The Spiritual Life

"Being, not wanting, having and doing, is the essence of a spiritual life."

-Evelyn Underhill, The Spiritual Life

Sometimes their searching leads people back to traditional religious institutions and practices, but, as often as not, and increasingly these days, it takes them down unconventional paths. New age "spirituality," Eastern religions, esoteric practices, neo-paganism, Native American spirituality, and contemporary-style non-denominational "mega churches," also have their place in today’s spiritual landscape. Though conservative and fundamentalist groups have recently been most in the ascendancy and in the news, they are by no means the only religious alternatives attracting new followers.

Even those who find their way into traditional and mainline religions often do so on their own spiritual terms. As an article in Wednesday’s Boston Globe ["Finding their religion"] suggests, "Many young people, of all different faith traditions, are traveling . . . a complicated and individualistic spiritual path." Not all Catholics, for one example, follow all of Catholicism’s tenets. People today feel freer to pick and choose, despite the efforts of church leaders to enforce doctrinal conformity.

These young, and sometimes not so young, people often describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious." I suspect that could describe many of us. As the article points out, ". . . Many of them are customizing their own mosaic of spiritual beliefs, often by picking and choosing from different religious or philosophic traditions." Harvard professor Diana Eck, our Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday speaker, says in the article that while "‘religious boundaries are being much more clearly drawn’ today by conservative factions in every religion, ‘we’re also living in a time when those boundaries are becoming more and more like dotted lines for many people.’ The result, according to Eck, is that ‘incorporating aspects of other religious traditions into one’s own is increasingly common--and not only among young people.’"

If all this sounds familiar, it should come as no surprise to us.

At least since Emerson and Thoreau and the other New England Transcendentalists, particularly Unitarians and later Unitarian Universalists have been open to the incorporation of "aspects of other religious traditions," such as Buddhism and Hinduism. It is not uncommon to hear Unitarian Universalists today self-describe themselves as "UU Buddhists," "UU pagans," or "UU Jews," and perhaps less surprisingly as "UU Christians."

While many Unitarian Universalists have traveled outside of our traditional Protestant, albeit liberal, Christian roots in their search for spiritual practices, I personally have found plenty of spiritual sustenance within the western religious tradition of which Unitarian Universalism is mostly a part. That tradition includes a wealth of mystical and contemplative spiritual resources and practices as well as a broad spectrum of theological perspectives, and, besides, it is, for better or worse, my own peculiar cultural inheritance.

Those who have listened to very many of my sermons may have noticed my fondness for that mystical tradition as embodied in the writings not only of the great Christian mystics such as Julian of Norwich and St. John of the Cross, but also of Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and the Quaker Rufus Jones; and my fondness for the contemplative tradition in the work of such contemporary writers as Thomas Merton, Kathleen Norris, Howard Thurman, and Thomas Kelly, among many others. I also share a concern and fondness for the traditional institutional church.

It is not that I eschew the non-Christian traditions, because I don’t, but rather that I find ample resources for the spiritual life within the inheritances of our own religious tradition. Granted, it sometimes requires some translation on my part to make it work, but I have found that I can do that translating, and indeed that I must do it in order to claim that tradition as my own. And as St. John of the Cross reminds us, anyway, "No knowledge of God which we get in this life is true knowledge."

Recently, I have been auditing a class on "English Spirituality" at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge. Part of my interest in the subject is that, like many of you, I am constantly searching for that certain something which will lend my life a sense of meaning and purpose. Perhaps I was hoping to find a better definition of that oh-so-slippery word "spirituality." Mostly, I was hoping to be fed, and in that I have not been disappointed. What a pleasure it is to read systematically, to listen to well constructed lectures, and to engage in stimulating discussion!

As to that word "spirituality," I think I have gotten a better handle on it as a result of this class. Let us think of it as the "experiential" side of religion. Spirituality usually refers to some form of practice, whether of prayer, of meditation, of pilgrimage to sacred places, of reading or writing with spiritual purpose, of worship, of singing, of action on behalf of justice.

Spirituality is thus not just something ethereal and airy, but something solid and substantial. It requires "discipline," a necessary but not particularly popular concept in these days. It is about the wholeness of life: about both spirit and flesh. Traditional Christians would call it "incarnational," which is to say, it is of this life and of this world, and not of some other world. For this reason it is also sometimes political and justice-seeking. As the great chronicler of mysticism, Evelyn Underhill, has written, the spiritual life leads us "to do the difficult thing, or give the unpopular message, in the uncongenial place." Or as Unitarian Universalist ethicist and theologian James Luther Adams once warned, "a purely spiritual religion is a purely spurious religion."

The spiritual life is not a selfish and private activity, though many erroneously think that it is. It is not just about us. As Evelyn Underhill has written, "the spiritual life . . . does not consist in mere individual betterment, or assiduous attention to [one’s] own soul, but in a free and unconditional response to [the] Spirit’s pressure and call, whatever the cost may be." Michael Durall, a Unitarian Universalist church consultant, refers to this calling as "a life that is as good as or better than affluence." It is "beyond self-interest." In traditional terms, the spiritual life is ultimately a life of sacrifice on behalf of others and of the world.

To live the spiritual life is to find the sacred in the ordinary and in the everyday. It is to live what Underhill called "an amphibious life," a life of both "spirit" and "sense." It is the place "where life and prayer conjoin." Like Thoreau, who counseled us that the greatest thing is to "affect the quality of the day," Underhill writes that ". . . Those who wonder where they are to begin might begin here, by trying to give spiritual quality to every detail of their everyday lives. . . ."

How will we know that we are succeeding in the spiritual life? She writes,

If, then, we require a simple test of the quality of our spiritual life, a consideration of the tranquility, gentleness and strength with which we deal with the circumstances of our outward life will serve us better than anything that is based on the loftiness of our religious notions, or fervour of our religious feelings.

For no words in our human language are adequate or accurate when applied to spiritual realities; and it is the saints and not the skeptics who have most insisted on this.

Another key to the spiritual life is what she calls "cooperation." All of us are "agents of the Creative Spirit": ". . .We ourselves form part of the creative apparatus of God," she writes. (It is perhaps in this sense that our "shared ministry groups" can be seen as truly "spiritual," in that at their best they invite us to do the caring and compassionate work of God in the world.) "Real advance in the spiritual life . . . means accepting this vocation with all it involves," writes Underhill. Spirituality is "an education for action." In other words, we are God’s eyes and ears and arms and hands. If the world is to be saved, it is up to us, acting in God’s behalf.

Not that we are alone, for, Underhill would say, we live and move and have our being in that great, underlying and supporting Reality. We may be part of "the creative apparatus of God," but we are not God. ". . .Any mature person looking back on their own past life," she writes, "will be forced to recognize factors in that life, which cannot be attributed to heredity, environment, opportunity, personal initiative or mere chance."

The contact which proved decisive, the path unexpectedly opened, the other path closed, the thing we felt compelled to say, the letter we felt compelled to write. It is as if a hidden directive power, personal, living, free, were working through circumstances and often against our intention or desire; pressing us in a certain direction, and moulding us to a certain design.

The spiritual life, then, is the life we already lead. It is not anything exotic or esoteric. Eternity resides in the here and now. The spiritual life is our response (or not) to a vision of the perfect, of the way things might be, of the Kingdom of God on earth. Its quality is ultimately dependent on our choices and commitments. And because we are creatures of free will, we can either "resist or respond" to its call. As Underhill holds, "each human spirit is an unfinished product." It is very much up to us how much finishing that product will get during our brief lifetimes. But of one thing we can be certain: "The spiritual life . . . is . . . that full and real life for which [we are] made; a life that is organic and social, essentially free, yet with its own necessities and laws."

In short, the thing you are seeking can be found in your daily life, and only in your daily life. To quote Underhill a final time, "the spiritually hungry are always filled, if not always with the precise kind of food they expected."

May you discover the truth of this claim, in all its unexpectedness, and may you find yourself more and more living the spiritual life for which you are intended. I wish it for you; so may it be. Amen.

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock