Photos courtesy Resources Unlimited Hey Neighbor Project
Dare we call “It” divine intervention at the grassroots level?
Embracing the Divine Around and Within
The current revival of spirituality points to some answers in possibilities for renewal, both secular and sacred, of a spirit of common purpose. One is the art and practice of living in conscious everydayness, daily finding deeper meaning in the now and here. Sidestepping the doubts, are we able to engage each other in the moment by consciously accepting and embracing the divine goodness around and within us as part of creation and an enduring reverence for life?
Whether we refer to the divine goodness as:
Or whether we employ other names, the references are typically to a life-sustaining essence understood to be the perfect, all-powerful, and universal Supreme Being whose incomparable gift to humanity is freedom of choice. Whether or not in any given circumstance we ultimately use that freedom wisely is a separate matter for consideration elsewhere.
Similarly throughout much of recorded history, the prevailing religious belief systems—what today is classified as the seven world religions—have celebrated the sheer immensity of each human being as part always of the awesome unity or wholeness we call the Ultimate Other—the Ground of Being described by theologian of theologians Paul Tillich. No matter what we call the divine mystery or essence, however, it usually refers in some essential way to humanity's inborn quest for the transcendent, stretching beyond the material sphere to capture the infinite and the sacred in and of the world.
Carole Johnston, a 30-year pastor of a mainstream Protestant church, has variously repeated a like-minded idea to her congregation: "There isn't a certain time we should set aside to talk about God. God is part of our every waking moment." For many, ongoing faith in a transcendent life and divine being translates into belief in—and the hope of—the paradise of an afterlife. This faith often takes the form of believing that everyday living continues to unfold a purpose that can be fulfilled only after death. Here the essence of faith, its promise, is living everyday with the opposites of hopelessness and futility, two prevailing realities of despair. To some the harsh realities seem inherent in life’s fatal labyrinth of defeats and victories, success and failure.
The revival of spirituality is one among a number of positive responses to seeming futility. Sacred and secular organizations (faith based and non faith based) are now more daringly deliberate in creating both inspirational agendas and hands-on practices of care within a sphere clearly understood to be spiritual and non-materialist. To provide a few examples among many: The newsletters and other publications of houses of worship and faith organizations—plus the sectarian documents and humanitarian programs of educational and social justice institutions—recommend spiritual and inspirational readings in categories embracing either traditional religion or, more broadly, secular humanism. Among the explosion of bestselling books on spirituality in the last 15 years alone, we include here in alpha order by author such sample titles as:
These readings in theology, or in everyday spirituality and mysticism, or in secular humanism are among the best, representing narrative methods based on a natural yet compelling combination of multi-disciplinary sources, intermingled.
There is a plethora of not-mentioned-here religious media, each with uniquely nuanced methods of communication and forms of expression. These media are similar in the powerful ways they evoke a common yearning and passionate hunger for the transcendent. The readings just mentioned, and other media not mentioned, are often heartfelt. They validate anew the spiritual journey as a familiar metaphor for the dynamic experience of personal transformation or renewal. Not surprisingly given our age of pluralism in religious forms of media expression, it happens that The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast worldwide, as well as the strictly religious and evangelical programs and worship services of cable TV, all have the capacity for claiming the attention of millions and millions (more even) of viewers. The unique programs call viewers to charismatic and sometimes urgent—not fiercely extremist—understandings of the possibilities in greater piety, prayerful transcendence, conversion of heart, and genuine change and transformation flowing from new insights.
Presumption of Mutual Respect
The heart of the present trend is a summons to a more mindful and imaginative way of embracing a mutual respect for difference. Here the core human values, standards, and attitudes are goodwill, civility, tolerance, inclusion, and just or right relationship. These descriptive values are often in contradistinction to prescriptions about how to behave morally in given circumstances. Historically a presumption of mutual respect has led from division and isolation to unity and connection among differing peoples and cultures. Theologians and cultural critics continue to say that any workable blueprint for making progress toward a better community (local and global) must presume mutual respect. Mahatma Gandhi remarked that "all religions are true”; yet he also further explained how tragic it is that "religion historically has been the great divider.
A presumption of mutual respect does not mean, of course, that differences will be resolved automatically. American preacher, writer, theologian, and mystic Howard Thurman (1899-1981) used concepts of spiritual friendship when inviting the community to meet the need “for materials of refreshment, challenge, and renewal for those who are intent upon establishing islands of friendship in a sea of racial, religious, and national tensions.” For some, of course, confrontation and lack of resolution may be critically deliberate blows directed at others, undertaken strategically as ends in themselves.
In 1993 in Chicago at the Second Parliament of the World’s Religions in a hundred years, Catholic priest and distinguished theologian Hans Kung presented for consideration a Declaration Towards a Global Ethic, saying, “When the religions of the world are at peace, the world will be at peace.” Explaining that there can be no peace, meaning no consensus on shared ethical values, without prayer and dialogue, the declaration is now widely regarded by ethicists and religionists worldwide as a clearly compelling agenda for interfaith and inter-religious harmony in the name of saving all creation on our planet.
In the United States the conflicted and rough landscape of the main forms of American religion—whether organized, unorganized, or “disorganized”—is painted with ambiguous, uneven brush strokes over its 500-year history, as demonstrated two decades ago by eminent religious historian Martin Marty in a landmark study, Pilgrims in Their Own Land. Not surprisingly given their uneven religious history, Americans are suspicious of holier-than-thou attitudes, clinging naturally to a healthy skepticism about denominational doctrines and religious dogmas. For the moment put aside the understandable suspicions. In that case, it then seems reasonably true that the religious practices of a deeper spirituality through mindfulness, prayer, and dialogue are associated with churchgoers and non-churchgoers alike, no matter how the religions expressions have historically struggled—and do so today—to develop.
Affective and inspirational expressions of spiritual meaning, as well as the more familiar ritualistic faith practices, are a vital part of the American traditions, for example, in religious evangelicalism or secular humanism. The same rich diversity of forms and expressions is true of Islam, or of Protestantism, or of Judaism, or of the dozens and dozens of Catholic religious orders, each heralding a particular and unique charism.
Throughout the world, then, there are abundant diversities of religious expressions and practices, even within the "same" faith tradition. One size hardly fits all. The common-to-all practices are prayerfulness and prayer (sometimes defined otherwise as active listening to the voice within), reflective or contemplative reading, and regular self-evaluation or meditation. These spiritual actions, when undertaken in a spirit of unhurried awareness, are reflective of the spirituality of everydayness. Above all, the practices offer a modest panorama in the 21st Century of the spiritual nature that pervades humanity and its common life.
Fourth Century theologian and writer John Chrysostom (347-407) is regarded by 20th Century scholars of the Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant traditions as the most forceful preacher of his time. He offered an eloquent, riveting explanation of the power and promise in prayer, contemplative reading, and daily meditation. He said this: The potency of prayer has hushed anarchy to rest, extinguished wars, appeased the elements, expelled demons, burst the chains of death, expanded the gates of heaven, assuaged diseases, and rescued cities from destruction. Prayer is an all-efficient panoply, a treasure undiminished, a mine that is never exhausted, a sky unobscured by clouds, a heaven unruffled by the storm. It is the root, the fountain, the mother of a thousand blessings.
Integration of the Human and the Sacred?
Both nonconformists and traditionalists affirm the cultural resurgence of spirituality, of living everyday more richly with purpose. In varying yet like-minded ways, churchgoers and non-churchgoers alike are able to embrace the non-materialist values in the three spiritual practices just mentioned: prayer, contemplative reading, and meditation. The practices are familiar ways of staying centered spiritually, of living in everyday awareness of the holy and sacred in each other. While often identified with organized religion, the spiritual practices of course have also existed independently of any formal religious or secular system of beliefs. Would a deeper sense of the shared struggle for meaning enable people across all faith traditions (or none) to embrace differences—without fear or shame—as spiritual sisters and brothers?
Depending on the answer, then the alternative question might be this: How to make more conscious and visible the widespread belief that everyday—lived mindfully—contains some of the spiritual satisfactions and social connections sought from deep within both the heart and the mind? Few would deny that a yearning for peace of mind, soul, and body is universal. Yet the fast-paced activities of surviving and perhaps thriving in an inevitably hectic world of impersonal industrialization and technology can make embodiment of that universal truth an unattainable goal or wish rather than a tangible accomplishment. Pioneering American theologian and cultural critic Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) explored the complex meanings behind why and how we seem to live in contradiction, unable to meet the ideal terms of religious belief. He says inspiring, because realistic, things about uninspiring actions.
An imaginative ethos of religiously responsive people, however, is to take artistic delight and spiritual energy in, for example:
Vietnamese poet and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh writes of finding ways to be awake in the moment, to be mindful, in his Being Peace through the common acts of daily life. Likely he would find joy in actions like have capacity in simple ways to raise our level of conscious engagement to a richer, more meaningful, standard. A few examples include:
These kinds of actions can be spiritual friends on the path of mindfulness. Routine occasions of social engagement can be automatic signals. They can call us back to awareness of the present moment. Mindfulness is a spiritual discipline. It invites us to embrace the divine everywhere around and within us as part of an enduring and sacred reverence for creation. Peace and harmony are available by quieting our distracted thinking long enough to come back to the present moment. To harmonize mind, soul, and body into an integrated sense of wholeness is a lifelong—and mysterious—challenge.
‘Secular’ Acts as ‘Sacred’ Acts?
Clearly a reasonable affection for the centuries-old social and moral purposes of organized religion is a given here. One frequently heard quip goes something like this: Organized religion is for people afraid of going to hell, and spirituality is for those who have been there. More seriously, it is important to honor the truth that spirituality is common to people of all faith traditions or of none, whether it is experienced consciously or otherwise, whether vocalized or not. Leaders of orthodox, mainstream, and pluralistic religious denominations, as well as of many philosophical persuasions past or present, reassert that fundamental truth time and again.
Religionists and those from the caring and the humanistic disciplines affirm, often without condescension, that the universality of matters spiritual is common to everyday routines and practices. A sense of the universal in the particular is also everywhere prevalent in the work of prophets, preachers, and philosophers in the present age as well as during biblical times and earlier in recorded time. Doers and thinkers from the past and present place great value on the particularity of inspirational spiritual experiences. These include of course the practices derived from the belief systems of the seven prevailing world religions as well as the belief systems within the differing sacred and secular traditions of humanism.
The major religions annually (“ceaselessly,” in the Buddhist tradition) observe a period of self-assessment and introspection leading to a sense of personal renewal and rebirth, or of new growth leading to transformation.
What does it mean historically and today when world religions profess that all we humans are created in the image and likeness of God? What specific responsibilities are attendant upon those professions of belief? What specific actions and duties do they ask of us? In nearly all of the world's major faiths, the renewal of conscious matters of the spirit inevitably emphasizes an intentional reverence for the sacred combined with the human, which includes joy and satisfaction as well as pain and suffering.
Still, is creation holy? Does respect and veneration for the sacred within ourselves and others lay open a haunting sense of the other-worldly beauty and human complexity everywhere? One key is to go deeper and more imaginatively into awareness of the ever-fresh capacity for the restoration of wonder. Going deeper has potential for leading to a renewal of an appreciation for the sacred in each person, the mysterious, the soulful, the God-like or transcendent.
Dialogue: A Way of Listening to One Another
In listening to and learning from the faith experiences of others—secular humanists as well as believers from any of the seven world religions—it is possible to arrive at a deeper appreciation for what unites and binds us together as brothers and sisters of the transcendent and sacred, as offspring created and birthed by the Great Spirit? Here the key word is listening. How do souls find natural and genuine ways to listen to, thereby respect, the pluralistic voices of those of other faith traditions and systems of belief and unbelief?
Nearly every faith tradition, of course, explicitly claims belief in a perfect and all-knowing Essence that sustains, comforts, and embraces us in spite of—because of?—social conflict, disorder, division. Not only do the major faith traditions claim that humanity is united in a oneness, an all-knowing ruler that powers and guides the universe. The same faiths and systems of belief also routinely ask adherents to choose hope—and love of self and others—as preeminently sacred and, therefore, moral imperatives.
Even in the face of personal adversity in our families or in the face of major social and political disputes in our larger communities, the conscious act of mindfulness is an invitation to find comfort in the grace and embrace of the divine around and in us. In the invitation to a compassion that is less sympathetic and more empathetic, how do we honor the call to respect the travails and sufferings of people everywhere. Can the call to a renewed holistic reverence for the universal sacredness of creation be compassionately fulfilled locally in its given particularity?
Renewing the Ways of Sharing
Yet dialogue is clearly not the same as confrontation, says Rabbi Ruth Malah in introducing her semi-rural congregation to a national reader's theatre presentation artistically promoting acceptance of differences. The introduction stressed acceptance of, and reconciliation with, persons of different practices and creeds. "The object of dialogue," she said, "is that one side should come closer to the other side and should understand it better. The purpose of dialogue is mutual understanding and enrichment, not most often persuasion to a specific set of beliefs.
Some 40 years ago, from 1963-65, the Second Vatican Council, to which many secular humanists as well as hundreds of global leaders of all faiths were invited, stressed dialogue as substantially different from contention and controversy, in which participants try to defend their own sides while proving the other side in error. "Dialogue should be initiated with courage and sincerity, always in a spirit of trust and reverence for all persons (emphasis added), in order to achieve greater understanding of differing viewpoints and improved human relationships," summarized the Council in the document, On the Nature and Conditions of Dialogue. Thus the essence of the mindful and the spiritual is to listen in love to the sacred voices of creation within us.
Krista Tippett, weekly host of National Public Radio’s Speaking of Faith, interviews creative religionists, inspirational humanists, and skilled educators who call for a renewal of a transcendent understanding of the spiritual meaning in both ordinary and extraordinary experiences. And in his 1953 book, The Meaning of Persons, Swiss psychiatrist Paul Tournier tells us, “It is impossible to over-emphasize the immense need humans have to be really listened to, to be taken seriously, to be understood.”
Respect Prepares the Way for Love
In Huston Smith's classic The World's Religions, revised in 1991, he concludes his eloquent and powerful study with this far-reaching thought on the challenges of finding common spiritual ground among the world’s religions and belief systems:
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