Recently the Unitarian Universalist denominational president wrote about and to the youth chiding them to be socially active. I’m all for that. Most of us can use a little push to be a bit more engaged.
But what caught me was that he said, a) “hanging out” isn’t a spiritual practice. And b) social activism is.
I think the Reverend Peter Morales has much to offer our Association and I look forward to his having a successful time riding the bronco of our denominational presidency.
But he seems to have problems understanding spiritual practice.
Well, actually, as do most of us within our liberal religious tradition. The whys are a long story, best left for another time…
Here I just want to focus on spiritual practice, how it can be a useful term and how it can fail at utility.
As one can imagine, once the president’s remarks were published, various defenders of hanging out quickly emerged. They correctly point out various positives in the experience. And there are lots, no doubt.
As I’ve looked around, fewer seem to have wanted to hold forth on the spiritual practiceness of social activism. But just to be sure, I do want to hold up, how like with hanging out, there certainly are lots of spiritual aspects to social engagement…
All depending on our definitions, of course.
For me “spiritual” follows its etymology and is that which gives life. It is about the bottom line of things. The fundamental matter.
And practice for me has two aspects. There is preparing. And there is doing.
So, spiritual practice is the work of spirituality. It is how we prepare our lives, and it is the doing of our lives in quest of and informed by our experience of that which gives us life.
So, in the sense of doing itself both hanging out and social activism fit the bill. Sure they’re spiritual practices. Although there’s also a so what in that. By this definition very little wouldn’t be a spiritual practice.
Because, I think, it lacks the whole preparation aspect. And so I feel without that part within it the term spiritual practice is largely meaningless.
And this is my difficulty. Such is how it is in some of the circles within which I move. For many of my friends they can’t really seem to distinguish between a weekend on the beach, a walk in the woods, reading a good book, hanging out, working at the food pantry, advocating for marriage equality, sitting down in silence for half an hour a day, going to a Vipassana retreat or a Zen sesshin.
I suggest only in the world beyond one and two are these things the same.
As preparation they are not all equal. And only some are in the fullness of that term legitimately spiritual practices.
So I say. Although I do have some experience in these matters, so I hope you don’t think I’m just gassing.
If you feel some resonance with this assertion, well, I think there are a few things that mark out a spiritual practice that might actually help you walk to the place where you can step beyond self and other and to find the new heaven and the new earth to which our teachers call us. Not a complete list, by a long way. But three critical aspects of a real spiritual practice.
1) You need some shut up time. If you’re making noise all the time it is hard to pay attention, hard to notice the lessons and the lesson.
2) You need some regularity. Doing it once might open your heart and eyes. Has happened. But most of us need to return and return and return.
3) You need someone to check you. The brain is a great liar. We tell ourselves all sorts of stories about what we need and deserve, only some of which are true. Also along the spiritual way we have lots of experiences. Mostly of limited or actually no value on the way. Someone who has walked the way before you, who you have some trust in, and who is willing to say the hard truth now and again, is worth their weight in gold.
Now each of these things needs further elaboration, and there are other points, to boot. But as basic markers, if what you’re thinking of as your spiritual practice doesn’t have all three, I suggest it may well have value, but it isn’t complete, and it isn’t a spiritual practice worth calling by that name.
The world is on fire. You’re going to die before you notice it. Stop fooling around…
Two cents on a Monday morning…
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