When I worked as a hospital chaplain, I'd often encounter people who as soon as I'd introduce myself as the chaplain, would say, "Oh, I'm spiritual but not religious".
I learned that when people say they are not religious, what most of them really mean is, they don't go to church, they do not belong to a congregation, and they may even completely reject organized religion. They may also reject specific creeds and beliefs, but believe it or not, religion isn't always about what you believe. In fact, research shows that most people who go to church will actually adjust their beliefs to be in alignment with those of the church they belong to. So to me, when a person says they are "not religious" it basically means they have no church community.
Understanding what they mean by being spiritual, that's a bit harder. My patients' stories were quite varied, but I came to understand that by being spiritual they meant that they devote attention to the big questions in life. You know these questions: Why are we here? What is our purpose in this life? How should we treat one another? What is the nature of that realm which we cannot know by our senses, of God, for instance? And what happens after this life of ours is over?
Depending on their approach to things, these spiritual people might consider these questions rationally, or emotionally. For example, they might contemplate the unknown with a sense of awe or humility, or foster a deep internal compassion for others.
In my time at the hospital I came to respect some of these "spiritual but not religious" people, those who forged deep spiritual wisdom, often hard fought, alone, in the hospital bed, at night. Often the certainty of death can bring a person to a very clear place of focus. I encountered a handful of people who seemed to possess an amazing and profound spiritual nature. I recall one woman in particular who was dying of cancer. It wasn't so much what she said, it was her appearance, which, though gaunt, had a kind of radiance, a calmness and contentment that gave me pause. She had moved far beyond the religion of her youth. She told me that she was at peace, and that her main concern was how her family was dealing with her illness and imminent death.
But getting to that degree of spiritual depth is hard to do, and it is very hard to do alone. Most who go down the path of individual spiritual development don't get very far. Perhaps an extreme example is from sociologist Robert Bellah's book Habits of the Heart:
"Sheila Larson is a young nurse who has received a good deal of therapy and describes her faith as "Sheilaism." ... "I believe in God," Sheila says. "I am not a religious fanatic. I can't remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It's Sheilaism. Just my own little voice." Sheila's faith has some tenets beyond belief in God, though not many. In defining what she calls "my own Sheilaism," she said: "It's just try to love yourself and be gentle with yourself. You know, I guess, take care of each other. I think God would want us to take care of each other."(1)Robert Bellah suggests that Sheila is not alone in her willingness to endorse very few specific points. Sheilism, taken to its logical conclusion would allow hundreds of millions of individual faiths. There'd be Mattism, and Joshism (PICK OUT FOLKS) and Edism, and Dianetics (oh), and Marcellenism. One faith for each of us, that we each hold privately and separately from others.
Even if we don't take it to that extreme, there are many in the professional ministry who rail against the idea of being "spiritual but not religious." For some this is threatening to their career -- after all if people don't need church, who needs ministers?
If there is this category of "spiritual but not religious", then there must also be an antipodal category of "religious but not spiritual" and I met several of these at the hospital too. When such a person learned I was a chaplain, they would immediately tell me that they went to church every week as if I were doing some kind of ecclesiastical bed-check. When I would inquire, in my gentlest way, about how they were doing emotionally or spiritually, they'd shift quickly to safer topics, like the weather, or how the Vikings were doing.
Why might people be "religious but not spiritual"? Some people are religious out of a sense of loyalty. They come to a church or stay with a denomination because that's what their parents or even their grandparents did. Or having joined a church, perhaps as a result of a marriage, they stay through thick and thin. They may put their own spiritual explorations on the shelf, sometimes at a very early age, in order to fit, to feel a part of that particular community.
Marcellene's musical selection today recalled the story of Ruth, from the Hebrew Bible. Ruth is a young widow, without much hope. She scrapes by with her widowed sister and widowed mother-in-law, depending on gleaning and handouts. Her mother-in-law Naomi, a transplant, an alien, plans to return to Israel, her own country. Ruth tells her mother-in-law,
"Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. (2)Ruth is often held up as a model of complete acceptance in Christian communities. She is the specimen example of such unquestioning loyalty.
So, where do we as UUs fall in this continuum between Ruth's kind of loyalty versus Sheila's kind of individual exploration? The answer is, all over the map. There are plenty of "spiritual but not religious" people who identify as UU out there. I understand that for every UU that is a member of a congregation, there are some two or three other people who identify as UU, but are not connected with any church.
I have also encountered UUs who are quite comfortable being "religious but not spiritual", that is being part of a congregation but avoiding any kind of spiritual exploration. True, they may be part of the congregation for very valid reasons. In our tradition, there are some folks who get focused on social justice programming, and that's good. We've long been at the vanguard of work for social change, work to create a better society, from early anti-slavery work and public education work to recent GLBT rights work.
We also have folks who enjoy intellectual stimulation and exploration of a wide variety of topics, and that's good too.
But I believe that many people who come here do are hoping for something more. They seek to understand and live out those deep spiritual questions, to sort out answers that have meaning for them. In short, I like to think that most of us are here because we are spiritual as well as religious beings.
If we hope that by coming together as a religious community we can more intentionally explore these deep, spiritual questions, what qualities and characteristics should our community have? What aspects of community most encourage our spiritual growth?
First it must be a place that embraces and encourages change. Galen Guengerich, a UU minister in New York City, suggests that to be in religious community is to be in a place of "constant beginning". I interpret this as the awareness that we all are beginners, or have been, and we are constantly changing as we flow through this community.
We come in for the very first time, as beginners, unsure of everything, not even knowing where to sit, not wanting to stand out. Later on we gingerly agree to help out in some small way, to make coffee, to help with greeting, and as beginners we want to know the procedure, is it written down somewhere? Eventually perhaps we find ourselves in front of the congregation helping out with a worship service, or serving some leadership function, and we are once again beginners. We are all beginners, or should be. If we stop beginning, if we stop changing, if we get stuck doing the same things as if by rote, our passion dissipates and our creativity disappears, and not only are we unhappy but we deprive someone else of a beginning. In the same way, our spiritual development involves a series of beginnings, incremental changes, transformation, as we probe the deep questions with both mind and heart.
A second aspect that encourages spiritual growth is that our religious community must be a safe place. It is important that we work together to create the environment where we are wanted, including "all the edges and angles and hidden parts" (3) -- especially those parts that are hidden even from our own selves.
Safety becomes particularly important when we begin to share our deepest and most intimate spiritual doubts and yearnings, when we want to offer up the greenest, most tender shoots of emerging understanding. These conversations cannot take place in the format of a graduate seminar, full of critical crosstalk and judgmental commentary. They require a much more gentle space.
Note well that this is a "safe place -- we make together" (4), it is not made safe by some outside power. When we make this place safe together, we cannot behave any way we like or say anything we want. In particular someone can't come in and say to others, "You won't do." We need to balance honesty and speaking our own truth with a need to show love and respect for each other.
Finally, religious community will inevitably involve disagreement. Conflict over priorities, discomfort over whether to allow a person to try something new, discord over change: these are all part of vital and active religious life. The question is how the religious community handles disagreement and conflict. Are the issues raised up and talked about as they occur? Is the discourse open and respectful? Does the debate leave room for creativity? Congregations that are healthy accept that disagreement is part of life. They are resilient; they deal with disagreements and move on.
It's still very early in my time here. In these early days, I have a sense that the people of First Unitarian Universalist Church of Youngstown do well in these aspects. I see people stepping up to new beginnings, I see people working to keep the community safe, and I see good handling of conflict. I'm optimistic that as we continue to develop these characteristics of religious community, the church can become even more vibrant and nurturing.
A healthy religious community learns to balance these three aspects I've talked about. New beginnings make this a place to try things out, a place where we can make creative ideas come to life. This requires courage! Knowing we are in a safe place helps, but ultimately we each need the will to step out, do things that may feel uncomfortable. And the community -- that is all of us -- needs to support each other in that stepping out. We may even make mistakes, but we know that this ultimately results in learning and growth for all of us.
The root of the word "religious" is "to bind together". We are a religious community bound together not by creed or common belief but by the desire to create a space, a container for our shared spiritual growth. We wish to encounter the great questions, the questions of meaning, to engage them with gratitude and humility. In the process, we may encounter spiritual practices or beliefs that are new and uncomfortable. What would it be like to create a prayer practice, or meditate, or journal? What would it be like to explore a different theological take on some old idea? They may not be a fit for us, but in community, we move together, allowing others their individual explorations.
When I was a member of the Colorado Mountain Club, I learned the low impact ways of moving over untracked, wilderness terrain. When you have a group in such a situation, you don't hike in a single file mindlessly following the back of the person in front of you. To do so leaves a track, however slight, so is not conducive to the goal of "leave no trace". Instead we fanned out, and walked in a loose pack. We each chose our own path, yet we were still together as a group, and could consult and plan with greater combined wisdom and greater enjoyment. I like to use this as a metaphor for how we move forward together as a community. Since we all have the same ultimate destination in life, to me it makes sense to travel together, but loosely, each finding our own way without losing sight of each other.
Why do we meet? I hope it is that we are religious as well as spiritual people. We walk together on our spiritual journeys, a loose and joyful and courageous, loving band, all exploring, all sharing, and in the end we will have known much more and lived more richly than if we had merely walked alone.
(1) Robert Bellah, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, 1985, p. 221.
(2) Ruth 1:16, NRSV, with edits
(3) A Safe Place, poem by Gilbert Rees
(4) ibid.
