Spiritual but not religious

Spiritual but not religious

This is a phrase that we are commonly seeing in our virtual world.  Friends may use it on their Facebook profiles.  Individuals on online dating sites may use it in lieu of identifying a particular religion.  Today in the mail, I received a letter and a plea for support from the Lutheran chapel at one of my alma maters.  According to the letter, “the growing sociological categories among young people of ‘spiritual but not religious’ or even more poignant ‘none’ shows the urgency of our mission’ (from letter).  The Lutheran ministry is on a mission for more young people to have discipleship among faith-filled students and to proclaim God’s unconditional love to those who do not yet know Christ.

This letter has me thinking about why someone might identify as “spiritual but not religious.”  This lack of affiliation with a formal institution has me wondering about the subsequent loss in social capital that occurs because of decline in church attendance.

I personally have no problem with the label of “spiritual but not religious.”  For me, it means that I believe in God or a power that is higher than me but I choose not to entangle myself into the man-made institutions that is church.  Church with its rules and pews full of judging eyes is a construct of man.  Churches that are exclusionary are not filled with agape love.  For me, I can see God in a sunset, in the bloom of a flower, in the eyes of another man.  I recently bought a t-shirt with the saying “If you can’t see God in all, you can’t see God at all.”  Maybe my choice of “spiritual but not religious” atones me of any feelings of sin when I choose to drive to the beach or go to yoga instead of go to church.

But this letter from the Lutheran Campus ministry has me thinking.  In this age of virtual connections, so many of us are feeling disconnected.  We may have 500 friends on Facebook, yet we don’t have the time or the courage to pick up the phone to connect with our actual friends.  We don’t have a gathering people where are guaranteed to run into members of our community.  On the one hand, the idea of “spiritual but not religious” might solve problems that we have with man-made institutions claiming religiosity, but at the same time this label is establishing our perpetuity of isolation.  There may be alternatives to church.  Again for me that is what the Universal Unitarians are offering.  No offense to the UUs, but I call that group “the not church church.” I don’t say that lightly or judgingly.  I mean it in a very matter of fact way.  The UUs offer a space and a chance for fellowship, but (again for me) there is no unifying spirituality.  So while the UUs offer a forum for social justice, they did not offer me a space to worship God with likeminded individuals.

My yoga community perhaps is another space that has become a sanctuary of sorts.  The problem here
though is while there is a lot of spirituality in a yoga practice, it is up to each individual to define what that means.  For me the yoga studio is about the search for the higher Self and God only from my own vantage point.  There is not an opportunity for fellowship specifically around this notion of spirituality.  There may be statements like “we are one” or “surrender into Samadhi,” but this practice is taken up on each individual’s mat.  We are all on a personal journey.  While I have forged many good friendships with fellow practitioners, I don’t find yoga to be a substitution for the type of fellowship that a weekly church like gathering can cultivate.  People are often squeezing in yoga practices instead of going to “yoga church.”

I am inclined to agree with the Lutheran campus ministry.  We are in fact in crisis.  While this label of “spiritual, but not religious” may in fact more adequately represent the sentiments of young people, we are losing out on a chance for weekly fellowship and social connection.  We need to think about the benefits of church not because pastors and priests are the only way to know God, but because we are missing out on the chance to connect with fellow man and realize that we are one.  We are connected.  We know each other’s struggles, and yet rather than judge, we reach out and support each other through faith and through fellowship. 

The letter from the Lutheran campus ministry has very much resonated with me.  The question remains now though, what are we going to do about it?

My Gratitude List

We can be thankful in each and every moment, but often times we get too busy.  We forget sometimes that it is the little things that we should be the most grateful for.  Here is the beginning of my list:

1. I am thankful for my family. I love my siblings and am thankful for the fact that they have children.  I love being an aunt.
2. I am thankful for my job and the opportunity to teach.
3. I am thankful for my yoga practice and my home studio.  We are a unique group of individuals who are a continual reminder that we are one no matter where we are in our journey.
4. I am grateful for my able body.    I sometimes get down because of issues in my right side body, but I have a body that works and for that I am grateful.
5.  I am so thankful for the work that I have done to recognize emotions and not feel overwhelmed by them.  Emotions are only emotions.  It is how we use them that can be productive or counterproductive.
6. I am grateful for the opportunity to love.  Often times I get caught up in the fact that I am not married yet nor do I have children, but there is a love that is greater than one relationship.  To love with no end is to tap into a much greater source.
7. I am grateful for friends near and far, old and new. 
8. I have so much gratitude for those opportunities to connect again with cherished friends after some time apart.  Those conversations that feel as if no time has passed and yet we both understand that we have changed and grown are a reminder of how great these relationships are.
9. I am thankful for those times of change that became the catalyst for growth.
10. I am grateful for opportunities to reflect.  This is where growth really begins.
11. I am thankful that we can have opportunities to connect whether it be through Facebook, blogs, telephone calls, or old-fashion letter.
12. As my friend Lisa says, I am grateful for mail that is not a bill.  See #11 re: the old fashion letter.
13. I am grateful that I know how to cook.  Now, I need to get my grandmother to teach me how to can.  I would also like her recipe for blackberry dumplings.
14. I am grateful for the memory of my grandmother’s blackberry patch.  To have the ability to close my eyes and eat a blackberry and have that experience take me back 20 years is special.
15. I am grateful for all my teachers past, present, and future. 
16. I am grateful for so much more, and each and every day I can add to the list.

Wonderful world of imagination

I truly have mixed feelings about all things Disney. I live in Orlando so I understand the importance of Disney to our local economy. I’ve been to the parks, and beyond the plastic, I see the artistry at work.

I have had friends who’ve railed against this world of made-up princesses and casts of heteronormativity. The feeble princess who needs to be rescued by the strong prince is a theme that one can take only for so long. Sorry Cinderella and Snow White, it is nothing personal. I know the long history of racial bias in this magical world. I’ve seen the hidden images inside the cartoons. I, too, should loathe all things Disney. And, admittedly I have a tumultuous relationship with this wonderful world.

Except tonight, a soft spot was struck.

My soon to be 5-year old niece was telling me about her experience on the Disney cruise last week. She said, “Aunt Tracy, they were really real. No, really they weren’t pretend.” She told me about Belle and Ariel and Minnie. She informed me that Rapunzel was otherwise entangled and couldn’t make it on this cruise. She was so excited.

They were really real.

As much as I loathe the stereotypes that Disney creates, what if a child is inspired. What if these imaginary characters can be really real. What if a child chooses to believe that the imaginary can come to life. Will they dream bigger? Will they strive for more.

May all things that we can dream up be really real.

Mixing meditation and Christianity

I lead meditation at a local yoga studio. We have decided to start having meditation and book discussion series. The first one, as I have blogged about previously, centered on a book called The Untethered Soul. This time I have chosen a book by Joel Osteen’s titled, It’s Your Time. I am very excited by the book. I think that it complements this idea of being in the moment and not turning back or getting lost in negative thoughts.

I must admit though that I am having a moment of panic. What if no one turns up? What if those who find meditation appealing find a book rooted in Christianity unappealing? Maybe I should have thought about markets. Maybe I should have gauged the audience. Maybe I should have…maybe I should have…maybe I should have…

I share my panic with you, because I, too, am very much human. I have thoughts and feelings that may not always be productive. I think I need a take my own moment and activate my faith here.

May you find that moment and take a leap of faith in whatever direction you need to go as well.

Namaste.

Grace, love, and hope

Yesterday, I got a strong urge to go to church.  I couldn’t explain it, and I didn’t want to ignore it.  I ended up going to one of those mega-churches here in Florida, Northland.  I got rerouted by police as I made the journey. At one point I thought about turning round. Once I made it to the church, it was a little overwhelming navigating the parking lot and entering the building.  I wasn’t sure where the sanctuary was even though right in front of my nose was the entrance. I made it though…twenty minutes early.

This particular service was unique, and they warned us new visitors that it would be atypical.

The pastor gave a sermon about being invited to join. He told a story about not having enough money to pay for dinner one evening and wondering what he was going to do. He equated the opportunity for baptism to be more like when everything has been Pre-paid. And, while I don’t disagreed with his analogy, I had a different experience.

I did not go up for a dunking. I have been baptized as a young adult. I made the choice; it was not made for me, or maybe it was.

Today’s service was a reminder about renewal, faith, and hope. It was a reminder of our oneness, both with each other and with God. For me, as each individual, and I am guessing there were about one hundred people being baptized, stepped into the water and vowed to follow Christ, I was watching them take the fall into grace. And it was affirmation for me to remain steadfast in grace, love, and hope. Through faith, strength is there.

While I think we all have our individual path to God, today’s service was a great reminder. Stand steady in faith and let love shine out from not only the heart but every pore of our consciousness.

For love is the greatest gift of them all.

Be a yogi

I have had a lot on my mind lately especially regarding relationships. You cannot really have a relationship in your mind, yet many of us do. You can draw out what-ifs and act out all the scenes, but it is always in your mind. It is not tangible. It is not in front of you. Maybe you don’t do this, but I definitely do. I anticipate what my mother is going to say to me, and then I already have my next move made. I think many of us do this. We have these imaginary relationships or conversations with our mothers, our significant others, our friends, our bosses, our enemies. We are either living in the past or creating a future that really never does come to fruition.

I know that some of you are sitting there going but if I say “x” to my mother, I know her response. I know it because I, too, think it. You only know it because you have conditioned each other. You have fallen into a familiar pattern. You know when she will escalate, and you know what will make her retreat.

I have had all sorts of opportunities this past month to do things differently with friends and with strangers. With one particular stranger who was giving a lecture, I just got up and left. Rather than sitting there unhappy, I made a different choice. In many ways, it is easier to break patterns with strangers because it is easy to acknowledge that they have triggered something from your past. With loved ones though, it is “comforting to live in the mind and play that game of cat and mouse.” It is only comforting because it is that which your mind knows to be true.

I have repeated to myself over and over again, “Just be a yogi.”

What do I mean when I say just be a yogi?

I don’t mean check out or pull away. The lotus flower doesn’t touch the water because it is not going to be pulled under or drowned out. It still needs the water, however.

Don’t go and pretzel your legs and find the classical mudra with forefinger and thumb touching and believe that will make you a yogi.

Sure, you may need to sit in meditation in order to be a yogi. Why? It is all contained in this one sutra:

YOGAS CITTA VRTTI NIRODHAH

Don’t ask me to pronounce that. It translates into English as “the restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is yoga.”

When I tell myself to be a yogi, I am not just telling myself to get on my mat. When I say be a yogi, I am telling myself to quiet the mind. My mind can alter reality in a million different ways, but all of those modifications are not real. They are imaginary; they are in my mind. Yet those modifications can feel real. They can elicit some really strong emotions. They cause tears. But all of that mind-stuff is not real. It is in an alternative reality in your head.

I do need to practice yoga and sit in meditation to be a yogi, because I am so human that some days I create all sorts of scenarios in my head. When we are yogis, we are open to each and every moment that is in front of us, not the situation in our head. Sometimes we need to come to the mat to sweep away all the modifications that our minds have made to our reality.
Restraining your mind from playing out the scenario (modification) whether it be the perfect fight, the perfect kiss, the perfect whatever that is yoga.

Quiet the mind.
Be present.
Be a yogi.

Notes of positive affirmations

Go quickly. Grab a dry erase marker. If you are a teacher, you probably have one in your bag. If not any box store will have them. Make sure it is a dry erase marker though before you follow the rest of my advice.

Now dash to the bathroom mirror. I am so excited. I can’t believe that I haven’t thought of this before.

Now write yourself messages on the mirror.

I have a big mirror so a few that I put up there.

“You are closer than you think.” –from Joel Osteen
Have faith.
Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu

Write whatever messages you need to see in the morning.
Keep them positive.
Put something up that will make you smile.

Maybe even leave a love note.

Maybe you leave them up for a few days.

Maybe at the end of every night, you write something new and inspiring for the next morning.

Peace, love, and namaste

Once was blind but now…

I miss them.  I loathed them for 30 years.  The thought of picking out new ones every year was torture.  Would I go with metal this year or stick with plastic?  Tortoise shell?  The Sally Jesse Raphael look? Maybe the regal purple ones.  Or how about the sassy orange frames?  Was my mom going to buy the exact same pair four months later?

No longer a necessity, they are gone.  Poof. 

…now I see.

I love my new found sight, but I miss that part of my identity.  Who was I going to be this year?  The serious one?  The nerdy one?  The simple frameless four-eyed freak?  Can you be a four-eyed freak in frameless glasses?  I digress.

Still six weeks later, I am very much grateful for my sight and my splurge purchase on sunglasses, but part of me still misses those frames.

But now, there is no filter between me and my world. 

 

 

 

Removing Fear

Every Sunday, I teach yoga.  My classes generally end with a short reading.  I had purchased a new book to read from, which I forgot at home.  I instead read from Meditations from the Mat by Rolf Gates.  Day 225, page 268

He opens with a line from the Gita: “When he sees all beings as equals in suffering or in joy because they are like himself, that man has grown perfect in yoga.”

There were two passages that I felt the need to repeat while I was reading the reflection upon this verse aloud.

The first one was, “The first messages that got through to me were that I no longer had to hurt myself and that I no longer needed to be afraid.”

The second one was, “What occurs in the absence of fear? Love.”

I wanted to share these two passages with you because there is power in both.  When we remove fear–fear of the other, fear of failing, fear of getting hurt, fear of any magnitude really, all we are left with is the chance to grow, to live, to love. 

Removing fear is not an easy feat.  It requires great faith.  It requires knowing that we might stumble, but even we when stumble through grace, through faith, through love, we get up and keep going.

I have been stumbling a lot lately.  To stumble is to be human. To get back up and to keep going and growing that is our divine Self at work and that is true love.

With liberty and justice for all?

I live in Sanford, Florida.  When I first moved down here, I said in response to the question, “Where’s that” that Sanford is a northern suburb of Orlando.  For the last year, my response has been you have heard of George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin?  Well, I live right near to where Trayvon bought his skittles and iced tea.  When details of the case came out last year, I had a gut feelings that stories did not add up.  I presumed guilty on the part of George Zimmerman.

I am a political scientist by training.  I was a new resident to Florida, and I was trying to get my head wrapped around this Stand Your Ground law.  I, frankly, still don’t understand why we need to have such a law.  If an individual feels the need to take another’s life, I feel that like an insanity plea, the defendant should have the burden of proof that he was defending himself.

What does justice mean though?

George Zimmerman was the aggressor that night in my mind.  The minute he made the decision not to stay in his car, he took matters in his own hands.  The problem though with Stand Your Ground is that there needs to be a reasonable or credible threat to a man’s life before he is justified in taking another man’s life.  We can spend time pondering when is someone justified in taking another man’s life, but that does not serve our purposes here.  In these Stand Your Ground cases, it is an instance of he said and he can’t say.  We can let the evidence speak, but anyone who analyzes data knows that the “facts” can be open to many interpretations.

If you performed content analysis on my social media sites, you would see that for me the facts that I was given by the media led me to the path of guilty.  My posts were made with such conviction that a few of my Facebook “friends” took the couple of clicks necessary to unfriend me.  The actions are unfortunate, but perhaps they were inevitable.

I was obsessed with this case.  I went down to the rallies.  I learned the most at this little Baptist church a couple of night before the “big names” rolled into town with the thousands of people.  I shouted no justice, no peace.  I gave personal opinion statements to an individual with a camera guy.  I watched the Zimmerman bond hearing with zeal, which is described like watching a telenovela.  I knew the formulaic plot and storyline, yet I couldn’t turn it off.   As we waited months for the trial to begin, I used my lectures as opportunities to remind students that justice means that we are following the rule of law.  Justice means that we take the route of our legal system.  Justice might possibly mean that George Zimmerman is found not guilty.

Not many people believed me when I said over the last week that he was going to be found not guilty.

I watched many hours of the trial.  I didn’t watch the media’s daily summary of the trial.  I watched the trial.  The state frankly did a bad job prosecuting this case.  We can ascribe all the blame we want.  We can blame the witnesses.  Ms. Jeantel’s testimony was painful to watch.  The debates over whose voice was on the recording were riddled with conflicting opinions.  The medical examiner’s script was not helpful.  There were many debacles on the part of the state.

I posted this weekend that I pray for peace in Sanford.  I made the bold statement that justice was served.  In my idea of a democracy, we maintain civil liberties and civil rights.  The evidence was presented in such a way that even made me doubt that George Zimmerman should go to jail.  That burden unfortunately was on the state, and they failed to demonstrate it.

Am I saddened by the outcome of the trial?  Absolutely.  There is a young man whose life was lost.  There are grieving parents who don’t have a satisfying sense of closure.   There is a community in Sanford who feels forever persecuted by the legal system.

I posted on Facebook that justice was served, and now I have my liberal friends who are attempting to take me to task.  I haven’t engaged with them on that social media platform, instead I turn again to this blog.

I am well aware that Lady Liberty is far from blind.  Our country’s political system is skewed, and it is far from perfect.  There are many examples that we can give showing how prejudice our legal system is.  We can give classic examples like Plessy to show discrimination.  We can turn to more contemporary examples like Dorsey and Hill that sought to rectify the racial bias present when sentencing crack-cocaine dealers versus cocaine dealers.   We can talk about the percentage rates of incarcerated young, black males being significantly higher than their white male counterparts.

I do firmly believe that had Trayvon been the shooter and Zimmerman the victim, this trial would have been an open and closed case.  Trayvon would have been sentenced to life in prison.  He most likely would have had a public defender because the likes of Sean Hannity and the NRA would not have come to his rescue.

Does race matter in this case, in our legal system, in our country?  Absolutely.  And it is time to start talking about the systemic problem in our country.  We need to remove laws that allow for double standards along racial lines.  We need to talk about the way our legal system values life.  We need to have real dialogue and change.  We have had about two decades of “diversity speak.”  We learn the political correct terminology, and many of us are “showing” each other how we as individuals can exhibit diversity in our personal lives.  We need to move beyond “diversity speak” and start having real dialogue about the structural discrimination that continues to occur in our country.

Do I think that the George Zimmerman case was botched?  Absolutely.  I am not convinced that the police officers collected enough evidence.  I do not believe that they worked hard enough or fast enough to identify Trayvon’s next of kin.  I think that there are a number of systemic failures.

When I make the claim that justice was served, all I am acknowledging is that the evidence was presented in a court of law.  In a democracy, one of the crucial elements that differentiates us from the dictatorship is the rule of law.  In this particular case, the jury did what they were instructed to do.  The state cannot make an emotional appeal and expect to sway the jury that George Zimmerman was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  The state of Florida failed the Martin family; however imperfect our justice system is, it worked as intended.  Am I defending the outcome of the case?  Absolutely not.  However, if we start throwing people in jail without due process, what differentiates us from any other authoritarian regime?

My liberal friends know this in their heart of hearts.  Their sadness and anger while directed at one of my Facebook posts has nothing to do with me.  Some of it I know is for the heartfelt sadness that we all have for the Martin family, but most of it comes from a place of hopelessness and a place of systemic oppression that they don’t know how to fix.

Liberty and justice for all? It could be a long while more, and that is what is truly heart wrenching about the verdict in this trial.