) (denomination) church of Tuscaloosa we don't DO WORSHIP." "If you're a leader and someone under you gives you critical feedback on your performance, anything LESS than a reward is a punishment." "Writer’s block is a writer’s best friend; it tells you you don’t know where you’re going…” "The whole concept of 'background music' makes no sense to me" "I’ve never met a cat with realistic expectations" "You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." "I'm not a tree hugger. I like to kiss them as well." "If I can be made to feel so low and insecure about myself from half an hour of magazine reading - I wonder how girls feel day-to-day" "I bought the world’s worst thesaurus yesterday. Not only is it terrible, it’s terrible." Alex: "Why is your Wed. night worship different from your Sun. morning worship?" Student: "Because the big people scare me." Churchgoers like idea of diversity. They just don’t like being around different people. "If you don't use your imagination, someone else will use it for you." "Even if they proved God didn't exist, I'd never be a New Atheist. They are THE equivalent to the modern white man. Oblivious as ever." "Religion is obsessed with rules. I'm obsessed with life. Jesus keeps opening my mind to new questions." If someone tells you, "you're sharp," and you think they're throwing you a compliment, then you might not be a musician. I had to write "denomination" in an email and I kid you not, it auto-corrected to "venom partner." IS THAT YOU GOD? Agnostics talk cheerfully of man's search for God but they might as well talk about the mouse's search for the cat. "Stop talking to me like I'm one of your girlfriends! I don't need empathy just tell me what to do!" - a male friend (I told him what to do) If Christianity needs to be “new,” it does not need to be Christian. "Her mind regarded truth as a reference point but certainly not as a shackle."
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("Give it a break" I hear you say. OK, I'll try make this the last spirituality post ... but no promises)
Last night I went to bed disturbed. I had gone to a dinner-speech-discussion (part of a provocative series named iDoubt) where the speaker attempted to draw lessons from the synergy of western and eastern religions: "Is the God of the east the same as the God of the west?" was the question. The cynic in me immediately answered "Duh, of course they're the same: money is money". Cynics aside, the evening was actually about spirituality. I'd thought I'd got that out of my system (see here and here), so maybe this thread is on a downward spiral (plus my apologies for the tortured title). The talk was, lets see, umm, "illogical"? I'm tempted to use more descriptive words but that would not be polite. The speaker made some statements that I fundamentally disagreed with - but that was not the problem, for I believe honest spirituality embraces challenges. The speaker also engaged in chronological snobbery, but that I can put up with. The speaker equated many ideas that are fundamentally contradictory - that irritated the scientist in me, but again no more than I get with some of my undergraduate students. These and other points from the speaker were NOT the reason I went to bed disturbed. I was disturbed because NOT ONE person in the audience challenged the thought processes. Not one person raised a question "But is that TRUE?" The open discussion that followed, if anything, ignored the foundations the speaker had tried to lay for his idea of spirituality - his view of a "spiritual believer" (although a believer in what was not specified). It seemed as if everyone simply accepted that spirituality is what an individual creates, no matter the internal contradictions. Instead, the discussion almost exclusively focused on what we should be doing to bring our "spirituality" to the people of the city; what programs and activities we could adopt (although there was one lone voice arguing - oddly - that we should become known as a community that cared for animals). Now I like animals, and I am concerned for the spirituality of the people in the city. But I need to say this: there is our expression of spirituality, there is the institutionalization of spirituality, and then there is the heart and motivation of our spirituality – it is at our peril that we mix these up. Secular spirituality, as I define the term, is when all the little nice pieces from different faiths are mixed up together like a tossed salad, with a sweet dressing added, and then offered as the "essence of faith" which says “God is in everything and everything is in God”, "exclusivity of faith is wrong", and that "where love is there can be no wrong". That is all fine and good if truth is relative. What if truth has a capital T? Truth-with-a-capital-T is what it is, independent of our opinion, likes or desires. Truth-with-a-capital-T is not defined by any human expression of spirituality, nor by the institutions of religions, these can at best only respond to Truth. Truth-with-a-capital-T, if it exists, is at the heart of our desire to be spiritual. Truth has no age, it either is or isn't. Whether someone said something true today, yesterday, or 4000 years ago makes no difference to Truth. And so we would expect that universal Truth has been known and talked about throughout the ages. A new Truth that is only being discovered today would be very strange and rare indeed. Yet is seems there are many who want to tell us they have "discovered" a new interpretation. Cods-wallop! Furthermore, Truth cannot self-contradict - for it would not then be true. Of course Truth can be a mystery - that simply means I don't understand it - but truth cannot contradict itself and still be truth. Yet religions contradict! And much of secular spirituality seriously contradicts itself. What we are missing in this spirituality debate is a much needed dose of orthodoxy. Now before you react to that word consider this: while Orthodoxy can be construed as conservatism, or traditionalism, at its core orthodoxy is being aligned with all that we understand to be true. Secular spirituality is focused inward on my spirit. Christian spirituality is also focused on me ... but only in the end. Christian spirituality begins with relationship, first with God and then with others, and the way I live my life is a direct consequence of the depth of this relationship. In this age the strongest relationship for most people is with themselves. Even relationship within community (let alone with God) takes a back seat to self love. No wonder society is a "me first" world - it's the preference driven life. Consider: my relationship with my spouse … if it is a weak relationship then I'm likely to express this by living for what I get out of our relationship, instead of expending my life in a love that prioritizes the interests of the other: In a weak relationship I'd show little evidence of being "bound" to another, I might even live a life of multiple (sexual) partners. Conversely a strong relationship would evidence a lifestyle that was integrated with another and be other-serving. And so we have church attendees who call themselves Christian but whose lives display little evidence (Donald Trump?), because their faith expression is a reflection of the depth of their God relationship. In this context the expression of my Christian spirituality is ALL about the strength of my relationship with Jesus. Not my relation with the institution, but my relation with God. Look at any Christian's behaviour, and you'll know how strong is their relationship with God without them having to say a word! Look at a secular spiritual person, and their spiritual expression when faced with a need to sacrifice self interest will quickly display how strongly they are bound to their own spirit (even though many may have quite a nice spirit!). I tell my students, "don't tell me what you believe, let me see how you live under pressure." People like Richard Rohr, Thomas Merton, and their ilk (including proponents of mysticism) are all in the paradigm of secular spirituality. If there is a capital-T-Truth, then their view is incompatible with Christian spirituality. Their position is only compatible with post-modern relativist "Christianity"; only if truth is relative can they claim any legitimacy. Now THE IMPORTANT BIT (for me): I said Christian spirituality ends with the individual: it ends on the individual whereas secular spirituality begins with the individual. What I mean is that Christian spirituality is the complete inverse of secular spirituality. The spirituality I'm talking of takes our fuzzy and damaged individuality – this corrupt version of what we were created to be – and surrenders it to the Christian God. Then God does a very surprising thing, he gives our individuality back to us, only better. We receive a fuller identity, we know better who we are, we grow into absolutely pure individuality, not subsumed but recreated in the purity of being ME. I become something that is more real, more individual, more created, very distinct from the creator but with my identity found in my relationship with the creator. Secular spirituality has situation-dependent values where truth becomes a shape shifter. But if what Jesus claims is True, then Truth is invariant and time cannot change the consequences. (What do they teach people now days?) My last post on Spirituality was long winded. If you ran it through a distillery, what would you get? What's the "elevator" version? What's the one-liner? "Spirituality: the surrender of self to God, as when lovers surrender self to each other and so find their true identity". 1. Spirituality means I acknowledge I have a spirit, that there are other spirits too, and that I'm more than my material parts. 2. There are levels to spirituality ... my self, self+God, self+God+others -- in relational terms perhaps these could be alternatively stated as incest with self, or an unequal relationship with another, or fully expressed as teamwork under a leader. 3. True relationship with others requires a (partial?) surrender of self and an abdication of power to dictate the full terms of interaction. 4. The world is full of people claiming they've found a "new understanding" of spirituality ... but for the most part they've simply rediscovered perspectives that have been talked about for thousands of years. Current expressions of new spirituality are mostly re-packaged combinations of the past, and at best express an ignorance of what’s already been said, or else show a deep chronological snobbery that conveys "people of the past understood less than I've discovered now". 5. The attraction of "new spirituality", especially the "love is all you need" version, can often be used as a smoke screen to avoid facing disturbing realities while promising an easy road to somewhere comfortable. Usually they imply a lot of "all you need to do is...", partnered with undue optimism of the outcome. Yet, if it is so easy for me to understand, why is it all only being discovered now? 6. Spirituality requires me to realize my spirit is but a tiny little spark in the face of incandescence - with all that this metaphor implies. Secular spirituality pushes me to become lost in the incandescence, Christian spirituality says "fly high on the currents of the incandescent one, shine like a star". In the end spirituality begins with a realization that there are far more important things than my material experiences, that my personal shortcomings are no hindrance, knowing that my life so far is only a blink before what lies ahead, and that God asks only for the surrender of lovers who surrender self to each other - without dictating the terms. Thus the critical questions to ask are: is there a God, can I relate to this God, does this God want to relate to me, what are this God's terms, and does a religion point to this God?
So I must choose, and choose wisely. For my spirit is made for a relationship where my full identity is found in communion with another, bound to another, surrendered to another. That's spirituality. Two recent posts (my church is sick & reactions to a sick church) elicited some comments and emails from friends and strangers alike. Common among these was a varied understanding of this word "Spirituality". So in response, this is an attempt to articulate some of the challenges posed by this word - what is spirituality? It's a bit long!
There are three parts to this: about the term "Spiritual"; what others tell us about being Spiritual; and a personal principle or two that I think fits facts, experience, and logic. A. Spirituality 150 years ago the term probably referred to someone who is religious. In our post-modern world it increasingly refers to non-affiliated thinking about one's spirit; about a hunger for something in addition to our material existence. Secular society is increasingly a spiritual society in this sense - but not in the sense of traditional religions. There is no shortage of speakers and authors stepping forward to put their spin on the emergence of spiritual living. It ranges from the superficial scratching of Oprah, all the way through to deep philosophers. Many of the writers emerge from religious backgrounds, but not all. Examples include Richard Rohr, Alan Watts, Rob Bell, Eckart Tolle, Cynthia Bourgeault, Byron Katie, Thomas Merton, and many, many more. This has been paralleled by a massive growth in courses, videos and spirituality institutes coupled with some "interesting" new monikers; like Nones, Dones, and SBNR (another link is here). Outside of the orthodox version of traditional faiths, contemporary spirituality seems to mostly be various forms of implicit gnosticism. This is nothing new, and gnostics have been around since the beginning of recorded history. This type of spirituality is now reflected in just about anything: paganism, Zen meditation, post-Christian thinking, mountain-top moments, etc., etc. The bottom line is that in our ever increasing materialism, with an ever-expanding marketplace of spiritual options, we are all yearning for moments of transcendence to satisfy the sense of unfulfilled lives that surfaces when we're being honest. "Love is all you need" is the refrain we hear shouted from the rooftops, and so we go searching for this love that is supposedly everywhere but which we never seem to find. We want, we demand our dose of transcendence - that's the secular expectation of spirituality - just like we want our TV. And if God is supposedly everywhere, why do we need to find him in church? That's a very good question indeed. But step back, consider, reason with me for a moment. What does "spiritual" mean. At a minimum, spirituality is acknowledging that I am more than my material existence (if you think we are simply the chemicals and compounds that make up our body, spirituality can only be an emotion at best). This acknowledgement is how spirituality has been secularized ... its the Oprah version. It is about me looking inside to find my transcendent self, riding on the mantra that I can be anything I set out to be if I only believe in myself. Its highly appealing: promising to satisfy (theoretically) and makes me feel good (if and when I find moments of transcendence); it has no/low barriers, requires little sacrifice, with no dependencies on anything external (how we love to be self-sufficient). This type of spirituality says all my spiritual needs can be found in inward reflection. But hang on, think about that. That is surely only a very shallow spirituality! Because that is a spirituality that settles for self. I don't know about you, but my own spirit is not something I'd like to settle for - it's not that great a spirit. I know my own spirit only too well, and it's not at all what I'd like it to be, in fact its got some downright ugly bits. Besides which, I am a relational creature, so settling for self is selling myself short. Ok then, what's the next level up of spirituality? The next step is of course to say "Well, I have a spirit, and my spirit yearns for the Great Spirit" ... or "God" to use shorthand. This is a spirituality where my spirit hungers for relationship with something greater and more pure. But this spirituality also claims "I can find and relate to God", which fails the test of logic. If God is God then a) how we relate to him is not defined by our choices, but by God, and b) it fails to answer the question of how my broken spirit can relate to a perfect God. For perfection is by definition both perfect justice and perfect love: frustratingly this little apparent paradox we often overlook in our desire for spirituality - where we think that love is all we need. How can perfect love overlook everything? If love is ALL we need, then child molesters, human traffickers, mass murderers, terrorists, organizers of genocide are logically all ok with God (not to mention the equally abhorrent back-stabbers, malicious liars, deceivers, adulterers, all-out greedy Wall Street money grabbers, and (some) investment advisers). For if love is all we need, and if God is love, then according to that logic this should be enough to clear anyone's slate, not so? Or so some would have us believe. Unfortunately that understanding simply does not fit a definition of love: a love that says there are no consequences is a "love" that necessarily gives me licence to do any sort of evil I like, because it says that in the end love is all I need, and that a loving God would never hold anyone to account but simply forgive it all away. Nope, that sort of weird love is not what we conventionally understand as the meaning of love. But perhaps "love is all we need" simply means I need to receive God's love and all will be ok. The problem is that one of the fundamentals of love is that it is a surrender; if I love someone I surrender my will to them, I don't love in order to get what I want. Yet sadly many (most? all?) of the current purveyors of the spirituality say that all I need is the private love relationship between me and God, and in this they are promoting that I do this for what I can get out of it, not about what I will need to surrender to receive love. This is not real love. What's missing then from this form of spirituality? Well, this spirituality is missing relationship with others. And so rationally the next level of spirituality is about our spirit in relationship with God and with others. It is also a spirituality that acknowledges I am not equal with God, that admits I am the lesser partner, and hence my relationship with God and with others has to be on God's terms, not mine! This is the spirituality claimed by orthodox Christianity. So quickly summarizing. Spirituality focused simply on my own spirit is shallow and unsatisfying. Spirituality between only myself and God (the type that says my spirituality is a private affair) is illogical if God is perfect love, because our actions have consequences for others. Also it is typically sold as the spirituality that gives me what I want, not a spirituality or surrender that love requires. But the spirituality that says bind me + God + others on God's terms (not my terms) - that's the fullness of what Spirituality could be. B. Some comment on what's being marketed out there What are the philosophers and thinkers of today saying? There are basically two streams. One begins from a position of denying that God exists and instead looks to syncretism - a blending of nice bits from traditional faiths - to seek the transcendence of self in a new experience. The other takes an orthodox faith and re-invents a new spirituality through a creative re-interpretation of selective elements, restructured and expanded in a way that they find more acceptable. Basically, if given enough time both streams ultimately converge (as they logically must) into an introspective and contemplative mysticism of one form or another that tries to put a palatable face on the realities around us. What about some examples? The "spiritual but without God" perspective is the domain of naturalism. There is a huge diversity of expression in this, as one would expect, for everyone is creating a personal spirituality that satisfies their preferences. In this we also find Buddhism (which could be argued is a do-it-yourself religion with no concept of grace, and essentially a form of atheism), along with atheists rationalizing a personal spirituality, and a host of conflicting thoughts emerging from spiritual philosophy. If I were to pick only two examples of the latter, both because I've recently been discussing them, I would point out Alan Watts and Eckhart Tolle. Watts was a provocative thinker who flirted seriously with Buddhism, then Christianity, and emerged from both into a mix of pantheism and/or paganism, along with a good dose of sex, drugs and drink along the way. Tolle was born Ulrich Leonard Tölle, but changed his name to Eckhart supposedly in homage to 13th century Meister Eckhart who was a complex writer, but paradoxically for Tolle was also a Godly man who once wrote "... you can rest assured that He [God] is immeasurably more devoted to you and He trusts you far more, for He is loyalty itself." Tolle teaches an appealing array of messages that are "the essence of all religions". To my reading, the writings of people such as these are the musings of individuals that, however well articulated, ultimately leads one into a form of nihilism, while along the way holding out the hope for the transcendence of ego as an evolutionary path to happiness and peace. Then we have the multitude of the other "new-spirituality" people who are "(re-)discovering" true spirituality. There is no shortage of these, and so I'll mention simply two that I encounter most often. Richard Rohr, an Anglican priest who lives on the edge of orthodoxy, and writes things such as "... every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us" - in my logic that's not a God, that describes a whimsical child who thinks Truth can be whatever they want it to be. Or there's Rob Bell who is currently on his "Everything is spiritual" speaking tour which he described at one event as being about "A bunch of the old stories that we used to rely on just aren’t working any more ... I want to take a stab at a new story.” I can tell stories too. But I want a story based on Truth, not my desire. Among all these spiritual "leaders" there are deep contradictions. Not all can be right, so who does one listen to? C: A principle or two that are important to me I strongly hold to the view that what people want is not necessarily what people need, nor what they should get (just think of children, teenagers, and actually if I think about it, quite a lot of adults too). Wants and desires are normal but they create pressures that if allowed, push us into places of narrow-mindedness and selfishness, places where we try to escape from uncomfortable truths, places of cowardice because it takes such courage to look reality in the face, and places where altruism, compassion and grace take the back seat. The sort of spirituality that is me-focused is a spirituality that hides me from having to admit a dependence on some sort of God. Consider: if God is God, then regardless of what I might get out of a spiritual relationship, God would be worthy of my undivided attention. If I am gazing at the Milky Way in the night sky on a moonless night, I'm going to be in deep admiration; not for what the Milky Way can give me but for what it is. That's a Truth I want to live by, and I start with acknowledging the immensity and awesomeness of God despite my circumstances. Then comes the necessary questions: can I know God, does God want to know me, and on what terms? Its so tempting to play the game of conditional relationships with God - you know, "If you do that I'll do this" - but conditional relationships are inherently about self interests, not about the other. As Chesterton wrote when he was brutally honest with himself "I did try to found a little heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.” I believe there are many "thinkers" of today who are consumed with trying to invent their own little heresy in the belief they've discovered something new. Instead, all they are finding is a distortion in the mirror of their own intellectual ego. Is there any evidence at all that we are growing more wise (not growing in knowledge, that is not the same thing). Are we any wiser than say, 3000 years ago? I believe not, for wisdom is not itself knowledge, wisdom begins with acknowledging Truth, and each person begins their life in total ignorance and has to find wisdom for themselves. For myself, I find fully satisfying the spirituality in orthodox Christianity: by which I DO NOT mean the hugely inadequate and disturbingly problematic institutions, but I mean the relationship with the person. (The best writer I know who has walked this path of exploration before me is Chesterton. Although his writing style is of an earlier generation, he gives a clear voice to truths of spirituality as can be seen in quotes, better yet in his essential writings, with full value in the originals.) |
Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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