The spiritual divide that matters

Are you spiritual, not religious? Are you a polytheist, not a monotheist? Are you traditional, not eclectic? Or the reverse?

Do any of these distinctions matter a great deal?

Not really. There are reasons to be “spiritual” and reasons to be “religious” (i.e. seeking spirituality in community). I am not particularly interested in whether or not a person believes in one god or many. I am not even particularly worried about how traditional or how eclectic someone else is, as long as they let others pursue their own path in peace.

Image by Jannis of flickr.com

There is essentially only one divide in spiritual paths I am really concerned about and that is how grounded in their everyday life their beliefs are.

Do you live your beliefs? Do you practice what you preach? Does your spiritual tradition focus mainly on an ethereal soul and reaching higher levels of enlightnement/grace or is it concerned with what you are doing today, what your voice speaks and what your hands create?

Those are the important questions

Why don’t I include open-mindedness in that? How tolerant and benevolent toward others a spiritual path is? Well, just about every path claims to be benevolent. So again, the important question is integrity of practice.

Some paths, such as mystical forms of Buddhism, may appear to focus exclusively on the ethereal level without regard to the here and now, yet when you look at how their most experienced practitioners move through the world, it is clear that living their beliefs moment by moment is of crucial importance.

On the other hand, there are many religious denominations today, particularly in wealthy, “advanced” countries, which encourage members to view spirituality as something you come to do once a week or once a day at a proscribed time and place. There are certain prohibitions for mundane life, usually involving gender, sex and/or eating to ensure personal purity, but beyond that there is little connection between spirituality and the rest of life.

Some define this as a difference between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. There are paths where it is primarily important that you believe the right things—orthodoxy—and paths where it is more important that you do the right things—orthopraxy.

A common phrase among Christian fundamentalists has it that “there are many good people in hell.” Doing right is not the key there. It is believing the right thing—orthodoxy.

By contrast, modern western Pagans are fond of bragging that our beliefs are about orthopraxy—i.e. doing right. But some of those boasters only mean doing right inside the ritual space.

Certainly, it is difficult to discuss integrity when a community claims—as modern western Pagans often do today—that there is no unified ethic or belief to bind them. But each practice does have its own implicit ethics, whether we want to acknowledge them or not.

If you venerate ancestors, that implies something that is sacred. It clearly implies an imperative to honor the elderly and render real aid at least within your family. If you call on the elements, that requires a respect for those elements. To do right would then be to actively protect against the trashing of the earth, the polluting of the water and the poisoning of the air.

Some will say that ethereal enlightenment somehow in the end circles back to take care of the material aspects of spirituality. But I would rather choose the motto of “fake it ‘til ya make it.”

I often sit in my morning meditation, distracted, emotional or even angry. The other day, instead of sitting and chanting spiritually uplifting sounds or being in the moment, I yelled at my matron goddess because the burden I have been given when it comes to family hardship, social prejudice and personal trauma had reached the point where it was more than I could bear.

Yup, not very enlightened.

And my orthodoxy is pretty messed up. I’m not sure if my goddess has any part in handing me the trials and lessons of my life or if she is my guide through them or if I am a pair of hands and a voice for her in the material world. Or all of the above. My theology goes through hesitant cycles.

But I do better with the practical part. I go out to feed the animals each morning, breaking the ice on the ducks’ trough with reverence. I give greetings to the chickens and the fir trees and the linden. I smile at the softly steaming compost and at the pink and cobalt sky of winter.

I light homemade candles and incense as offerings. I teach my children to look for what each season has to offer. I read stories and cook seasonally and as much as possible from what we grow or bargain for locally. I think of the earth and our non-human family with each decision to buy, work or recreate.

My matron goddess is Brigid, so for me anything regarding keeping the home and hearth, adoptive parenting, healing and working with medicinal herbs, writing and story-telling or even crafts of making things like soaps and candles is part of my relationship with her. And as such, I strive to do these things in line with her virtues.

Clearly I’m not perfect in that. I am not her, only one of hers.

My openness to others and the spiritual paths of others is broad and wide with this one criterion. I do care how grounded your beliefs are. How do you manifest them in your daily life? I have shared my home and hearth with many a Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim and Pagan, and I have always found that if we see eye to eye on that, we have no quarrel, only interesting philosophical conversations.

And while I will admit that having a belief in something that makes ethics sacred is one reason I prefer spirituality to atheism, there is integrity for atheists too. It just isn’t simple and it tends to be truly individual. Whatever you believe is right in theory, should also be your practice. That is it at the core.