In a recent post, I outlined some of the distinctives of a natural spirituality. The idea is sure to draw some disdain both from some fundamentalists and some atheists—as well as from the fundamentalist and atheist in all of us.
So I'll try to make the idea a bit more clear, by venturing some first thoughts, in the form of answers to a few questions:
What, exactly, is spirituality?
When I was heavily involved in the church, doing spiritual direction for pastors and speaking and teaching on the topic of Christian spiritual traditions, I used to say that spirituality was about "how to be human".
I liked this definition, at the time, because it acknowledged the fact there were many different spiritual traditions other than the Christian one, and it allowed me to address the distinctives of Christian spirituality.
A natural spirituality would not have the same distinctives, but I think the definition is still useful. Down through the centuries, humans have, in many different cultural, religious, or philosophical settings, developed ways of going about the human life. Some of these have been harmful to those who practiced them or those around those who practiced them. Some have been helpful, in varying degrees.
Obviously, the intent of a natural spirituality would be helpfulness.
- Why do we need spirituality?
It isn't so much that we need it, as it is that we have it. One way or another, each of us has absorbed, through our culture, a number of assumptions, skills, and values about what it means to be a human being. Some of these are conscious—"to be human is to be sinful," or "to be human is to be the image of God"—and some are sometimes less conscious—"humans are untrustworthy" or "you should never let your real feelings show".
The sum of all these beliefs and skills and values makes up your personal spirituality.
You already have one. And you can't simply get rid of it. In the first place, it can't be done. But in the second place, you wouldn't want to do it. How would you navigate the world with absolutely no assumptions or values about how to be human?
So the question isn't so much "Why do we need spirituality?" as it is "Why do we need a conscious spirituality?"—why should you or I take any time or trouble to think through what it means to be human, and to question or revise how we're going about it?
So why do we need a conscious spirituality?
Because if we don't, we will be controlled by our unconscious spirituality, which we didn't choose, and which may be unhelpful.
For some of us, this will just mean getting to know ourselves better—without changing anything. That, alone, enriches life. To understand who we are, and why we do what we do, makes life more interesting, and makes what we do more intentional and effective.
Some of us, on the other hand, may find that some of those beliefs and skills and values are getting in our way—causing unnecessary pain to ourselves or others—and we may want to question some of the beliefs, learn some different or additional skills, modify or refine our values.
- What is natural spirituality?
As I said in my earlier post, others have used the term—in varying ways—before me. So I can only say what I mean by it here.
I picked the term natural for a whole list of reasons, but I think as I write this that two of them are central.
First, a natural spirituality would be one that is natural to humans.
This may be better to understand by first thinking of the opposite—an un-natural spirituality. An extreme example of an unnatural spirituality might be one that required humans to do things or act in ways that were totally alien to their nature. If, for example, you subscribed to the idea that your first two children had to be raised to the age of three, and then fed to crows as a sacrifice to the gods, I would call that unnatural. All of our human instincts rebel at such a thought, and only a very convoluted, and dishonest, worldview could create a context in which we would willingly do such a thing.
But there have been spiritualities in human history which did value human sacrifice, cannibalism, all sorts of unnatural behavior. And people did such things because they had been trained into an unnatural spirituality—a set of beliefs, skills, and values that led them to believe that the appropriate way to be human was to act against their own nature.
So, if you find yourself assuming that if something comes naturally to you it's probably wrong—whether it involves that bite of chocolate cake, or questioning an authority, or simply choosing to do something for yourself or a loved one—it's quite possible you got hold of some unnatural spirituality.
Secondly, a natural spirituality would be one that is rooted in fact, rather than fantasy. In this sense, the term "natural" is a reference to natural philosophy, the name the earliest scientists gave to science.
Most spiritualities—whether we're talking about those you find in the self-help section of the bookstore or those you find in a church or cathedral or mosque or temple—are full of models and concepts that we are asked to believe without evidence. These take many forms, from mythological creatures, like ghosts and angels and fairies, to unprovable concepts, like the trinity or the idea that being nice to children will "spoil" them. Some of these ideas are rooted in medieval philosophic distinctions or church politics, others are rooted in the private theories of gurus, others are rooted in traditions of hierarchy. Often they involve beliefs about a supernatural world, which are impossible to verify by their nature.
In each of these cases, these models and concepts are passed on by people who have no way of checking whether they are true, and are believed simply on authority—whether it's the authority of a guru, or the authority of a religious institution, or just the authority of mommy and daddy.
Chances are, there are mistakes in there.
A natural spirituality, in this sense, is not based on boojums. It's only interested in facts—in the sense of things we can check on, and be sure, to some degree are real. Spiritual experience is something that each of us has every single day—every time we feel pain, or empathy, or love. There is no need to suppose it is not part of the natural order, no need to invoke supernatural, and untestable, theories or models.
A natural spirituality is also be interested in private facts. It endorses being honest with ourselves, honest about our feelings, honest about our beliefs, honest about how we behave, and why. It involves learning how to not lie to ourselves.
Other spiritualities have often made it necessary to lie, by casting a cloud of shame over natural human impulses so that believers were ashamed to look at themselves honestly, for fear of what they would uncover. The Christian spirituality I grew up with emphasized confession of sins (in private prayer—I wasn't a Catholic). Consequently it tainted the very honesty it encouraged. To look at oneself honestly, in this context, was to look for things to be ashamed of.
A natural spirituality dispels that cloud—understanding that we are what we are, and that in most cases our deepest desires are for good things, and the unhelpful things we do come from mistakes, from misunderstandings, from hard choices.
- Will a natural spirituality make people good?
Yes and no.
Let's start with "no". Unnatural spiritualities often begin with some idea of what people should be like, then try to change everyone to fit that arbitrary model, making them good. A natural spirituality assumes that they are good, already, and there is no arbitrary set of rules or characteristics that make someone good. People are different, and there are many kinds of goodness.
On the other hand, much of the unhelpfulness, or even nastiness, in the world actually comes out of unnatural spiritualities that we have either intentionally learned, had hammered into us, or simply absorbed from the culture. I think of a woman I knew who thought that children would grow up to be evil if they were not forced to be completely and utterly subservient. She did a lot of nasty things—out of a sense of duty.
A natural spirituality couldn't "make her good" in one sense, because she already was good—she wanted the best for those children, but she was very mistaken about what was best.
On the other hand, if she had embraced the idea that she, and those children, were fundamentally good, and didn't need to be made subservient at all, it would have certainly changed the behavior that made others think of her as bad.
That's just one example of course, but there are many ways in which our unnatural view of the world causes us, and those around us, pain and suffering—or just plain unhappiness. A natural view would remedy a lot of this.
Of course there are people who are disabled emotionally—sociopaths, psychopaths, etc.—who require special treatment. And there are times when many of us could make good use of a psychologist. But it's remarkable how much of the good done by psychotherapy is based on the fact that the therapist accepts the client as they are, without judgment. In other words, good therapists often apply a natural spirituality.
At least, that's what I think today.
