Faith & Life Inspirational Message

Sometimes I may not be fair to religion when I separate it from spirituality.   To me they are quite related, but are not the same.   I am certainly not against religion.   After all, I tell people I teach it!   However, I also find that I am more at home in the arena of spirituality---the spiritual.   This is not the place for an extended essay defining both and arguing why I think they are not the same.             Suffice it to say, religion for me (and most folks I know) is first and foremost in some doctrines.  For example, people are quick to tell me they do believe in God---or don’t believe in God.  Obviously for those who believe, there often is more they believe in, and it may well be the case that their beliefs inform their actions.  Spirituality for me is first and foremost experience.  I know this can sound wishy-washy.  But spirituality is about experience of the Ho...

As a graduate of a couple schools, I get my share of alumni magazines.  Additionally, I get the magazines from some of my two girls’ various universities.  Rather than toss these, I am actually intrigued by what the different universities are offering for my reading.  Clearly in the case of my two girls, I was not the intended audience.  But I am interested in what some of the nation’s best schools want their alums to read.             In my own case I clearly am the targeted audience.  Certainly the Divinity School I attended is assuming people like me are reading this material.  I am old enough now and far enough away from the intellectual epicenters, I am not on the cutting edge of religious scholarship.  I am ok with that.  I appreciate scholarship, but also find times when the scholarship is too far out there---too arcane---for the kind of ministry I am doing.  I also am reminde...

Yesterday was Super Sunday.  In fact, it was Super Sunday XLIX.  I went to our Recreation Center where I saw a bunch of college students…mostly junior and senior athletes on my campus.  As I looked out over their young faces, I realized they never knew life without professional football’s Super Sunday.  In their lives there has always been a Super Bowl!  I think they were a little stunned when I told them I remembered a time in American history when there was no Super Bowl!  Of course, that makes me at least 48 years old!  In fact, it is a little difficult for me to remember those days.  But I do recall (I think) the third Super Bowl (III).  That was the year Joe Namath, quarterback for the New York Jets, prophetically called the victory over the Baltimore Colts, the heavy favorite.  More than anything, that probably made the Super Bowl what it was to become. Yesterday each thirty-second commercial cost $4,000,000!  That bl...

Too often spirituality, and religion for that matter, is portrayed as the antidote to sadness, sickness and sundry other less than desirable aspects of life.   Of course, no one told me explicitly that was the case, but it is true this was the implication I took from my young days.   The implication was the truly religious or spiritual never would suffer from being sick, from being sad or other human maladies.   When I was young, I guess I thought religion was a kind of inoculation shot against human problems.       Now that I am older (but questionably wiser!), I don’t think this is true at all.   Religious and spiritual folks get sick just like normal people.   We have bouts of sadness just like all humans.   And we are not immune from any of the other maladies that afflict the human race.   In fact, I would argue to be human is to be a sitting duck for sadness, sickness and sundry other aspects of life.   That just s...

I recently read an interesting interview about a woman who has just written a book on the people who claim to be spiritual but not religious.   Clearly this is a prevalent phenomenon in our world today.   It often is associated with the young people, but I think it is a mistake to assume they are all this way and that older people are, by and large, still religious in the traditional sense.   Things are much more up for grabs these days.             The person being interviewed, Linda Mercadante, teaches in a Methodist seminary.   I found her interview both fascinating and insightful.   No doubt that is partly true because a significant number of the students who are in my classrooms consistently claim they are spiritual but not religious.   I have explored that theme, but not in the depth that Mercadante has.   So let’s examine some of her findings.        There ...

A friend has given me a book.   That is not the first time I have been given a book.   I suspect that is due, in part, to my profession.   Because I’m a college professor, I am sure that folks think I deal with books all day long.   Sometimes that is close to the truth.   Books are important to my work.   It is not the books per se ; it is the ideas in the books.   Books are written because people have ideas and want to develop those ideas and share them.   And so it is that I want to dive into my new book.             The book is by S. Brent Plate and is entitled, A History of Religion in 5 ½ Objects .   I have only begun the book, but I know he talks about things like stones, which have historically played a key role in religious observance and life.   It should be interesting and a challenge because my normal Quaker response is that I don’t care much about “religious things.” ...

It is commonplace for people to think of churches, synagogues and mosques when you talk about religion.   Everyone would say that those are not the only places where religion can happen, yet most of us associate religion with those kinds of venues.   I think that is much less so when we talk about spirituality.   I am sure there is a wide range of definitions of spirituality, but most folks I know think it is different than religion.   While many of us think spirituality may be related to religion, few people I know think the two are the same thing.             I am not sure I associate religion with churches, but I do think there often is an institutional aspect to religion that most of us do not associate with spirituality.   And since I spend most of my time teaching “spirituality,” whatever that is, I am more focused on that.   So when I am with students, I am often talking about spirituality in ...

I have often said that religion is one way of making meaning in life.   And I do believe that.   Religion offers a perspective on the world and on life that paints a picture to show how we understand ourselves in that world.   Of course not everyone has a religion or shares a religious perspective.   It is very easy and quite acceptable today for someone to be an atheist.   Atheism also is a way of making meaning in life. Sometimes that bothers a few of my religious friends.   They do not think atheism is a way to make meaning in life.   Simply because they are religious, they cannot imagine any other way to do it.   With this perspective, religion is the only way to make meaning.   I understand that perspective; I don’t share it.   I don’t share it, in part, because I do not think I can be the one who defines what counts as meaning.   For example, if I am to assume that you have to be religious to have meaning, then I am going ...

I lead a group that meets every Monday.   It is a delightful group of people to join weekly.   Our purpose is to discuss life and hear how each other is engaged in making sense of life.   That may seem too general to be interesting, but I can assure you it is not too general.   As a matter of fact, people bring their real life experiences to the group and we all prosper by hearing each other share what we know about life, as well, as listen to each other’s questions about life.   I think we all have assumptions about life.   One assumption I have about people is that all of us in our own way are trying to make sense of our lives.   When I say make sense of life, I mean we are trying to figure out our purpose in life.   Another way to put it is we are trying to find meaning.   I am confident that the core experience of living a life without meaning is despair.   Despair literally means to be without hope.   A second assumption ...

When you live long enough, no doubt you do things you never thought you would be doing.   I guess I have lived long enough!   I am ok with that. However, most of the stuff I am doing, that I never thought I would be doing, was not invented when I was a kid.   If I think about the friends I have who are in their eighties or nineties, the changes in the world in their lifetime is stupefying.   Even the changes in my lifetime astound me.   Obviously, much of it is technology.   The fact that I sit with my laptop typing this inspirational piece which then will be uploaded to cyberspace to be read as an email or blog makes me laugh.   I use words in that previous sentence that would have made no sense to a Hoosier farm boy when I was growing up.   A car is a car, but my car today is not even close to the first car I drove.   And so the countless changes could be added to the list.   I am not an early adapter.   I certainly was not ...

I use the word, spirituality, with frequency.   I am also aware that this word is tossed around in many different ways.   In fact, I do think that many of us use the word without being very clear what it means.   Sometimes, I think some folks want to use the word to say something like, “I’m religious, but not really into religion.”   Usually that means they are not part of an institutional form of religion.   For many, that simply means they gave up going to church or to the temple.   When I use the word, spirituality, I am wanting to point to the “lived experience” aspect of religion.   Spirituality always begins with experience in my understanding.   For example, it is one thing to say, “I believe in God.”   It is quite another to say, “here is how I experience the God in Whom I believe.”   That is spirituality.   It is for that reason I consider dealing with spirituality to be more difficult than dealing with religion. ...