BY JANE RZEPKA, SENIOR MINISTER, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
If there’s a slipperier yet more persistent topic than Unitarian Universalist spirituality, I don’t know what it is. I can pretty much assure you that when you hear the word in conversation, unless you ask, you don’t know precisely what it means—and maybe not even then. At the same time, many are tired of talking about what spirituality means—it seems like a waste of time, when vocabulary really isn’t the point.
Yet when it comes to Unitarian Universalist spirituality, questions of its meaning relentlessly emerge. Does spirituality have to involve something greater than yourself? Can you come by it naturally, or do you have to work at it? Is a spiritual person different from a person who is simply grounded, kind, generous, and reflective? Do you even have to use the word?
To be sure, one can find folks among us who will declare quite definitively what spirituality is and how to get some. But as a UU minister, I’m not here to hem you in. Let me just say that I have noticed some people who seem spiritual to everyone around them. They just do. These everyday spiritual people live the kind of spirituality we all wish we had. Are they all old and wise? No. Do they all have spiritual disciplines? No. Are they all selfless in the face of need? No. Do they all believe in God? No. They are young musicians and tow truck drivers and retired umpires. They memorize poetry, snorkel, engage rigorously with what needs doing, practice Yoga, or read the Bible. They are the life of the party or book worms. They tend the dying, trim their neighbors’ hedges, lobby for change, or donate a kidney. They take time for quiet every morning, or they chug a cup of coffee and out the door they go. The template is hard to discern, and yet we call them spiritual. We see it, we know it.
What do they have in common? You’ll come up with your own list, but it seems to me, first, that spiritual people feel anchored, grounded.
Metaphor and symbol often help. Maybe early on they practiced connecting and drawing strength from lyrics in their big sister’s music collection, or the sapling growing in the face of adversity behind the McDonald’s, reading Anne of Green Gables, or skipping stones. They continued to grow and learn to find the noble, healthy symbols—the ones they’d call sacred. The images and experiences began to sink in: the stories, the music, the physicality, the connections with whatever may lie beyond, until something good and solid took form inside. And when they pause, this inner life is available to sustain, hold, inspire, and offer meaning to them.
What else do spiritual people have in common? I’d say they have perspective. They understand the difference between car trouble and war casualties, between a pimple on prom night and, say, global warming.
Isn’t that what people mean when they tell us to get a grip? They want us to take a deep breath, and get in touch with what really matters. To get out of ourselves a little and show some gratitude for what’s going right. Spiritual people aren’t so quick to get ruffled, or irritated, or angry—unless there’s a principle at stake. A religious value. Then they take action. People say they “have it together.”
What else? Love. Again, we get to practice. From teddy bears to first bikes to crushes on teachers to passions for the kid who has the locker next to ours, love gets a work-out. But in the spiritual people we see around us, love demonstrates a pervasive quality.
They get along fine with almost everybody. They’re good eggs. They love life enough for belly laughs. They actively love the human family, and life on the planet, and their love seems to radiate—at least a little—as far as imagination goes.
That’s what I notice about spiritual people for starters: they are grounded, they have perspective, and they love. Spirituality isn’t ever a done deal though, it’s always a process—no one is ever fully spiritually mature.
Some of us long for a step-by-step process, a one-size fits all program for spiritual formation. So far, human history hasn’t developed that product. But we know that choices range from back-packing to continuing to help out in New Orleans to therapy to singing country western songs from the bottom of your heart. Silent retreats. Bedtime stories. Wind in your hair. Good deeds every day. Gratitude. Praying to God. Stars above the parking lot. If you want to develop your spirituality, keep your program going.
Retired UU minister Charles Wilson once wrote:
Clearly, to be a spiritual being, is to be more than oneself, not at rest but in motion, on one’s way to a fuller and deeper self…. Why do it? To learn how to handle dynamite! Because the spiritual life either makes existence worthwhile, or it condemns our lives as futile.
For most Quest readers, it’s autumn, as good a time as any to go deeper into a personal religious life. To find what it is that works for you, drawing you toward wholeness.
