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Reflections on UU Spirituality
November 30, 2008
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What Is Unitarian Spirituality?
Mary Alice: We’re talking about spirituality today, partly because, as chair person for lay-lead Sunday services, I need to talk to people about what are our very minimal criteria when they are in charge of a service. This one thing that every service needs to have, I have tried to say, is some sort of connection to spirituality. And I have heard back, I’m not comfortable with that word. I don’t know what it means. It has too many meanings. I might agree, that in the religious culture at large, it does have too many meanings, but I had a suspicion, that within this group, there was more agreement about spirituality that we might suppose. So, about six weeks ago, I asked you all to send me your definitions of Unitarian spirituality. As far as I’m concerned, I was right about this. I received approximately fifteen replies to this question. I agree with most of these definitions. However, I suppose that many of you who did not reply may be those who believe there is no Unitarian spirituality. I thank all of you who did send definitions of spirituality. Many of the definitions I received are contained in the following reflections. If we omitted yours, it doesn’t mean we didn’t find it useful. I’d like to begin with this e-mail of a rather reluctant definition.
Although I don’t like or use the term “spirituality” myself, there is a definition that I find acceptable. The “spirit” of something can mean its essence: its single most important quality. Therefore, “spirituality” can mean focusing one’s attention on some essential quality of the world, or an attitude of wanting to focus in this way. Because it is rarely obvious what the most important quality of a thing is, spirituality usually also involves thinking about what it is that one values.
Working on this project, I realized for me, the question isn’t just, is there a Unitarian spirituality but also, is there an atheist spirituality? I guess, all along, I believed that there was. I think one of the reasons I come to this church is similar to the writer above, to explore the essence of my being, my being here in the world and my relationship to it all including this community of Unitarians.
Allyson: I am here today not because I know any more than you about this topic. I am young to the process of exploring what I believe. I am privileged to have your audience. I am not here to preach to you about what I believe but to present some ideas for further meditation and discussion. With that out of the way, I wondered how I would approach my portion of the discussion. Because our UU mission encompasses the search for truth and meaning I think this is the perfect place to explore ridiculously complex ideas such as spirituality. It think it is important to realize the difference between spirituality and religiousness and the idea that spirituality can be theistic or non theistic. Eugene Gendlin brought up these important points in his 1961 book Theory of Experiencing. I will first read you my answer to Mary Alice’s question to define UU spirituality. I consider my beliefs closest to that of the mystic following. Saying that . . .
Spirituality to me is searching for and finding brilliant moments in everyday life. Searching for that thing that puts butterflies in your stomach or a brightness in your eyes. I believe everything in this world has energy. Energy is a driving force in this world and when I gather with a group for the purpose of sharing experiences I feel them giving me energy. When I rake the leaves in my yard I feel the tree and grass sending me energy. When I speak and listen to my deceased grandmother, we trade energy. When I hold my babies, I give them my energy and they unknowingly give me theirs. The sharing of energy is spirituality. Spirituality is waking up on a mountain top and breathing in life in all it glory and splendor. Knowing that I am privileged enough to share my space with all of these forces is my spirituality. In the book Wherever You Go, There You Are, Jon Kabat-Zinn says, “nothing is excluded from the domain of spirit.” I believe this to be an absolute truth.
Theorderoftime.com: To the essence of spirituality the question is first of all: what is it? Is it new age, is it religious, is it a cult, is it egoism staring for a self-realization without compassion? What defines spirituality actually? What is this self that one has to realize? Where does the SOUL come from?
Mark: Spirituality is a process of recognizing the wonder of everyday happenings and experience – to feel the personal connection I have with All That Is. I recognize that perhaps this is delusional – to think that I have a connection to all things – but my life is richer for it.
Huston Smith related tHR class=3ee concepts that may provide a framework for identifying and understanding spiritual experience:
First, reality is more unified than it appears. Second, reality is better than it ordinarily seems to us. Third, reality is more mysterious than it looks.1
Not only are the definitions of spirituality varied, the individual experience of spirituality is varied. There is a Talmudic legend of four learned rabbis who are allowed to visit paradise: one rabbi dies outright, one goes mad, one becomes a heretic and only one leaves heaven with a blissful, peaceful heart, his faith confirmed.2 Even after the most positive mystical [or spiritual] experiences, we are left with the task of reconciling those visions with what our reason tells us about the world.3 I recognize the wonder of the everyday most easily in nature: appreciating the beauty of a sunset or the sound of wind tHR class=3ough trees or a birdsong. It is spiritual (and perhaps mystical) for me to reflect on a statement like: “Consider that there is no such thing as coincidence” This expression allows me the freedom to believe that all people and things and thoughts and meatballs are interconnected in a vast universal net of consciousness or energy. Rev. Bob Klein of the UU Fellowship of Kern City, Bakersfield Cal. says,
When I talk of a spiritual journey...I include both mystical experiences and more ordinary experiences, for there are too many ways to learn, grow, and progress along our individual pathways to even think about listing them comprehensively. Music, artistry, journaling, nature, meditation, talking, listening, being silent are all parts of many journeys. Even those persons uncomfortable with religious language often are more comfortable talking about peak experiences, meaningful experiences, growth, learning, exploration and discoveries. These are all pieces of our lives and of our journeys. By mentioning such things I use the language of the spiritual journey to describe a path of growth, particularly in areas of self awareness.
One of our members was inspired to respond:
How many different spiritualities are practiced by UUs? It must be so individual – so hard to generalize. And hard for most of us to articulate.
Mary Alice: A lot of words that describe a quality rather than a thing are hard to define – patriotism for example. It seems these words have been commandeered by a certain conservative perspective. Spirituality suffers a similar problem. It seems to be owned by those with very magical or mythical beliefs. One of my favorite writers, Ken Wilber, says of course we of rational and multi-cultural perspectives would be uncomfortable with a magical, mythical spirituality, but he says, in a brilliant use of an old cliché, rationalists may tHR class=3ow out the baby with the bath water. Just because some spirituality is immature, there is also a more mature spirituality, a spirituality that is contemplative. I might describe spirituality as a particular appreciation for the everyday while at other times it seems to transcend the everyday. Sometimes spirit is a time or space for transcending the ordinary day-to-day business and focusing on our connectedness. We may feel suspicious of spirituality because it has been hijacked by fundamentalists. But that is one of the reasons, I want to own the word as well.
Allyson: I have compiled a number of different definitions of spirituality that I feel are quite varied yet all equally valid. Please let me share them with you. Tetradian glossary: A sense of meaning and purpose, a sense of self and of relationship with “that which is greater than self” and also practices such as meditation and bonding rituals which support such identity and relationship. This was important to me because I feel music is spiritual and I feel being in this building is spiritual. Bonding with others as well as the deeply personal act of meditation can be equally important although vastly different in their process to people. I would like to read the statement of one of our members now. One member wrote:
To the best of my knowledge, spirituality involves sitting, standing, or lying very quietly and listening for that small voice within.
(Thank you Dale.)
The Education for peace website says that spirituality is a conscious, dynamic, progressive and integrative process in which human individuals and /or societies achieve their fullest potential in a condition of unity. This developmental process produces ever higher levels of consciousness and understanding, and results from influences that have their roots in both science and religion. I believe this to be powerful in a more human science minded way. Thinking about the monumental strength vs. the extreme vulnerability of the human existence is mind boggling to me and is certainly spiritual. To many just being quietly and breathing in and out consciously and hearing their pulse and feeling the blood rush tHR class=3ough the body is the most spiritual experience if not the spiritual experience in life. Nature.com says spirituality is an inner sense of something greater than oneself. Recognition of a meaning to existence that transcends one’s immediate circumstances. When I allow myself to just sit and think about it and nothing else I am in absolute awe at the grandeur and miraculous nature of this world. It brings tears to my eyes and the word that comes to my mind is thankful. Earthlink.net says spirituality is a personal function which relates my life’s meaning to transpersonal reality. Spirituality is subjective and is not defined by association with a certain tradition or by organizational affiliation. Regardless of organizational affiliation everyone is on his or her own path of awareness. Because of this I believe there is no definition of that matter. Each individual finds the things in life that put smiles on their face or stop them mid sentence or mid thought to just experience IT.
Mark: Spirituality is a process of recognizing my own ability to choose how I interact with the universe. Thoughts are things – Act as if you were already happy and that will tend to make you happy.4 Consciousness creates form... The creative power to form your own experience is within you now, as it has been since the time of your birth and before. 5 One of our members was inspired to respond with a quote from our hymnal:
With joy we claim the growing light, advancing thought, and widening view–
The larger freedom, clearer sight, which from the old unfold the new. With wider view come loftier goal; with fuller light more good to see; With freedom, truer self-control; with knowledge, deeper reverence be. – Samuel Longfellow
Mary Alice: I was surprised by definitions that touched me. Intellectually, a few were very different from how I would describe spirituality. This one for example.
As a Pagan, I can tell you that there are many different layers of spirituality among us. In fact, we are probably more fractured in our beliefs than the Unitarians. Some believe absolutely in the Lord and the Lady as entities – a separate male and female god who are there for us to speak with and invite into our circle. A difference between the relationship as I understand it is that most Pagans do not “worship” these gods, as is advocated in most religions, but rather consider them wise friends, and someone we like to bounce things off of. My personal belief is that the god or goddess or spirits of the four directions /elements are merely beliefs to raise our awareness—of our earthly surroundings and of our own intuition. When I am speaking to Athena, I do not believe that the Goddess is sitting on some tHR class=3one and swoops down to sit on my shoulder when I need her attributes (she is Goddess of Wisdom and War, and I called on her often before meetings in the corporate world). It is more that she is a reminder to me of the power of the feminine, and that I need to bring forward the attributes she represents before I sit down at a table with some very strong-willed and officious men.
I myself am not a pagan, but this statement helps me make sense of pagan practice and also speaks to the commonalities of contemplative spiritualities. This writer also added this:
I also meditate, and again I believe that this is a method of tapping into my own knowledge and intuition. The stillness that accompanies meditation allows all sorts of things to get to the conscious that I stuff down where it is not accessible in my busy-ness.
I like the idea that spirituality is setting aside time to separate from busy-ness. I too meditate. And, in the context of this church, I separate from ordinary busy-ness to sit with this First Unitarian Church of South Bend community. Together, we make space for the realization that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves.
Allyson: The first Unitarian Church of Rochester NY website, in introducing their church, say this: They say you can’t define “beauty.” Rather, “you just know it when you see it.” The same can be said of Unitarian Universalist Spirituality. It’s an attitude more than a set of beliefs. A way of being in the world more than specific convictions about the nature of the world. One UU theologian put it simply, “It’s an openness to life.” At First Unitarian, we often talk about it in terms of “living and loving boldly.” Our ministers point out that the word “spirit” when used in the biblical texts is almost always linguistically related to the word “breath” or “wind.” So think about what “breathes” life into you and, from a UU perspective, you’re in the realm of spirituality. None of us wants to live lives that feel shallow, empty or “flat.” We regularly hunger to “go deeper,” to “get beneath the surface of things.” That for us is the work of spirituality.
Mark: Spirituality is an appreciation for the life I’ve been given – health, family, experiences, companionship, opportunities, and ideas. Saying grace before a meal is spiritual--showing appreciation to the force within and without that provides for our sustenance. Itadakimasu is a Japanese blessing used at Zen monasteries and is the shortest one I’ve ever heard so I really like it. It means, “I eat” or “I receive”.6 It is said to express gratitude for all who had a part in preparing the food, and in cultivating, ranching or hunting edible food of plants and animals. This originates in the consideration that living organisms are giving their life to human beings as an example of the Buddhist practice of generosity or giving.7 For religious Jews, the blessing of Asher Yatzar is recited every morning as part of the Morning Blessings after one has gone to the batHR class=3oom to thank God “who formed man with intelligence, and created within him many openings and many hollow spaces ... that if one of these would be opened or if one of these would be sealed it would be impossible to survive”. One of our members was inspired to respond:
My definition of spirituality is: anything that I intentionally do or focus on with the intention of experiencing a close connection with my spirit (not necessarily my soul, though.) I feel my spirit is sort of my personality. The essence that drives me to be me.
Mary Alice: I am of a pretty rational perspective. So I was surprised at how moved I was by this email:
Although the witnessing of my mother’s-in-law deterioration and death left me with a very mechanical feeling of life and death devoid of any spirituality I do still think there is such a thing. I am not clear what exactly the “spirit” is or does, but I feel it. Part of me is skeptical that this is simply a mental security blanket that I cling to in the hopes that there is more to the universe than an impartial existence and non-existence. On the other hand I have dreamed and imagined the existence of a spiritual pool that all our “souls” are moving toward. In our journey towards that pool while inhabiting our corporal selves our task is to collect a host of experiences and insights and attain an inner peace that makes the spiritual collective better than if we hadn’t existed or lived the lives that we did.
Ken Wilber says that one of the debts we owe to traditional religion is that because they were established in a time when much was unknown, they have created powerful myths that do speak of deep human concerns. These myths are so in conflict with modern science, we could never create them in these times, yet they still can be useful. Many of us come from backgrounds that have blurred any usefulness found in the traditional myths. However, the idea expressed above of “a spiritual pool that all our ‘souls’ are moving toward” has it’s mythical qualities. I from my rational perspective, would never have created such an idea, yet, I sense there is something useful and touching in this image of our deep connection. The writer says, “I am not clear what exactly the “spirit” is or does, but I feel it.” I too feel something. I don’t call it god. I sometimes call it spirit. I think it deserves some of my attention. The Unitarian church nourishes the feeling.
Allyson: I would like to mention a few things Rev. Bob Klein from the UU fellowship of Kern City spoke about in a sermon he wrote entitled Unitarian Universalism, Spirituality and Religious Language. I agree with Rev. Klein that we each have things we do which are special and which nourish our inner selves. Some read, some light candles, some walk the labyrinth. For many of us the work of justice-making is a spiritual practice itself.
I believe it is important to not only accept but appreciate the differences in every individual’s spiritual experiences.
Mr Klein claims that another powerful source of spiritual awareness for UUs come from the natural religion of Emerson and others who for generations have looked at the natural world and found inspiration. This statement is without explanation.
It is a challenge to find unifying language for our tradition which will include everyone without being so vague that it is without meaning. We must never be afraid to continue our individual searches for spiritual life knowing that here, in this UU community we will always find someone who nourishes our journey and supports our beliefs with an honest heart.
I have enjoyed this process and would like to end with another of our member’s comments. Phil:
Spirituality – the contemplation, exploration and experience of the mystery of existence. Best done with an attitude of awe and gratitude and with the faith that whatever for the contemplation, exploration and experience of existence is done, that it is worthwhile.
Amen, shalom, salam, and blessed be.
1 Attributed to Huston Smith in: John Horgan, Rational Mysticism (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2003) 18
2 John Horgan, Rational Mysticism (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2003), 29 3 John Horgan, Rational Mysticism (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2003), 29 4 Attributed to Dale Carnegie 5 From Seth Speaks by Jane Roberts 6 Attributed to Huston Smith in: John Horgan, Rational Mysticism (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2003) 18 7 from Wikipedia |
| Sermon Copyright © 2008 Jennie A. Barrington |
