“Spirituality” is a loaded term; if this is obvious to you, you’re probably a Whitman student. Perhaps you’ve passed Core; or maybe you failed it: I’ll assume you at least read the syllabus just to see how much reading you were going to avoid while you drew random circles in your otherwise empty notebook with a pencil and compass; or maybe you’ve encountered some form of broadcast news coverage, reporting on, rather hysterically no doubt, the rather hysterical religious and/or pseudo-religious rhetoric of modern American presidential campaigns. Watching the History Channel will provide you with a similar education.
As long as you haven’t spent your entire life imprisoned in a cave staring at shadows, you know that “spirituality” is a loaded term. If you have been imprisoned in a cave your entire life, stop reading this article immediately. It offers you nothing, not least because you can’t read. Go back to the cave and save yourself the trouble: your eyesight will thank you.
For those of us whose existence has been elevated by knowledge: and you go to Whitman, remember, so yours must be roughly equivalent in scale to the last grade you received on a philosophy paper: there’s no turning back. We are not only aware of our existence, we at least know something about the, often, brutal role religion has played in the history of mankind and we are inundated with dubiously self-serving and insincere religious and spiritual messages: everything from Jerry Falwell to Miss Cleo. “Spirituality” is a term loaded with bullshit.
To concern myself with this sort of loadedness would be to cover familiar ground, especially for you, loyal Whitman reader. Rather, I’m interested in the other things with which spirituality is loaded: the complex, the mysterious, the stuff of personal reflection and experience. I’m interested in what’s left if that stuff doesn’t exist, if indeed we are no more than human, and there is no greater. I want to know what you, YES YOU, think about God.
Before soliciting your response, I should like to introduce my own religious history, if not my thoughts. I was raised by a spiritually aware mother and a father who was sympathetic to her interest. They attended the Unity of School of Christianity in Kansas City, where I was born, and continued to so while I was growing up. Other than for Bar-Mitzvahs and the odd funeral or tourist visit, Unity is the only church I have attended. As the name suggests, it is a Christian institution, concerned with metaphysical interpretations of the Bible and a personal experience of God and the spirit of Christ. I’ll talk more about Unity in future issues. I think I’ve thus gained an appreciation for the potential power of both organized religion and personal spirituality, whatever that is.
I’ve been a lapsed church-goer for a long while, and I struggle with these questions all the more as a result. So I’m resolving, in service to this column and what I think might be my soul, that I’ll be attending a religious service once a week, meditating once in a while and taking a yoga class. This last one might be entirely worthless as a means of spiritual development: I read a story in the Los Angeles Times last month about L. A.’s elite having yoga cocktail parties, which are like regular cocktail parties but for jerks, so I’m skeptical. If you have a suggestion that isn’t a cult that will make me drink strychnine or pound Keystone, I’m open.
As an element of this part-time quest, I want to hear from you. If you are a faithful Christian, I’d prefer not to hear any more about the dogma of your chosen faith than is necessary to explicate what you think. If you’re a committed atheist, or an uncommitted one, I want to hear about the moments which make you think harder and wonder if it’s possible you’re wrong, if there are any. The joys of faith, the depths of spiritual doubt and everything in between. Contact me by e-mail or phone. If you know me, talk to me. If you don’t, introduce yourself. I’m serious. I want to see what Whitman thinks, if they think at all. And you do think, don’t you?
