Baseball & Kids

Jesus said, "Let the children come to me for to such belongs the Kingdom of Heaven." (Matthew 19:14)

I was reminded of this truth at a recent San Francisco Giant's baseball game.

The church organized a group to attend the August 26 game against the Houston Astros.  Group tickets are inexpensive but notoriously "less than prime".  We were seated in Section 331, Upper View Box, way down the left field foul pole.  In order to see home plate the only view possible was to turn 45 degrees in one's seat.  Never-the-less, it was still fun to sit with 40 church friends, root for the home team and tell the stories of games past.

Anyone in the Bay Area with a modicum of interest in the Giants must know that they have struggled mightily since the All Star break in mid-July.   Victories have been few and far between.  Injuries to their All Star players have been devastating.  I came to the game with an attitude of fatalistic cynicism about that evening's game, determined not to let the current disappointments take away from the glow of last year's World Series.

I was fortunate to sit next to Kevin, 10 years old, son of a friend and colleague.  Kevin plays catcher in Little League.   He is an exuberant baseball fan, cheering for every player.  He was very knowledgeable, funny and totally into the game.  He told me about some of his experiences in Little League.  I told him some of mine.  By the end of the game we were clapping together in the rhythms prompted by the organ music, shouting and yelling as the Giants won 2-1.

I really enjoyed sitting next to this kid!  He reminded me of why baseball is so fun.  And I needed that reminder with the way things are going for my team this year.

We tend to romanticize children as if all enjoy an idyllic life of innocence.  The reality for all-too-many kids is anything but that.  Even those children born in privilege face all the challenges life can bring.     

Jesus illustrates that pride can be an obstacle to faith when he contrasts the lack of hubris in children compared to his adult disciples.  It’s not that children are perfect.  In their vulnerability children need to trust and follow the one who offers authentic loving kindness in order to survive, to thrive.  One such source can be God, as Jesus welcomes the children into his embrace. (Mark 10:13-16)   It is a blessing indeed when that love is found in one's parents, family, teachers, neighbors and friends.    Without such warm and loving arms, a child's life is difficult if not destined to be tragic.

I have no idea what Kevin has faced in life or what his challenges will be, but that night I met a ten year old with a confident sense of self, a relaxed sense of play and a willingness to share a fun baseball game with a stodgy, aging stranger.  

Children can remind us of life without an adult's conditioned pretense and posturing; being in the moment, unashamed to enjoy.

Is that what Jesus was suggesting about God's loving embrace?

Thanks Kevin!  Go Giants!

Respect the Clay

To a potter time is one of the most essential tools.  One must have the right amount of time available to work with the clay in order to fashion anything useful or use the medium for self expression....or both.  The potter has to invest time into the clay as well as creativity, skill and intention.

Potters work with all sorts of clay.  From the finest white porcelain, as slick and sticky as cream cheese, to the roughest stoneware, dark from iron and as course as sandpaper, to plain and primitive terra cotta, the red earth from which most bricks are made.   There are as many types of clay as there are sources of the material.  Each clay has its own personality.   Plasticity, strength, color and maturing temperature when fired vary greatly.  Potters will develop affinity for certain clay bodies depending on technical requirements and subjective choices.   Over the course of a career a potter will often experiment with a number of clays but choose favorites to come back to again and again. 

From the time a clay is mined as chunks of the earth to the moment it is removed from a kiln firing as a finished piece of ceramic ware the clay is transformed.    Clay is mixed and refined in water then dried to a plastic state.  Only then it can be useful to a potter.   Once the craft person begins work with the clay, he/she has a set window of opportunity, within the parameters of the clay itself, to manipulate and shape it to their purpose.  If it is too wet it will not hold a shape.  If it is too dry the clay becomes brittle and cracks.

There are a number of stages during which the artist can form and texture the clay unique to that stage alone.   To center the clay on a moving wheel it must be its most plastic, but in that state the vessel cannot be pulled higher than its base can support the piece's total weight.  One cannot fix a handle on a coffee mug until the clay is "leather hard", i.e. it has dried to the consistency of leather.  The potter will learn quickly by trial and many errors what is each clay's cycle, its strengths, and its weakness according to the purpose intended.

The potter must respect the clay.  Respect its limitations as well as its potential.  The potter has to put aside his or her agenda and learn the cycle of the clay unique to its properties.

Sounds odd, doesn't it?  "Respecting" an inanimate object, especially one so common, so cheap, so simple.  Yet, if anything useful is to evolve out of the clay, if human beauty and expression are to be added to the clay, respect is an absolute requirement.

In the second creation poem of the Hebrew book of Genesis (2:7), Yahweh, God, breathes life into a handful of "dust" ("dirt", "earth", "clay") to create the first human being.  Other cultures offer similar myths of the creation of humanity from a divine handful of clay.    Spirit animates the most common of physical materials to become life.  Modern science confirms that when broken down to the molecular level human bodies are made from the most common elements in the universe; the same stuff as the stars.

Is the clay artist mimicking the divine process of creation?  Aren't we all when we address any relationship, animate or inanimate, with respect, acceptance, creativity and intention?

Mantra Mantras

While a sophomore in college studying cultural anthropology in South India I was introduced to a Brahman form of meditation by professor Ram Chandra Rau of the University of Bangalore.   He taught us the introductory meditation breathing and posture common for all adolescent Brahmans.  One aspect of the discipline is the recitation of a "mantra", an phrase repeated to the rhythm of the breath as a means to focus one's mindfulness and chase away distractions.  This phrase can be spoken out loud or in the silence of one's mind.

We were encouraged to adopt our own individual mantras.    I chose an ancient Christian prayer of confession, "Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."  It fit for me in so many ways, including the rhythm of my breathing.   I have practiced this form of meditation, in varying degrees of commitment, since 1972.   The mantra usually begins or ends my personal prayers and has become like a dear friend.  By taking a few deep breaths and repeating my mantra I physically relax and refocus in almost any situation.

For the last eight weeks I have been taking the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) campus.   MBSR is offered nationally in hospitals and medical centers for pain management and a host of physical/psychological challenges.  Mine is the struggle to get a good night's sleep!   Sharing my struggles with a trusted friend, she referred me to the MBSR program at PAMF having taken the course herself.  She found it a blessing.  It has been one for me as well! 

Research confirms the health benefits of MBSR practice.  The class offered participants many new practices of mindfulness, new resources on the subject and has encouraged us to adopt and adapt a daily practice.  I've added yoga to my regular meditation discipline as well as some other fascinating options including a walking meditation.

After a yoga and breathing "warm up", a participant is asked to walk at a normal pace in sync with one's breathing rhythm and the silent recitation of a mantra.   As a non-sectarian program based on ancient Buddhist spiritual practice, MBSR suggests generic mantras.    Such as silently counting steps or repeating such phrases as " Breathing in....breathing out" or "I am arriving, I am at home, right here, right now".   A walk can become a moment of attention to the stimulus of sun, wind, sound and our connection to the world around us;  it can help us tame the distracting thoughts that recycle again and again in the mind; it can "ground us" in the here and the now as we move to the rhythm of our bodies in motion.

I've been experimenting with walking meditation during my almost daily 4:00pm excursion from the church office to Starbucks across the street for my afternoon tea. [After living over 5 years in former British colonies...India, Kenya and Malaysia...I am a committed tea drinker, especially as my energy wanes at the end of the day!]  Its an easy walk, only 10 minutes each way.

In class I liked the instructor's introductory mantra for walking, "I am arriving, I am at home, right here, right now".  It worked for my stride and my goal of connectedness with the moment. 

From the very first day my walking mediation mantra has evolved into "Jesus Christ, Son of God, right here, right now".   Quite unconsciously I have melded my 40 year Christian tradition into my new MBSR learnings.

Which for me is a perfectly natural and good thing to do.

In the wonderful prayer attributed to the Apostle Paul we hear, "I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breath and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:18-19)  

Can you hear the paradox?  "I want you to know that which cannot be known; this reality we call the love of Christ."

Prayer is that dialogue in all its myriad of forms that draws us to the presence of the Divine in each and any moment, to know that which can never be fully known.  The practice of mindfulness, which does not claim or require the articulation of such divinity, never-the-less opens one to it.  

Mary Oliver, in her poem, "The Messenger", writes of those who would open themselves to the spirit found in all of creation "...and this is our work.....to remain astonished".  Prayer, mindfulness practice, worship, compassionate service, acts of justice and so much more can be means to do just that.

What would your mantra be?

Leaving the Pastor's Zone

Is there a universal expectation that "religious professionals" (Pastors, Priests and Rabbis, Imams, Nuns or village Shamans....for purposes of this article the generic term "clergy" shall be use without reference to tradition or denomination as an inclusive term for those in such cultural roles) are different from "normal" people?   Is it assumed that clergy hold spiritual knowledge and a closer relationship to the divine than most?

The clergy are certainly held to a higher standard of morality; one reason why it is scandalous when they betray such ideals.  We project our assumptions, needs and emotions on members of the clergy.   We adore or vilify, praise or curse our clerics with little regard to who they really are as human beings.  We may not want to see them for who they are but for the ideals we seek in our traditions or the resolution of our emotional needs, good or bad.

Global affirmation in this profession comes to the ones meeting those projected needs; Mother Teresa, Billy Graham and the Dali Lama come to mind.  Utter failure awaits a member of the clergy who breaks the projected expectations; just ask Ted Haggard, Jim Bakker or Jimmy Swaggart to name a few North American male evangelicals.

As an ordained clergy in the United Methodist church since 1976 I know that I have really made someone angry when they exclaim, "...and you call yourself a 'Man of God'!"  Now, I've never called myself a "Man of God" as if that title suggests a spirituality superior to any other person.  I am set apart to do a specialized ministry within the life of the church but I am no closer to God than anyone else is or can be.  Once explaining this concept to a well-meaning saint in a church, I was flabbergasted to hear, "...well then why are we paying you?"!

When I get the "Man of God" curse, folk are angry because I have in some way violated their expectation of the clergy.  As a run-of-the-mill Protestant pastor such violations aren't very spectacular but they don't have to be; not visiting a parishioner who was in the hospital but didn't bother to tell anyone; not calling on a long time member who had stopped coming to Sunday services to see if anyone noticed; advocating the placement of a new stained glass window in the sanctuary bigger than the one dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Smith's mother; preaching on a biblical passage with an application unsupportive of a parishioner's politics. 

For example, in 1994 California Governor Pete Wilson adroitly used Proposition 187 for re-election.  It was intended to deny public services such as education and medical care for the children of illegal aliens. Passed by a large majority it was quickly overturned as unconstitutional.  In a sermon delivered in Clovis, just outside of Fresno, I referred to the biblical admonitions to treat "the alien with justice and hospitality for you once were an alien as well..." (Ex. 22:21, Deut. 10:19, Lev. 19:34).   An outraged parishioner refusing the shake my hand at the church door yelled at me, "...and you call yourself a 'Man of God'...[I don't call myself a 'Man of God', really...]....the reason the church is going to hell is because you preachers don't stick to the Bible!"

Clergy, in North America at least, are expected to be modest, humble and self-effacing.  We go along with everyone's ideas, meet everyone's needs and ask for little in return.  We are supposed to be concerned about 'spiritual matters' not worldly affairs, such as money or politics.   Above all we are to be nice, never contrary, argumentative or grumpy.  Having taken vows of service and sacrifice clergy must love at all times.  Let's call this the "Pastor's Zone".

I am a very successful pastor.   I have received assignments, status and authority way beyond my peer's or my own expectations.   I am good at staying in the Pastor's Zone.  I try not to leave the Pastor's Zone, I really do, but sometimes I just can't help myself.

In every church I have served I have met saints whose simple and sincere faith has inspired my own.   And in every church I have served....except this current one of course.....there are a handful of individuals who give hours and hours of volunteer service to a church which does nothing right.   These parishioners are there on every Sunday.  They will attend any event, any activity.   It would seem they would not miss the occasion to complain about what's wrong, what's not enough, what could have been better.

As a clergy person one would love to blurt out, "...why do you come here?  You give hours of dedicated service to this church.  If it is so bad why don't you go to another church where you can be happy?"   But that would be leaving the Pastor's Zone.  

I’ve done so on occasion and it’s no fun.

In a former assignment a distraught senior spouse greeted me at the church door after the worship service, shaking and in tears.   She described how her husband, a World War II Vet, was threatening suicide.  He would sit in his TV chair, holding a pistol to his head while clicking the chamber over and over again, asking her as she cooked in the kitchen, "Why shouldn't I just blow my brains out, I've got nothing to live for..."   He threatened to do so if she told anyone of his behavior.  This had been going on for days.

She was beside herself and didn't know where to turn but to her pastor.   As we went over to her house I called our local police dispatch and informed them of the situation and address.   I entered the house and found the man in his TV chair with the pistol on the side table.  He was shocked and angry at his wife for telling.  He was outraged that I had entered his home.

My attempts to make verbal contact with him weren't getting anywhere when the police came in and took the gun.  They searched the house for more.  They found three rifles and a shotgun.  They explained to him that they would have to keep his weapons for 90 days while he sought help.  At this point the man faked chest pains as if he was having a heart attack.   The police had to call an ambulance.   As they wheeled him out of his house, with neighbors gathered around trying to see what was going on, his wife hysterical, he yelled out at me, "....and you call yourself a 'Man of God'?!"  [I really, really don't!]  

I had left the Pastor's Zone.  Clergy are supposed to be nice at all times.  Exposing his dysfunction wasn’t a very nice thing to do.

The end of the story turned out quite well.  The husband was taken to the local VA Hospital where he was treated for clinical depression.  He began talk and medication therapy.  I saw him at the grocery story months later and he was able to shake my hand and thank me.  Sadly, he and his wife never set foot in the church again.

If indeed clergy are to love at all times at what point is honesty pastoral?

In the Christian tradition Jesus is held up as the model for pastoral care.  His constant compassion, especially for the weak and forgiveness for those crucifying him illustrate something inherent in the nature of God.   All Christians are expected to emulate such grace and our clergy are expected to model it.

Yet there are a number of incidences in his career when even Jesus leaves the Pastor's Zone:

-Starting a near riot, Jesus over turns the money changers tables in the Temple and drives them out with a whip while denouncing their officially sanctioned business (Mt. 21:12-17, 21:23-27, Mk. 11:15-19, Lk. 19:45-48, John 2:13-16).

-Dining with religious officials, Jesus denounces their hypocrisy in no uncertain terms, “Woe to you hypocrites and fools!” (Luke 11:37-54).

-On two occasions Jesus uses the slur "dogs" in reference to gentile women who will eventually be held up as examples of faith (Mt. 15:22-28, Mk. 7:25-30).

-At Jacob's well we find a scandalous scene where Jesus alone with a non-Jewish woman confronts her immorality at point blank range while offering her the "living water" of faith (John 4:1-f).

A pastor much wiser than me offered this reflection once, "Love doesn't mean keeping someone in their dysfunction and enabling it."   Telling the truth to an addict or an abuser can begin the road to recovery for some.  Speaking the truth to power can change the world as we have seen in the pastoral ministry of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bishop Desmond Tutu.

One of the great opportunities of professional ministry is growing past the need to please, the duty to meet other’s needs while ignoring your own, to accept that the grace we so eagerly proclaim for others is also available for ourselves.

Saying "no" to a parishioner's habitual negative behavior within the life of the church is a tough thing to do when those who have endured it for years hold the Pastor's Zone expectation that clergy will always be nice.   Yet the angry and manipulative and negative end up holding a congregation hostage unless a leader speaks the truth and asserts a healthy boundary. 

I once had a parishioner take me out to lunch so he could explain his rationale for cheating on his wife of 45 years.  I listened with patience until he asked me, "...well, what do you think?"   And I replied, "I think what you are doing is terribly wrong and it will hurt everyone involved, but mostly you."   The man got up and left the restaurant, lunch and the church.  He didn’t have time for the 'Man of God' curse.

Speaking the truth in love is no small skill and can only be done with humility and perspective.  That's a love that can only be born in one's own honesty about oneself; the most important success a clergy can achieve.

We might want to reconsider Jesus' last beatitude:

Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  (Matt 5:11)

Why is it a blessing to have people lie about you behind your back and say mean things?   Jesus may be speaking specifically to those in the early church facing organized persecution and martyrdom.  In a broader application the blessing may also reflect a reality of the life in grace.  

The gift to speak the truth in love, even when breaking the pattern of codependent enabling expected of the clergy, i.e., "Leaving the Pastor's Zone",  is going to get anyone in such trouble.  Those invested in brokenness don't want to hear the truth, even when delivered in love.   If those you serve are "reviling you" it might mean you are getting close to the heart of the matter in their lives....and your own. 

And that would be a blessing indeed!

Paul T

My brother Paul 'came out' to Bonnie and me as a gay man ten years before he could tell my parents.   He brought a friend along for moral support not sure how we would react.  The culture shift in sexual orientation understanding was just starting back in 1974.   It was risky to be that honest with others when it turned out you were one of the despised.  It still is.

Bonnie and I embraced Paul with open arms.  We pledged to keep his confidence until he was ready to tell our parents, which he did in part because of Paul T.

Paul Thurston and Paul B. met and fell in love.  Paul T. was a young lawyer from Michigan, son of a United Methodist Minister.  One of the early leaders of the Castro Gay Film Festival the passion for movies was one of the things that brought them together. They made a commitment to each other to live in the same household.  They bought a property together.  They were starting their own family and Paul B. wanted our parents to know.

My Mom and Dad embraced them both with open arms.  Mom cried regretting that Paul B. had no plans to be a parent.  He was fabulous with children and my Mom loved being a grandmother.   But those tears were tempered by her unequivocal love for Paul T. and the happiness he brought her son.

Over the years Paul B. and Paul T.'s relationship evolved into a deep and lasting bond which was no longer romantic.  When they ended that part of their life they choose to remain in the same household, sharing the same property, really sharing the same life, even as they brought new loving, committed partners into the mix.  

Paul B. and BJ have been together now as a couple for more than 15 years.  They have lived downstairs.  Paul T. has lived upstairs.  For all purposes they are family.   And that family is a treasured part of the Bollwinkel Clan.  They have visited my parents and sister in Sacramento regularly for years and years.  They come to all of the family gatherings, holidays, graduations and vacations.   We go to the Giants together whenever we get the chance.

Paul T. died of complications to Parkinson's Disease yesterday at 4:20pm.  Paul B.,  Nora and Rick (two of Paul T’s best friends), his brother Larry and Chief, Paul T.'s service dog, were there with him by the hospital bed, just as they had been with him throughout his seven year journey with the disease.  Paul T.'s quirky and brilliant sense of humor, his generosity and his commitment to our family will always be with me.

There will be a day when human beings will couple and part, set up families and build lives together with no fear of or regard to gender orientation.  Tragically that day isn't now.   But when it comes it will be because of people like Paul T. and those who loved him.  

The Power of Music

            Could it be possible?!   Was it some kind of mistake?!

            They were playing "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen (1963) over the Muzak background at Target?!  

            Only pop music historians and Baby Boomers can truly appreciate the shock.

            The Kingsmen's remake of Richard Perry and the Pharaoh's 1957 Rock n Roll record was a scandal at the time.   The Kingsmen mumbled the lyrics so poorly that listeners came up with all sorts of lurid interpretations.  The FBI investigated it for non-existent obscenities in1964.   When my six grade class mate snuck the "Louie Louie" 45 (...a small vinyl record with one song on each side...) into school and put it on the record player while the teacher was out for recess, we were thrilled.  We were risking detention, at least.   Who knows what our parents would have done if they found out.   It was forbidden.  It was subversive.

            No wonder the 1960's generation would protest social convention.

            Now Target is playing it as background music?!

            Here I am now pushing 60, shopping for the best priced pain reliever for the arthritis in my hands, in the safe expectations of a contemporary retail environment, and I am confronted once again with the power of music.

            It happens to me every Sunday in worship.  As a Protestant pastor I am used to the tears that come to my eyes and others' as we sing such wonderful old hymns as "How Great Thou Art" (Boberg, 1885) or "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" (Chisholm/Runyon, 1923)

            Some sacred music has found acceptance into the increasingly secular domain.  We sing "God Bless America" (Irvin Berlin, 1918) during the seventh inning stretch at a baseball game.   "Amazing Grace" (John Newton, 1773) has been recorded so many times and in so many ways it’s almost a 'civil religion' anthem.  We may not know the source of grace but we love to claim it.

“Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; Tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”

            It can be Beethoven or Brahms, Katy Perry or Madonna, The Back Street Boys or the Oakridge Boys, bluegrass, rap, hip hop or barbershop but for each of us, in a variety of settings, some kind of music transcends and inspires.

            For us in the high tech, highly educated Silicon Valley, this is especially true.  We who live in our heads put our faith in what we can measure and weigh.   We struggle to access emotion or to accept mystery.  It is no accident that Apple, Google and Cisco have employee choirs, bands and other musical groups.  It is no coincidence that there is enough interest that community chorales and orchestras don't have to take just anybody but can audition their volunteers.

            We the academic and engineering find music a safe place to feel something; something deep inside, something that somehow transcends the moment and our limitations.

            Theologian John Cobb once wrote of music as a metaphor for the reality of God (Praying for Jennifer, Upper Room, 1985).  You enter a room to hear music from a source you can't see or control, and yet this invisible force, permeating all parts of the space can move you to tears, distraction or the quest to find the source even if only to turn it off or turn it up.

            My spouse, a medical social worker in the field of Alzheimer's disease, can testify to the power of music especially for those with dementia.  It would seem those parts of the brain that access music are some of the last to go.  Hospitals, clinics and nursing homes that offer generationally appropriate music for their patients have much higher success rates in caring for the needs of those individuals.   Mother or father, grandmother or grandfather may not be able to recognize you but somehow they can sing all the verses to "In the Garden" (Charles Miles, 1913).

            "Louie Louie" in Target is a direct confrontation with my aging, to be sure.  But it also is a graphic reminder of the power of music.   The moment brought back memories of innocent days, the sweep of change in a lifetime and the blessings of having made it "safe thus far".         

Spiritual Not Religious

The New Camoldolese Hermitage, a Benedictine Order along the Big Sur Coast of California offers as many as 35 priests, brothers and initiates an extraordinary monastic community.   A few of the brethren in individual hermitages will go without daily human contact for up to five years.   Most practice the contemplative life of silence, service and prayer in a variety of isolation levels.   Periods of silence and fasting for days at a time are most common.  Yet even for the hermits, their self-understanding is always as a worshipping community.   Community initiation, orientation and then connection throughout the devotee's isolation period is essential.

The Christian traditions of the monastic movement began in the fourth century CE.  These traditions were were about utopian ideals of community not spiritual isolation.   The same can be said for the Buddhist traditions of monasticism which began 800 years before that.  

This is all to say that even in extremes, by its nature, spirituality is both deeply personal and communal. 

History is replete with examples of blind obedience to a religious community in which the individual's experience is stifled.  Rational thought, freedom of movement and choice can be suspended and violence sanctified when religious conformity to the group is manipulated; The Salem Witch Trials (1692), Jonestown Massacre (1978) or the 9/11 attacks on the United States (2001) are just a few examples.

If spirituality is explored and nurtured in personal isolation it can be a recipe for empty shallowness at best or delusions at worst.  One of the symptoms of severe mental illness can be the religious fantasies and projections born of extreme paranoia, anxiety and anger.   

Healthy spirituality is both deeply personal and communal.   Thoughts and feelings about one's spirituality are very personal, of course.  Even in the context of religious traditions their expression can be highly individual.  Finding the balance between the two is not easy.

Which raises a significant question about recent trends in North American religious life.

The Pew Religion Survey lists the fastest growing segment of religious affiliation in North America as those self-identified as “spiritual not religious”.  There are many reasons for this.  In their book Un-christian (Baker Books, 2007) Kinnaman and Lyons of The Barna Research Group list "hypocrisy", "intolerance", "judgmental dogma" and "religious involvement with politics" as significant factors that are turning people off to religious institutional life.   This is especially true for those under 50 years old.  

Ironically, surveys find that while 60% of North Americans list "religion as important in life" (Pew) 90%  “believe in God” (Gallop Poll).  Although a people with deep spiritual roots and interests, fewer and fewer North Americans affiliate with religious institutions. The decline in Main Line Protestant membership continues quite dramatically.  

Could we conclude that that North American spirituality is increasingly isolated?  This may not be a new trend.  In his book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (Simon & Schuster, 2000) sociologist Robert D. Putnam concluded “…over the last quarter century…we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, meet with friends less frequently and even socialize with our families less often.  We even bowl alone.  More Americans are bowling than ever before, but they are not bowling in leagues….”

Couldn’t the same be said of religious affiliation?   We believe in God.....however we understand that....and we want to do that all by ourselves?

The problem is you can’t.  And we don't.

Since the first home sapiens gathered in hunting clans thousands of years ago, spiritual expression has always been enculturated.  Religious thought and ritual permeate culture.   One can insist that they don't need organized religion to experience God but the very language they use to do so has been shaped by a variety of external religious forces.  

One such example is "civil religion".   Here in North America whether an individual rejects the concepts of God or traditions of any one religion altogether, they do so living in a culture that promotes Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter and Halloween as major business and civic events.    In a nation that prides itself for "the separation of church and state" United States civil religion shapes even the one never exposed to organized religion; our coinage, pledge to allegiance, singing "God Bless America" at the seventh inning stretch of a baseball game introduce and reinforce concepts of divinity to religious and non-religious alike.

Atheism doesn't live in a vacuum.   It presupposes and is juxtaposed over against formal religious language and tradition.   To insist that one "doesn't believe in God" requires some knowledge of, if not exposure to, someone else's notion of "God".

Certainly the hypocrisy of institutional religion is glaring. While preaching concern for the poor, certain institutions acquire vast sums of wealth.  While condemning and excluding those of minority gender and sexual orientation, church leaders are exposed for their own infidelities and abuses.   Organized religion deserves to be held accountable for its failures.   It is no accident that religious affiliation is in decline in North America.

Yet here's the dilemma.  We need community if our spirituality is to evolve beyond sentimentality. 

The 2007 award winning movie Into the Wild, based on Jon Krakauer's book of the same title, describes the true life journey of a young man named Christopher McCandless as he seeks the purity of spiritual insight.  He dies alone in a broken down van in the Alaska wilderness, a place of overwhelming beauty, realizing that the only insight worth having is that which can be shared with others.

Those who assert that they worship God best during a walk along a beach or in the beauty of the mountains may insist that they have no need of organized religion.  Such folk may have indeed cultivated the mindfulness of their connection with all of life and the order of creation.    But they have not done so alone.

Religious affiliation can be messy, confusing and at times heartbreaking.  All churches, synagogues and mosques are human institutions.    Yet they can also be the spiritual home that nurtures and celebrates the things most meaningful in life.

The trends in decline of organized religion may suggest that North Americans are increasingly self-isolating.  They may also suggest that they are open to searching for new and relevant forms of community.  Note the expansion of the 12 Step Program movement during the Twentieth Century; an inherently spiritual community.  While the Protestant church in north America has been in decline, the 12 Step Program has grown to offer millions of people healing from an expanding list of personal addictions.....often in the vacant facilities of the church!

Since spirituality as expressed in religion has and always will be both personal and communal, as traditional institutions contract we can look forward to the emergence of new and significant forms of spiritual community in the future.