My days start early. I roll over to see our three-year-old son William standing next to our bed, and I feel lucky if the clock behind him reads 6:00. Whenever we send him back to his room, he is prone to awaken his older sister, therefore i try to convince him to do puzzles in the playroom by himself. According to him, "But Mom, then I will be lonely." A short while later I hear Marilee, ten-months old, rustling and fussing from her crib on the hall. I'm up. And we're moving.
Bottles and breakfast and dishes. Black tea for me and coffee for Peter. Shower and pack lunches for school and get everyone dressed. Most mornings our babysitter comes to fruition at help with the final moments of preparation -- brush teeth and comb hair and discover backpacks and get out the door. Fall off with hugs and kisses. Three hours into my day, as well as the sink is filled with half-rinsed dishes, the counters strewn with Penny and William's attempts to clear their plates, a floor littered with Marilee's toys. And even using a babysitter who helps keep all of it in order, the relentless demands of family life still threaten to overwhelm everyone.
I long for stillness, for space, for contemplation and rest. I yearn for a sense of meaning and purpose to undergird the tedium of housekeeping and the demands of caring for small kids. But I ignore or deny those longings because to concentrate seems impractical, indulgent, and almost impossible. The list of things to do is too long already. And time for prayer or long walks inside woods would require less sleep or perhaps a less chaotic household or leaving lots of things undone. Where would I find the time? And how would I justify it? You can find toys to pick up, for heaven's sake.
I can go the religious route. Try challenging to be kind and patient. Say prayers with my kids at a specified time each day. Take them to church. Memorize some Bible verses. But I know that the order offered through routine religious observance easily slides into drudgery as well as oppression, particularly when divorced from the personal presence of God.
If religion isn't my answer, another a part of me thinks I need to be spiritual, that I need to start my day with a few calming breaths or prayer and meditation. And yet in and of itself, spirituality leaves me unsatisfied. If religion is all about obedience and rituals, then spirituality is centered on doing whatever feels right and paying attention to me. Spirituality without religion runs the risk of becoming self-centered at its core. Spirituality without religion creates the self as God, since the ultimate arbiter of what feels good and right. Nevertheless the self can be just as oppressive as religious obedience, and also the self wields great power to deceive.
I need more rest and purpose in my life, and as a result, I'm drawn to religion on the one hand and spirituality on the other half. But I'm starting to understand that religion and spirituality aren't opposed to each other. Rather, these are two poles on a continuum, and both reflect a persons need to know God's presence and also to experience the deep rest and purpose which comes from that knowledge. The busyness and distractions that infuse my days are signs of a larger problem, a problem that can't be solved simply by attending a church service or by drinking herbal tea. So that you can learn how to be still and know rest for my soul in the middle of dirty diapers and deadlines and car maintenance and doctors' appointments and everything else, I need more than religion. And i also need more than spirituality. I need them both.
When Christianity is practiced as a religion without spirituality, you can find good reasons to leave the faith. Religious texts have been used to justify everything from slavery to homophobia to abusive relationships. Religious individuals positions of power have abused that power and harmed others, including children. There have never been any "spirituality wars," but conflict within the name of religion has often escalated into violence and possesses claimed countless lives. For a lot of, religion is synonymous with rigidity, exclusion, unquestioned authority and rule keeping. It almost seems un-American.
But abandoning religion and only spirituality doesn't solve the issue. Spirituality is a vague enough term to encompass beliefs and practices starting from yoga to reiki to watching the sunset and contemplating God or the divine. Spirituality, according to the dictionary, is "incorporeal," which would be to say, hard to grasp, hard to contain. This fluidity and freedom offers reduced the rigidity of religion, but spirituality sacrifices authority in the operation. It offers a path, but not a destination. It raises questions, but provides few answers. As well as in freeing the self, it divorces the self from link to community and to God.
Spirituality without religion poses problems. So too does religion in a vacuum. But Christianity describes God as being a Trinity -- as God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As God who is both authoritative and intimate, holy and humble, revealed with the structures of church and Bible and creeds, revealed with the person of Jesus, revealed over the ministry of care and comfort derived from one of person to another. Christian spirituality supplies a path of peace, joy, love, and fulfillment for everyone who longs for meaning and connection both to others and to God.
As I turn again towards the challenges I face every morning -- the challenge to remember or discover meaning and purpose while William's temper tantrum and Marilee's dirty diaper and Penny's refusal to nibble on her strawberries, the challenge to summon the force to care for myself and our kids and other people, the challenge to balance bill paying and laundry and writing essays and messing around with my children -- as I turn to those challenges, I want spirituality. And I need religion. Together, they provide authority and intimacy, community and private attention, service and rest, grandeur and goodness, morality and grace. Together, they anchor me, and they set me free.
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