Personal
Religion
“Make
your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that
in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
Ralph
Waldo Emerson
“The
kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”
Jesus of
Nazareth (Luke 17:21)
There is a great
movement, as I wrote earlier this week, away from organized religion
and toward personal spirituality. The question comes up frequently,
as it did in Monday night's session of Jung After Work, asking what
is the difference between religion and spirituality? Here is how
Reach/Out.com puts it: “Religion is a set of organized beliefs
and practices, usually shared by a community. Spirituality is more of
an individual practice, that has to do with having a sense of peace
and purpose. It relates to the process of developing beliefs around
the meaning of life and our connection to others.”
A slew of books published
by progressive theologians in the last two decades document this
movement: Thomas Moore's A Religion of One's Own, Diana Butler-Bass'
Grounded, Barbara Brown Taylor's Leaving Church, John Shelby Spong's
Why Christianity Must Change or Die, to name just a few. They are not
aimed at evangelizing for a new religion, but at documenting the
movement of people away from the traditional practices of the
mainstream. This movement is not new, but has finally swept up enough
people to be remarkable.
One of the components of
spirituality seems to be an appreciation for practices of many
religions, such as meditation from Hindu and Buddhist, Centering
Prayer or organized prayer, from Catholic and Muslim, lighting the
menorah from Judaism, studying the I Ching from Taoism, and so on.
We, in the US, were introduced culturally to Buddhist practices
beginning in the fifties, and spreading rapidly in the eighties and
nineties. The Dalai Lama, Paramahansa Yogananda,
Thich Nhat Hanh, and Deepak Chopra, taught us the spiritual practices
of yoga, mindfulness, and meditation. We walked labyrinths,
studied the medicine wheel, attended drumming circles and sweat
lodges. We, in other words, embraced a world of spiritual practices
and incorporated them into our own personal brand of religion.
There is room for all of
these beliefs and practices. When a religion tries to box people in
to a certain set of beliefs and practices as the “only true way,”
we balk, we protest, and increasingly, we walk away. Large swaths of
humanity have now expanded beyond a singular belief system, and while
honoring what is sacred and holy, the image and interpretation of
what constitutes sacred and holy is broader, more expansive, more
inclusive and, at the same time, more personal. We, in other words,
have become less religious, but more spiritual. God is real to us—not
contained within a doctrine or dogma—but as a living, breathing
reality within and without. And, that's a good thing, don't you think?
In the Spirit,
Jane
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