Cleaning out old files

Here's a talk I gave at the local Unitarian church a couple of years ago. It was one of four talks on the topic “Men’s Spirituality”. The other speakers were Alan Wilson, Bill Christian and Blair Shick, none of whose talk was available in electronic format.

Men’s Spirituality: Does It Need the Gift of Faith?

As I walked to the podium today, I heard my mother speaking to me from the grave. “Now you’ve done it.”, she said. “How can you even be in a Protestant church? Let alone about to tell people about your spiritual journey without mentioning God or the one true Church (that’s church with a capital C). You’re making things more complex than they are.”

To my mother a spiritual journey was simple; it was a known and well-charted journey. You’re born in sin, you get baptized to remove the sin; live a few years and, naturally, you sin, but you make your confession so that, as a pure soul, you can receive the body and blood of Christ. You live a few more years and get confirmed; you’re now a soldier for Christ. Ten or so years later you marry a nice girl or, better yet, join the priesthood. And then you die, but only after receiving extreme unction. Along the way, you obey the Church and you obey the priests, so that at the end when you shuffle off this earth, you’ll shuffle into heaven.

And, to be fair, many dictionaries back her up. Look up spirituality and you’ll see the words ‘religion’, ‘ecclesiastical’, ‘faith’ as part of the definition. But, for me these words do not define spirituality. Spirituality is not dependent upon a religion nor is it connected to faith.

For me, spirituality is an attempt to get outside oneself, to establish a deep connection with the past, the present and the future of what we call the universe. It does not need a religion or a faith. It is an attempt to give meaning to one’s life.

But, let’s get to the theme of today’s service - Men’s Spirituality. Is there such a thing as men’s spirituality, as opposed to women’s spirituality? In my judgment, no, despite the preachings and writings of Robert Bly and other proponents of the supposed new man; spirituality is a human endeavor. To me, there is no difference between men’s and women’s spirituality. Both strive to achieve a connection with what they perceive to be the eternal so that their life can have meaning, so that when they die they are not simply an old picture on the wall, so that they are another link in the eternal chain which strives to make this earth a better place for all people.

Many men and women have adopted the well charted journey of my mother and others who follow a traditional path to spirituality, a path which has been well defined by those who came before us, a path which depends, in large measure, on the gift of faith. And, believe me, faith is a gift. It’s a wonderful gift. It makes one’s life easier in that there is always a reason for the nastiness that sooner or later touches all of our lives. There is a whole spiritual edifice you can tap into, people you can consult, sacred texts with all the answers. It’s a gift that I wish I had. But, despite being baptized in the one true faith and growing up in a staunch Catholic household, I did not receive the gift or, maybe, it was offered to me and I was too dumb and blind to accept it.

The dictionary definition of spirituality implies that if you don’t have faith, you can’t be a spiritual person. Well, I disagree. You can be a spiritual person without having received the gift of faith. You can connect with the eternal. You can give meaning to your life. Without having the gift of faith, you can find spiritual experiences in the actions of nature or of man.

The spiritual journey is hard. Without faith it is harder. You can get so caught up in your daily life that it becomes difficult to take the step back that is needed, to stop for a moment and contemplate life and your place in it. Oftentimes the spiritual experience creeps up on you, catching you unawares. It can happen just suddenly looking up on a starry winter night in West Tisbury and seeing your place in the universe – infinitesimal yet very human and aware. Or, it can be a more intense experience of sitting on South Beach a few hours after narrowly escaping a near fatal car accident while driving to the Vineyard..

There are a variety of experiences that have become spiritual experiences for me. Reading the opening words of the Gospel of John, the first section of Remembrance of Things Past, the last chapter of The Stranger. Seeing Our Town for the first time and hearing Emily’s words: “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?” Hearing Brubeck introduce Take Five at Newport or Tebaldi as Mimi or Sondheim’s Move On.

But it is not only the aesthetic that has become spiritual for me. Some conversations with a kindred soul have turned into spiritual experiences for me and, I hope, for the person I’m speaking with. Seeing my kids being born linked me to the past, the present and the future of the universe. Watching serious, trained athletes striving to achieve their potential can bring one out of his daily life and into the attempts of man to transcend this place. A variety of experiences, through all of which you try to connect with the eternal.

I’ll close with some words from Thornton Wilder. They are spoken by the Stage Manager at the start of Act 3 of Our Town: “We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.”