Spirituality & Religion | Welcome to UUism!
Our faith is not like others in many ways, and it can be confusing for people who may or may not be new to our pews. In previous months, I’ve written broad strokes about: our faith, what it takes to become a UU minister, the role of covenant in our faith life, worship, General Assembly (GA), and the various elements of a church building.
“I’m spiritual but not religious,” is something we UUs hear often in our congregations. Once in a while, I hear people say, “I’m religious, but not really spiritual.” What do these two words mean?
Many of us have come to UUism as adults, and we often have a good bit of baggage about anything related to religion or spirituality based on previous experiences, some of which have been harmful. UUism feels like freedom because we don’t require a creed or doctrine or following a single text or person.
In some ways, this makes UUism more challenging, because we don’t get to say, “but So-and-So made this decision that we’re supposed to honor.” We have to work things out between and among each other.
There are different ways to think about spirituality and religion, of course. One way that I’ve used is to think of spirituality as the “more than the sum of our parts”: we have emotional parts, mental/intellectual parts, physical parts, and spirituality can be what happens when all of those parts come together and make a person. It is part of what makes us whole.
Spirituality is also our solo, personal journeys to seek, find, and make meaning and purpose in our lives. It is our desire for and connection to what I refer to as “That Which is Greater Than We are”: a Higher Power, a Great Spirit, Source, G-d, the energy that emerges when humans gather for a shared purpose.
Religion is what happens in our coming together – it is communal. It is the text(s), ritual(s), belief(s) that hold people together. Religion lasts beyond a lifetime, passes wisdom through generations, provides a framework for morals and ethics, and shapes our worldviews.
I chuckle when our congregational stalwarts say they’re “spiritual but not religious.” Like, “Ok, but you’re here every week, Josephine, engaged in our faith, and you serve this congregation in many ways… which seems like it’s the definition of being religious.” (There is no Josephine, I’m not calling anyone out.)
Both spirituality and religion are spectrums, and both have their potential pros and cons. Whatever else we may think, they are important parts of being humans, whether or not you connect with them much personally.
As always, if there’s something you’d like to hear about, please let me know! And I look forward to seeing or connecting with you soon!