“I’m Spiritual” Ain’t Saying Much

One of the odd things people often say these days is that they are spiritual but not religious. In fairness, what they are communicating is an awareness of a depth to which they are called, and also a skepticism or worry about the vagaries of organized religion.

But the expression reveals a theological puzzlement. All communicable mammals — which I assume includes all of us — are spiritual beings. Spirit is just an ancient word describing what animates us. It’s in the same semantic field as sentience, but it captures the idea that sentient beings breathe, and breath turns out to be a reliable measure of the degree to which we are alive.

Spirit is an ancient way of differentiating yourself from a rock. It means you’re one capable of being addressed and of addressing others. Like our puppy, Sadie. She’s spiritual, too!

So to say that I am spiritual but not religious is like saying that, unlike some unnamed others, you have a nose or a mouth — that you can breathe. All humans are spiritual — and so are all dogs and cats and even my friend’s pet rat, Rupert, for that matter. Saying I am spiritual is really not saying anything interesting.

What is interesting is what we are doing about that spirituality. You have legs: are you walking with them in a productive way? You have spirit: are you on the trail to spiritual growth, or are you stagnating? Which is to say, are you growing in your capacity for friendship with God and your fellow forms of sentient life?

Some of us are racing along growing in grace as we grow with God. Some of us are walking wounded, limping right now because of wounds sustained in our work life, in our family life, in our love life. And some of us are simply at a standstill in our spiritual life, wanting to grow but unwilling for a variety of good reasons to take those steps necessary to get past the trailhead and on to the trail that leads to a mature spiritual life.

When someone tells me that they are spiritual but not religious, the only interesting thing they have communicated is that they are either at a standstill in their spiritual journey or they have not yet gotten beyond the trailhead or they are at this moment in their lives skeptical of the signs and tokens and structures that others have erected to mark the trail for others who follow.

Which brings me back to the meme that “I am spiritual, not religious.” The first clause merely asserts solidarity with my friend’s pet rat, Rupert. The second locates the speaker as either trembling at the trailhead or pausing in puzzlement before the signs and tokens that mark the way. Whichever the case, the path to spiritual flourishing proceeds upward. One has to move forward, eventually. I imagine, in his own way, even Rupert knows that.

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