Unitarian Spirituality:

Why Language Is An Essential Component of Spirituality![1]

INTRODUCTION: If existence is a Mystery, then it can’t be described. That means that any religious language which attempts to describe the Mystery must be seen as poetry. It’s not an objective description of reality.

That means then there is no St. Peter at the Golden Gate…there are no 130 virgins awaiting martyrs for the faith…there are no mansions located on streets of gold…and fortunately, as Mark Twain contends, we won’t have to listen to harps and angelic choirs for eternity.

The best we can say about the aforementioned is that they are bad poetry. But what would be good poetry. Here’s a classic example of some very good poetry attempting to describe the Mystery of our existence, some 400+ years ago.

SCRIPTURE.

Shakespeare writes that, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” That’s poetry. He wasn’t saying that we live in a theater and that we are all professional actors. He was poetically describing our existence as comparable to a theatrical event…that we live our lives in front of everyone…that we interact with other players. And as in most of his plays, we love and we lose…we love and we win. The world is like a great stage and we are one of the players in its many acts.

That description of existence is poetry…captured in only 13 words. There are other examples which don’t have Shakespeare’s beauty and mastery of the English language. But they too attempt to explain the inexplicable sense of separateness we feel, to cover the feeling of being alone in the Universe. 

So let’s agree if we may this morning, that every attempt to describe what we should do to address that feeling…that awareness…is poetry. All over the world, poetry readings are taking place as this one and that one recite insights and stories which attempt to describe the meaning of existence.

But isn’t that science’s job? Aren’t the great scientific endeavors in the laboratories of Western science where the answers really are? I would suggest that religion and science have two very different tasks: Science gives us knowledge about our world, and religion seeks to deal with the implications of that knowledge.

For example, if we read the first chapter of Genesis, there is a beautiful piece of poetry there. It is a creative description of how the world might have happened – especially given that we had no knowledge of astronomy, geology, or biology. The religion of Judaism was constructed based on a primitive scientific worldview in which the world was flat, and the gods used the planet as their personal workplace and playground. And if things went well, they rewarded its inhabitants; if not, they punished them; and other times, there was no correlation between how people lived and how the events of the world took place.

Into that chaos, religion attempted to build a buffer against the uncertainty, and to offer life practices which would shield us against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. That was religion: do this, do that, don’t do this and don’t do that. Follow this calendar of events; tell these stories. Sing these songs, reenact this drama. It’s religion attempting to describe the meaning of existence.

And in some places and during some times, religion presumed beyond its portfolio: It was promoted as science. Its answers about our world and Universe were said to be more accurate and more dependable than those of scientists. Even today in the 21^st century, in states across America, school boards struggle with teaching religion, disguised as science. Even in Florida, we’re in the pathetic state of attempting to delineate between science and those who feel their beliefs about religion are better than science.

Which brings us to our task today…to recognize that science is not religion, but most certainly religion is not science. Science describes the external world and religion addresses the questions beyond the external world. Questions such as, who am I, what do I trust, in what do I find meaning, how do I understand death, who or what is God, what brings me hope?

There is an arena of human understanding which attempts to push beyond the walls and discover new ways of describing who we are and what we are about. It’s not religion, nor science: it’s what we call spirituality.

EXPLICATION.

One of the first levels of spiritual awakening is to realize that there was no program handed out when we entered the theater of life. When we popped out of the womb, our life didn’t come with instructions for living. There were no directions on how to put the pieces, people and places together. We had to learn how to live.

No wonder two-year olds are such terrors. That’s when it first begins to dawn upon every two year old, now that we are two, when we cry, we won’t necessarily get mother to come running immediately to see what’s wrong. We will start having to take care of our own poop to avoid a dirty diaper. There’s no mother’s breast, no bottle of warm milk any longer. And we scream, No! No! No!

Who wouldn’t cause a tantrum? Stop! we say. We want to go back to the warm, cozy, snug womb from which we came. Turn off those bright lights. We’re out of here. Help!

That was you…it was I…it was all of us. We’ve learned, now that we’re past two, existence has to be led. It’s a matter of choices we have to make. That’s a spiritual matter.

            Spirituality is not about gods and ethereal practices or otherworldly ways of living. Rather, it is about recognizing the miracle of birth, and the fragileness of life, not only in us, but also in all other things.

Which is why we come to religious services…it’s why we read…sing songs…listen to sermons: We recognize that life is a journey for us all. If we call birth, point A; and death, point C; then living our lives, is between A and C: point B. The question is not finding detours to avoid addressing point C. Rather, it is to seek to understand how to live our lives – point B.

 Religion teaches us that we didn’t have diddly-squat to do with being born – Point A – but we have a whole lot to do with how we live – Point B – before we die – Point C.

So let’s presume that you are doing all the right things about taking care of yourselves physically, and with the help of your physicians and pharmacists, you’re maximizing your potential of living until you are “full of years.”

That still leaves the question for most, if not all of us: How do we live? How do we live our allotted days between birth and death? Science is about knowledge. Religion is about meaning. How do we live life with meaning?

All the great faiths suggest that for life really to have meaning, we have to go through a transformation…an evolutionary leap…an awakening. How does that happen?

My son Brett e-mailed and telephoned me last week to suggest that I read Eckhart Tolle’s latest book, A NEW EARTH: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. (Tolle’s also the author of The Power of Now.)

As I scanned it in the bookstore, I wasn’t sure whether it was for me. But because of Brett’s recommendation, I purchased it in paperback, read the pages that he thought would be especially interesting to me, and decided to let it become my bedtime reading of choice. I was hooked from the first page. Let me share Tolle’s unique perspective on the meaning of spirituality.

To do that, he describes one facet in the process of evolution:

Imagine 114 million years ago – give or take a few million. Before then, Earth had been covered in green vegetation for millions of years. But one morning, guess what happened? The first flower ever to appear on the planet opens its petals to the rays of the sun. It had been preceded by all those years of just green stuff. Then a critical new threshold in evolution occurs – a fragile, colorful, scent-filled flower emerges.

In addition to the flower, he gives another evolutionary example: Crawling reptiles were earthbound and unchanged for millions of years. During their evolutionary trek, some grew feathers and wings, and turned into birds. It was an evolutionary leap.

Tolle says that the first step in spirituality is when we can look at any part of our planet and understand: Hey, that’s where we come from too. It doesn’t matter if it’s a rock or bird or plant or tree. Tolle contends that this planet, and presumably the whole Universe, is infused with a degree of evolutionary consciousness. But because we humans suffer from a severe form of “species ego-centrism,” we don’t recognize how much we have in common with everything else on this planet. Tolle contends that rather than consciousness being a gift only of human mind, that there is a level of consciousness to every thing that is. It’s seen in the evolutionary leap among the species. Hence, green things become flowers, reptiles, birds, rocks crystals, carbon diamonds, and minerals precious stones.

He insists that awareness of this is the first step in spirituality: recognizing our oneness with all that is. He calls it a sense of “Presence.”

      Rather than rejecting evolutionary science, Tolle proposes that grasping it can provide entrance into a new kind of spirituality.

            His second point: When we recognize our oneness with creation, it has the potential to move us to another level of living, a spiritual level.

            He contends that was the purpose of Jesus, the Buddha, Muhammad, and all the other great teachers who were part of the founding of the great religions: namely, to bring about a shift in consciousness – to inspire us to move from thinking only of ourselves, to thinking holistically.

            So two steps: recognizing all that we share with the rest of the planet, which then can move us to a new kind of consciousness. He calls that an awakening. So what does it mean to be awake?

One of the most oft quoted statements of the Buddha comes from when he is asked about his identity: Is he a saint…a prophet…a god? Who is he?

To each query, he answers, “No, I am not a saint…nor a prophet…nor a god.” The questioner proceeds with exasperation, “Then what are you?” He answers, “I am awake.”

The question we face 2,500 years later is not about our sainthood, prophetic qualities, nor godlikeness. Rather, it is how can we awaken to the potential for spiritual existence that surrounds us? How can we see more than just the external? How can we see the inner spirit dimension of all that is? Especially, how can we see it within ourselves?

Spirituality is not our species’ natural state of existence. It takes effort, conscious purpose, to move to elevated levels of consciousness. It’s not easy.

It is not normal to be spiritually awake. We may even fight against awareness. But sometimes something triggers our inner spirit – maybe it’s a tragedy, a death or the loss of a relationship, a failure or significant reversal, a sickness or sudden emergency surgery – whatever it is, we are startled into the realities of existence from a body blow to the solar plexus. As Carlyle Marney put it, such occurrences are a huge “ego leak.” How could this have happened to us? Who was to blame? Why me?

We become aware that life is not only a miracle, but living is as well. We are part of a wondrous process that we share with all the other inhabitants of our planet. From the soles of our feet to the skin of our skull, what a miracle life truly is.

APPLICATION.

So how should we live, knowing this? In his book, Tolle suggests two things. The first is:

            1. Acceptance: that means living in the moment, the now. Whatever we are doing, whatever the situation we are in, whatever this moment requires of us to do, we will do it willingly.

The other day, as I started to workout at the gym, I asked an employee I’ve gotten to know, how she was doing. She said, “I can’t wait until closing. Only an hour-and-half to go.” In other words, the moment was not  important. The next 90 precious minutes were not either. Tolle says when we become spiritually aware, we learn truly to accept the worth of the moment. And because we accept it, we don’t complain about it, but we own it as ours. It becomes something we choose to do. And if we accept it, it changes our attitude about it. When we work to do that, it means we may move to:

2. Enjoyment. That comes with being focused on the moment…now is critical, not the future. It means we are fully present to the moment. We’ve accepted where we are and we’re going to perform at our maximum level. We are not postponing enjoyment to later, but we will enjoy this moment, now, not tomorrow.

Tolle speaks of enjoying any activity in which we are fully present, any activity that is not just a means to an end. One of the reasons why golf is such an addictive activity is that to do it well, requires being fully present. Everything else must be forgotten: money, work, conflict. “Now” is hitting that ball, and knocking it further. It’s getting the ball to roll in that hole. And if not on this hole, on the next. Golf is quintessentially being in the moment, the now. Finally:

CONCLUSION.

To use another poetic device: Think of life as a river, which we dip our feet into. Everything is in motion 

and constant movement. We can never go back to that same spot in the river. It’s flowed forward. This 

moment can never be reproduced. Acceptance of this moment is critical. It enables us to move to 

enjoyment.