The Practice of Spirituality by Kenneth W. Phifer Spirituality is a confusing word. It is a kind of code word for what is right or wrong with us usually, the elusive something that we want or need and do not have. It is, as Ann Tyndall has remarked in her series on spirituality, "the ideal, inchoate, something more" in our lives that we yearn for, sometimes desperately, but cannot define. Mark Belletini, who is the UU minister in Hayward, California, and a member of the faculty at Starr King, has written a wonderful summary of the many variations that he--and I and probably every UU minister and undoubtedly a good many lay folk as well--have heard since the mid-1980's about what spirituality really means. In congregations I have served or visited, I have often heard assertions like "We want more spirituality in our services." I also hear: "What's all this spirituality baloney? I thought we grew up and away from that nonsense." I never quite know what's being invited or damned. That's because when I interview folk as to what they mean by this word (that was once a simple Catholic word referring merely to religious practice as opposed to religious belief) I get many answers. Here they are: 1. Spirituality is the unashamed use of God/Goddess/Spirit talk in services as opposed to stated reluctance to use such terms. I hear this frequently. It may be just the best, latest and most wearying disguise of that great old "Theist/Humanist" debate, the Free Religious/Unitarian debate, Universalist "no Hell/temporary Hell" debate etc. 2. Spirituality is the mysterious word in the sentence "I'm not religious but I'm spiritual." I think this can mean either "I think all institutional religion is suspect or even evil, but I enjoy feeling a sense of awe beneath the stars by myself," or "Institutional religion bores me, does not engage me, leaves me cold, and I have had to find a 12-step group, a Course in Miracles group or some other non- church group in order to fulfill my spiritual needs." This is one I've heard frequently. 3. Spirituality is the equivalent of accepting Christ as Lord and Savior, usually remembered as a disagreeable, embarrassing event. I heard one woman voice this interpretation after hearing one of Scott Alexander's "Evangelism" workshops. She was sure this is what he meant. (It was not.) 4. Spirituality is talk about the immortal human soul, or about the transient in relationship to the eternal. One woman I know left the San Francisco church because it wasn't "spiritual" enough. That is, Diane Miller and I did not address reincarnation, life after death, and the diamond durability and preciousness of the human soul, understood as an eternal distinct Self. 5. Spirituality is a code word for deeply felt emotion. To want more spirituality in services is to want to feel more in services...feelings of connection, transport, relief, absolution, belonging, contentment, joy and the chills. This is often used in contrast to the word "intellectual" which is a code word for "unfeeling and drearily rationalistic." I often hear this in smaller fellowships that once had talks by local sanitation workers on landfill issues, but now want "spiritual" topics. "Spiritual" in this case still very often seems non-theistic. Sometimes it's a code word for "We shouldn't have been talking about landfill in the first place." 6. Spirituality is a word for the use of historic, altered or freshly created religious/psychological artforms in our congregations...prayers, litanies, guided meditations, special holidays, water ceremonies, flower rites, liturgical dance, bells, sacraments, vestments, candles, communions, in short, everything sensual and colorful, every time syncopated and rhythmic. This is one of its most frequent meanings, as far as I can tell, both for the inviters and the damners. 7. Spirituality is the code word for respecting silence, relinquishment, letting go, and the attitude, often associated with Zen, contemplative Christian and certain kinds of humanism, that most if not all human religious assertions are just expression of hubris and thus empty, unreliable, or even silly. Only a few say this, but its very important for them, I think. 8. Spirituality has to do with telling stories and using myths in services instead of talking prosaicly about doctrines, teachings, common history and abstract ideas. I hear this very frequently. 9. Spirituality has to do with everything lumped into the category New Age: i.e. crystals, guardian angles, entities, various divinations, magicks etc. This is a meaning given this word by a small portion of UU's but I have certainly heard this more than once. 10. Spirituality means letting oneself go with the music without regard to the meaning or semantics of the words. It means concentrating on the uplift and deep interior and unvoiced power released by great choral and instrumental music without regard to whether there "really is" an Agnus Dei, a Lamb of God, or not. Mark's response is to give up using the word as much as possible. Rather, he says, he is trying "to say exactly what I mean about emotion, ritual, story, color, or silence without sidetracking onto a word that seems to communicate only sporadically." I find myself going in the opposite direction, a not uncommon experience for me, or for that matter, for UU ministers in general. We always seem to be moving, shuffling theologically this way or that, ambling conceptually in yet another direction, passing one another as we journey along. It is often confusing, but I would choose no other calling and no other religious community within which to live out that calling. Probably no other religious community would let me! We are all trying to learn and grow and find deeper means of expressing the inexpressible. One thing we know is that standing pat with where we have been will teach us nothing. Like the old story of the Universalist preacher who was asked where Universalists stand and who responded, "we do not stand, we move," UU ministers keep moving. We're always out there truckin'. For many years I avoided the word, spiritual. It called up unpleasant, pietistic images from my childhood in the south where being spiritual meant being falsely pious, ostentatiously good, moralistic to a fault. Largely because so many people have begun using the word, and using it in ways that I can be comfortable with or that challenge me in positive ways or inspire me in important directions, I have begun to find ways of using the word without having bad memories overwhelm its richer connotations. When I use the word I am thinking of spiritual as being something profoundly human and profoundly important. It is arguably our most human trait--and apparently uniquely so--to need for life to have some kind of meaning, some sense of worth, some structure--even if it is chaos-- that makes what we do and say and feel matter, maybe not ultimately, but at least within some context of experience. I have always called this the religious dimension, but now I use both the word religious and the word spiritual. Either one points to the same reality, the same human aspect. Khoren Arisian, the long-time Humanist leader and currently minister of the church that John Dietrich served for so many decades, puts it very nicely. I'm convinced....that we are a spiritually predisposed species....I believe that as sentient beings we generate such spirituality as there is from within ourselves and that--as Fueurbach, the nineteenth-century philosopher, would have put it-- we may then choose to project such feeling outward and objectify it. What's real is the primary experience; the objectification of it is symbolism. Like Arisian, I am a disciple of Fueurbach and before him Spinoza. My interpretation of the "primary experience" is that it comes only within: within our own selves, within the species of which we are a part, within the overarching reality that is nature or the universe. There is nothing external to this reality, no Super Nature. But whether my interpretation or that of a supernaturalist Christian or any other view is correct--and probably none of them is fully so--the most important thing is that all humanity is involved in spirituality. We just experience it differently, describe it differently, react to it differently, think about it differently. And as long as we don't get in each other's way as we go about living the truth of our interpretation of the "primary experience" of spirituality, such variation is both to be expected and to be praised. It gives each of us the chance to be uniquely who we are. My own spiritual journey has led me along a path that has included a primitive kind of conservative Christianity, a vague sort of theism, a deep sense of connection to the Jewish experience, a resonance with the Quaker idea of God within each of us, a brief fling with atheism, a spell of believing they have randomly come into and be sustained in existence, a longer spell of seeing a world created by some Force that remains completely hidden from and uninterested in us. This last described view--a kind of Deism--has been modified in recent years by an awareness that we live in a universe that apparently wants us to pay attention. We are so designed or evolved as a life form that curiosity is a vital and necessary feature of who we are. Not only curiosity, which leads us to look at and explore the way things are and how they came to be, but also contemplation, looking and appreciating and enjoying. I am hardly the only person who likes to look at a beautiful sunset, the fall foliage, the first buds of spring, or listen to the sound of a waterfall or a robin singing or the whisper of the wind in tall grass, or smell honeysuckle or good rich earth. We like to look at each other, to see one another dressed in fancy clothes, quaint hats, interesting socks, and yes, to see each other naked. The universe in all its manifestations calls upon us to look, to listen, to smell, to touch, to contemplate, to enjoy, to reflect upon, to notice, to pay attention to and to participate in, to take action, even to challenge. This is the kind of world we live in. It is the kind of creatures we are. The world keeps saying to us: Observe, Act, and we keep doing just that. Evelyn Underhill, a 20th century mystic wrote something that I like. He described a spiritual attitude as the ability "to look with the eyes of love," no matter what it is we gaze upon-- and I am sure he would have said to listen and smell and touch with love as well. This attitude, Underhill suggested, was an attitude of complete humility and receptiveness. When we do not look at another person or another object in order to evaluate, to criticize, to analyze but just to see, then, Underhill taught us, we see them for their sakes and not for our own, more nearly as they truly are than what we want to make of them. Thomas Merton expressed the same thing in almost the same words: "Love the world," he said, and he tried to do that, both as a contemplative and as someone deeply sensitive to the fact that others would read and be influenced by what he wrote. It is by some such approach as this that it becomes possible to develop a faith in life like that of Nat Lauriat, who remarked that after 50 years in the ministry he could boil down his faith to what he regards as an irrefutable proposition that "good is possible." Only if we look with the eyes love, only if we love the world, can we possibly declare that good is possible, or care whether it is, or act on the possibility. Looking "with the eyes of love," (loving the world) is fundamental to spirituality. How do we do this? I think we have to practice. To practice is to do something over and over and over until we get it right, like learning a new composition on the piano or a new step in aerobics or how to do flash sessions and surf the net on a computer, or even carrying out the duties of one's profession as a doctor or lawyer, in both of which it is said one practices. Contemplate & Act. Some regard these as being at odds with each other. I agree with Parker Palmer that "contemplation and action are not contradictions, but poles of a great paradox that can and must be held together." Like most other things in life, there will be some of us who are drawn to one extreme or the other. I have known people who get antsy if they are not doing something every minute. Many of us will find ourselves in need of stillness and busyness. What is important is that we not dismiss the opposite pole from the one where we feel most comfortable, that we go on recognizing that whatever may be our spiritual way or our spiritual way of the moment, there is another way of going about life. Contemplation and action are not at war with each other. They are different ways of loving the world. My own sense is that most of us most of the time need to keep aware of both poles and to practice them as we are able. I see the need for contemplation, whatever the form it may take and there are many, as that which enables us to see, to better understand who we are and what our place is in the scheme of things, what false paths we may be pursuing, what good deeds we may have passed up, what joy and beauty we may have missed and what goodness we have been a part of and been responsible for. We need time to just reflect. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that, The simple habit of sitting alone occasionally to explore what facts of moment lie in the memory may have the effect in some more favored hour to open to the student the kingdom of spiritual nature. He may become aware that there around him roll new at this moment and inexhaustible the waters of Life; that the world he has lived in so heedless, so gross, is illumined with meaning, that every fact is magical; every atom alive, and he is the heir of it all. This is not an awareness that can come if every moment of our days is filled with busyness and activity. The Tibetan spiritual leader, Sogyal Rinpoche, has criticized western society for drawing us away from the contemplation of the truths of existence. "The pace of our lives," he writes, ...is so hectic that the last thing we have time to think of is death. We smother our secret fears of impermanence by surrounding ourselves with more and more goods, more and more things, more and more comforts, only to find ourselves their slaves. It is not merely death that we avoid thinking of till it comes into our midst. It is also goodness and beauty and joy and love. The world is "illuminated with meaning", but we have to pause, ponder, take in this meaning. Instead we are endlessly busy answering and generating messages by beeper, voice mail, e-mail, and cellular phone; endlessly buying and selling in the world's most over-produced economy; endlessly racing from one appointment to another as though time were of the essence and more important than life itself. All the great religious leaders of humanity have taught and lived a life of sometime contemplation. Moses went into the wilderness, and later up on a mountain. Jesus went aside to pray. Mohammed went into a cave and Buddha sat under the Bo tree. There is a time for sitting alone and just letting our thoughts and feelings calm down, letting deeper voices within us speak to us, giving ourselves the space to see what our lives are about, time to consider, to reflect, to contemplate without action. And there is a time when we must take action, when sitting still is not enough, when the very meaning we have glimpsed is betrayed by our unwillingness to act on it, to further it, to share it with others. Alison Boden, the new chaplain at the University of Chicago, wrote that "the moral test of spirituality is justice. I challenge students with that. The primary test for religion is not about feeling good about yourself. It's about being good, which means doing good." Rosemary Radford Rueuther, the Catholic Feminist theologian who spoke at our recent General Assembly, said on that occasion that "we need to knit justice and spirituality together." If all we do is contemplate, we only have half of what spirituality really means. Moses went off into the wilderness, spoke with and listened to the burning bush, and then, at risk of his life, returned to Egypt to lead his people out of slavery. Jesus came down from the hillside to face the greatest trial of his life, his arrest and interrogation and ultimately crucifixion. Mohammed became not only his people's spiritual leader but their political and military leader as well. The Buddha, once enlightened, spent the remainder of his long life travelling about sharing his awakening. In our own time I think of Dorothy Day, who after her conversion to Roman Catholicism spent many hours every day in agonized contemplation, but she spent more hours out on the streets of New York helping the homeless and the hungry and the hurt. Or consider the Dalai Lama, whose role is both to exemplify the contemplative, spiritual life and also to be his people's political leader. America's greatest moral leader of this century, Martin Luther King, Jr., was a man of quiet contemplation, of prayer and study, and yet equally much a man of action, of the streets and the barricades, a man who confronted directly the political and economic challenges of the day. These were, of course, all people of unusual stature and discipline. So often we find it easy to dismiss their example by assuming that we could never be like them. Of course, we couldn't, but then we are not expected to be. The Hasidic tradition teaches that when judgment day comes, we shall not be asked why we were not like Mother Teresa or Albert Scheweitzer. We shall be asked simply, why were you not more like your own self? I like something John Garvey said, when asked which was the best technique for developing a strong spirituality. "Do what you are doing," is what he said, meaning that we should not disparage our own capabilities or dwell too long on our own failures, or look for special techniques. Do what we are doing, perhaps tomorrow do a little bit more, and just keep at it. We do not have to be bright moral stars or internationally known celebrities to do good, to make spirituality live in the world. We just have to do what we can. I read a story a few days ago that illustrates the power of doing what we can A teacher in New York decided to honor each of her seniors in high school by telling them the difference they each made. Using a process developed by Helice Bridges of Del Mar, California, she called each student to the front of the class, one at a time. First she told them how the student made a difference to her and the class. Then she presented each of them with a blue ribbon imprinted with gold letters which read, "Who I Am Makes a Difference." Afterwards the teacher decided to do a class project to see what kind of impact recognition would have on a community. She gave each of the students three more ribbons and instructed them to go out and spread this acknowledgement ceremony. Then they were to follow up on the results, see who honored whom and report back to the class in about a week. One of the boys in the class went to a junior executive in a nearby company and honored him for helping him with his career planning. He gave him a blue ribbon and put it on his shirt. Then he gave him two extra ribbons, and said, "We're doing a class project on recognition, and we'd like you to go out, find somebody to honor, give them a blue ribbon, then give them the extra blue ribbon so they can acknowledge a third person to keep this acknowledgement ceremony going. Then please report back to me and tell me what happened." Later that day the junior executive went in to see his boss, who had been noted, by the way, as being kind of a grouchy fellow. He sat his boss down and he told him that he deeply admired him for being a creative genius. The boss seemed very surprised. The junior executive asked him if he would accept the gift of the blue ribbon and would he give him permission to put it on him. His surprised boss said, "Well, sure." The junior executive took the blue ribbon and placed it right on his boss's jacket above his heart. As he gave him the last extra ribbon, he said, "Would you do me a favor? Would you take this extra ribbon and pass it on by honoring someone else? The young boy who first gave me the ribbons is doing a project in school and we want to keep this recognition ceremony going and find out how it affects people." That night the boss came home to his 14-year-old son and sat him down. He said, "The most incredible thing happened to me today. I was in my office and one of the junior executives came in and told me he admired me and gave me a blue ribbon for being a creative genius. Imagine. He thinks I'm a creative genius. Then he put this blue ribbon that says 'Who I Am Makes a Difference' on my jacket above my heart. He gave me an extra ribbon and asked me to find somebody else to honor. As I was driving home tonight, I started thinking about whom I would honor with this ribbon and I thought about you. I want to honor you. "My days are really hectic and when I come home I don't pay a lot of attention to you. Sometimes I scream at you for not getting good enough grades in school and for your bedroom being a mess, but somehow tonight, I just wanted to sit here and, well, just let you know that you do make a difference to me. Besides your mother, you are the most important person in my life. You're a great kid and I love you!" The startled boy started to sob and sob, and he couldn't stop crying. His whole body shook. He looked up at his father and said through his tears, "I was planning on committing suicide tomorrow, Dad, because I didn't think you loved me. Now I don't need to." Helice Bridges All because a teacher did what she had been doing, teaching, seeing the worth of each of her students, spreading a sense of her own delight in life. That's a beautiful practice of spirituality. Contemplate and act. If we would be good observers, we must develop a discipline. If we would act for justice, we must be prepared to hold fast to our commitments despite the inevitable discouragements. The practice of spirituality, of contemplation and action, will not make us perfect. But the more we practice, the better we shall be at both contemplating and acting. The better we are, the better the world will be. When we look--and act--with the eyes--and a heart full--of love, we make real the faith that the "good is possible." We make the world meaningful by our practice of spirituality. 1