Being spiritual vs religious

A question that I've asked myself a lot is "is it all right to be spiritual without being religious?" It's a difficult question. Two religious leaders take on that question in this article from ExploreFaith.org. The article seemed vaguely familiar. It's possible that I've mentioned it before but it was in this week's newsletter so I read it again. The viewpoints - especially from two religious leaders - are refreshing. Both people point out that the word "spirit" is derived from words for breath and air.

Your breath (your spiritual nature) is given to you by the Creator. You cannot make yourself breathe, nor can you will your breathing to cease. You are intimately connected to the One who gave you the breath and every time you inhale and exhale, your spirit longs for a deeper relationship with that One who is beyond your wildest imaginings ... In the biblical sense, all living creatures are spiritual by virtue of being given breath in the first place.

They also point out (thankfully) that you can be "religious" without being affiliated to a specific "religious organization". That being said, the second author makes an excellent point that there is a community aspect to spirituality and religion that cannot be ignored.

It's the common humanity part that's the underlying issue of the question. As much as we might wish to, we can't escape being social creatures, only capable of differentiation within society itself. That's who we are, where we run into problems, and where we will resolve them too. Being aware of the spiritual dimension in life means sensing the sacred not only within ourselves but also among us. We can't be healed, made more whole, in a vacuum. The reason religion happens is because we need to work things out together, puzzle them out together, try them out on each other, mess up and labor to do better next time. If we aren't making mistakes, we aren't learning much. The bible calls mistakes sin and learning repentance ... When folk forbear one another and persevere in faith together, they get somewhere you just can't reach any other way ...

So it's not altogether all right to be spiritual without being religious. It's only partly right for some, some of the time, but it can't be most right in the end, over time. In the end, we can't solve our own problems, in and of themselves, without coming to the awareness that our problems are the world's problems. We're all in this together, for better and for worse. There's really no way to secede from the human race. Certainly, we don't need to submit to someone else's view of religion, but we can't avoid the general conversation, and sooner or later we will need to make some effort on behalf of the whole, the holy. We can't do it all. Neither can we remain on the sidelines. We can only do our part ... A religion of one will not restore spiritual community, even though it might be the right place to hang out for a time, to cool off, to reconsider and redirect ... However frustrating, it's about all of us and our broken community. True religion, while differentiating us, will also bind us together, in service to the holy and for the sake of the world. The religions we have, while imperfect, are the most time tested we have. We might as well see if we can use them for good, for God's sake.

I definitely buy into this community argument. For now, this blog is my church (see this post). But at some point I suspect I'll seek out a more formal group - perhaps a Western faith, perhaps an Eastern faith, or perhaps a mixture.