How do you live your spirituality?
I’m in a master’s program for Women’s Spirituality at ITP (www.itp.edu) in Palo Alto. A lot of fascinating questions are coming up for me as I take the courses, and I’ll try to put them up here on line for discussion as they occur to me.
A particularly poignant question which hit me this weekend was: how do you speak your beliefs? How do you express/live/share your spirituality?
I’m sure we’re all familiar with the “recent convert” effect, where someone is all excited about their new religion, and you can’t get them to shut up about it. Anyone who’s actually talked to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, will recognize this. Alternatively, we’re likely all just as familiar with the self-professed “christian” who is appallingly bigoted and narrow-minded, and professes violence in order to maintain the status quo.
So where’s the happy medium? How does one share and teach a belief in peace and kindness, without being obnoxious or getting trampled… and at the same time, actually live those beliefs?
More and more I find myself grappling intellectually with issues my culture would label as feminist, but which I find only common sense. Frex, what is the point of denigrating a noted female scholar simply because she advances a theory which postulates men have not always been the source of all culture? Why is it supposedly wrong to choose to believe an origin story which doesn’t lay the blame on women for all the world’s evils? Perhaps most personally important: how do I best teach and live a life where women are considered equally as important and creative — if not moreso — as men are, when it comes to the creation and maintenance of community and culture?
First, let me apologize for being such a slug about replying — life has been a bit overwhelming in the last six months or so. Thank goodness I can pre-stack entries in my blog to turn up automatically on the appropriate dates! Thank you also for your patience, and I do hope you start replying again; I enjoy reading your thoughts.
As to your interesting reply: I should note I differentiate between spirituality and religiosity. In a nutshell, I consider spirituality to be personal, where religion is corporate, or the actions of the entire organized group, i.e. I individually am spiritual but the Church of Whatever is religious.
I’m not sure what you mean by saying, “it is an scientifically untenable position to say there is no God,” though. I mean, it’s not like it’s scientifically tenable to say there is, right? Also, when you say you fear to suggest so, is that due to fears of backlash, or fears of what that belief imputes of the universe? If the former, may I strongly encourage you to not allow fear to warp you? I know holding unpopular positions is no fun, but I can assure you that strangling your very Self is a Really Bad Idea that will damage you in the long run. I don’t mean running around shrieking, “GOD IS DEAD!” but please, at least let yourself believe what you believe, you know?
That being said, I applaud your efforts to actually live your stated beliefs. In a way I envy you that — I’m still trying to work mine out, let alone live them effectively. :)
An interesting question, and one that has been much on my mind of late, though in a somewhat skewed way. I have been struggling with a growing atheism over the past few years, and watching my mother die in December really pushed me further away from anything spiritual. My wife, however, and her family are Southern Baptists, so I must keep my doubts to myself. I know it is an scientifically untenable position to say there is no God, and to be honest there is a part of me that fears to even suggest that, so I have opted to simply avoid such conversations all together. Instead I do my best to live a ‘good’ life, and to empower all my students in whatever ways they are best suited. Most of my shop workers are female, and the only time I make any sort of gender distinction is when the task at hand requires brute strength(some of my workers are on the tiny side). In my line of work there is still an unfortunate preponderance of male chauvinism, so I work very hard to promote the opposite so that, should any of my students go on to work in technical theatre as a vocation, they won’t tolerate being relegated to either the costume crew, or broom brigade.