Spiritual practice is part of the action of a faith life, how we “do” our religion. For UUs that includes worship and many other activities from justice work, to gardening, to hiking in nature, to yoga, and meditation. But all religious action flows from beliefs; thus, we can trace backward from what we do with our faith, to discover what it is we have faith in, in the first place.
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W. Waldemar W. Argow, in the words of this morning’s Call to Worship, traces the beginning of the religious impulse in human persons all the way back to the beginning of our race.
“Ancient as the home is the temple” he says. We built houses for ourselves and houses for our gods at the same time, he says.
We built altars beside our first workbenches, he says. At the same time we trained soldiers to fight our battles and forged swords to arm our soldiers, we lifted up priests and created rituals to pray for peace, to forgive our warring, to heal the injured and the bereft, and to help us wonder about our conflicted human nature that moves us to both war and peace.
Religion is ancient and with us still. And W. Waldemar W. Argow says religion will be with us forever. He says, “Religion is the first and last–the universal language of the human heart.”
“Because we are human,” he says, “we shall ever build our altars; because we offer everywhere our prayers and anthems.”
W. Waldemar W. Argow, by the way, was a Universalist minister. In the 1920s he served a Universalist church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He later served in the northeast in congregations in Baltimore, Syracuse and Amherst and elsewhere. He died in 1996.
Argow’s point, in that reading, is that although human beings have a lot of different conceptions about the transcendent world that we explore through religion, and although we have a lot of different names for the contents of that world, and lots of different objects, and strategies, and practices, and rules, about how we access that world, that we are united as human in being curious about that world.
He writes, “Differing words describe the outward appearance of things; diverse symbols represent that which stands beyond and within. Yet every person’s hunger is the same.”
Now at this point in the argument a lot of my un-churched friends would protest, saying, “Well, not me!” And some of you may be thinking the same thing.
But although I’ve never been able to convince any of my friends, and I probably won’t convince you either, let me argue that the religious impulse really is as universal, eternal, and human as W. Waldemar W. Argow, says it is.
Our problem is that we have allowed religion to be defined by things like belief in God, or belief in a holy scripture like the Bible, or belief in an afterlife like heaven. Certainly not everyone believes in those things, or cares about them even to the point of worrying about defending their unbelief.
So W. Waldemar W. Argow, begins his argument by conceding that human beings disagree about those things. He agrees. That’s not what we hunger for. But Rev. Argow argues that there is something deeper than the surface contents of specific religions that does concern all of us. He doesn’t define it exactly in that short reading from our hymnal, but if I can add my own thoughts to his, I would say that what all human beings hunger for, in the part of life we could call religious, are the three issues of “identity, meaning, and purpose.”
We all wonder about who we are. It’s the most important question of childhood, for instance. Who am I, separate from my parents and different from my friends, but still part of a community? And most of us take decades beyond childhood to find our answer.
We ask ethical questions like, “what does it mean?” and “Why does it matter?” And maybe you haven’t literally asked that question, but we do ask it because our answers to those questions control every part of our lives. “Should I vote for the Republican or the Democrat?” is a religious question, because the follow-up question is, “why does it matter?” That’s ethics. That’s religious. Some people decide it doesn’t matter, which is also a religious answer.
“Should I vote my values?” Well, what are your values? That’s a religious question.
The Covid pandemic has brought up a lot of religious questions for people, whether they recognize them as religious or not: personal freedom, community responsibility, life and death. Why did my loved one die and will the people who spread the fear and ignorance ever be punished?
In the labor market right now, we’re going through a seismic event some people are calling “The Great Resignation.” People are asking themselves what work is for, what their life is for, and what they should do. Retire early? Be a stay-at-home parent? Find a more fulfilling job or at least demand a better wage and working condition? Chuck it all and follow your dream? That’s the question of purpose, and that’s a religious question.
If you think about religion not in terms of the practices and pontifications of organized religion but in terms of the motivating spiritual questions, then I think we can look beyond the gods and the books, and the supernaturalism and the bigotry of some people’s religions and agree that we’re all religious. Some of us just go about it differently. Or rather, we all go about it. Differently.
How we go about it, brings us to the topic for today: spiritual practice.
I’ve been talking with you about religious beliefs since the beginning of the church year. We’ve talked a little about the existence of a higher power. We talked a little about issues of life and death. We talked about individual and community identity last week. We talked about the Unitarian and Universalist beliefs about God and Jesus and salvation.
I’ve said that Beliefs are the first part of a complete faith. Our complete faith includes our Beliefs, which is our worldview, our description of reality; plus our Values, which are the principles that we hold important and which shape our life’s choices; plus the Actions that we choose to take in our lives, the visible part of how we live our faith.
Spiritual practice is part of the visible part of our faith, so properly this topic should come in the spring when I talk about the Actions of a complete faith. But I wanted to bring it up now for two reasons.
One. Because, if you go to our Fellowship’s website and you click on the menu item labeled, “Our Faith” and then scroll down a little, you’ll come to a section of the page titled “Our Beliefs.” And under that heading you’ll see four items, “The existence of a higher power,” which I preached about in September; “Life and death,” which I preached about last month; “Sacred Texts,” which I’ll preach about next month; and “Prayer and Spiritual Practices.”
So although I don’t really think of prayer and spiritual practices as belonging to Beliefs, I chose to cover it today because that’s where the topic shows up on our website.
And the other reason to get to prayer and spiritual practice today, is that although that is part of how we “do” our faith, the Actions of faith, it’s helpful to understand that what we do with our faith reveals what we believe in our faith. The elements of a complete faith are all interconnected. What you believe informs your values. What you value guides your actions. Your actions change the world, which can cause you to rethink what you believe about the world.
In other words, it’s possible to trace backward from watching what someone does, to deduce what they believe. If it’s true, as I said a minute ago, that all persons are religious, (even if they don’t say so themselves) because all persons are concerned with the religious questions of Identity, Meaning, and Purpose, (even if they don’t ever explicitly contemplate those question) then the actions of every person’s life are in essence, spiritual practices. That is, they live a life that reveals who they are, that shows what they value, that flows from their underlying principles and shows their answers to those deep questions, “Who am I?” “What should I do?” and “Why does it matter?”
As W. Waldemar W. Argow says, “we offer everywhere our prayers and anthems.”
Now a lot of us don’t literally pray or sing anthems. None of my friends ever pray, as far as a I know. I don’t pray very much myself, although I do from time to time when the occasion demands. But Argow is asking us to think of actions like praying or singing in a more expansive sense.
What is it that we do in response to our faith?
In one sense, everything that we do is in response to our faith. Our entire life is shaped by those deep questions and the answers we’ve arrived at, consciously or unconsciously.
Sometimes we notice there’s a disconnect between our fundamental beliefs and values and the way we’re currently living, and we make a big, deliberate change in our lives. We leave an unsatisfactory job. We end an unhealthy relationship. We move across country. We join a church, or volunteer at the shelter. We follow a dream. We take a risk.
You may have made a big change in your life like that. And you might even have thought of that change in spiritual terms. You might have said, “This is not who I am.” “This is not what I want.” Something beyond myself is calling me to a different life. There’s more for me to do. Something else, or someone else, needs me and I’ve been holding myself back. “It’s time to show up for myself and others.”
So every aspect of life is an expression of our spirits.
But we use the term “spiritual practice” in a more narrow way.
A practice, as anyone who plays an instrument can tell you, is something that you do regularly, intentionally, and holistically.
Let me explain each of those terms.
A spiritual practice needs to be done regularly. That means, not just a few big transformational events scattered through your life, but a practice that you return to often, repeatedly, maybe daily, probably at least weekly. Regularly.
And a spiritual practice is done intentionally. That means you don’t just wait for a spiritual experience to happen to you and enjoy it when it comes, but you do something deliberately to invite the spiritual experience. You do your practice because you want to focus on the spiritual feeling or the spiritual questions. And your practice is about working to experience that spiritual feeling more often, and on demand, not just by accident.
And a spiritual practice is holistic. By this I mean that when you’re in the midst of your practice it requires your complete attention. You can’t be doing your spiritual practice and also watching television, and also minding the stove as you get dinner ready for the kids. Spiritual practice requires focus and concentration and a distraction-free space and time.
Holistic also means that all of your person is involved: your mind and your body. It’s how you sit, and where you place your hands, and how you breathe, and where you direct your gaze. Spiritual practices are holistic: mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional.
So with that definition, what do you do that is a spiritual practice for you?
Unitarian Universalists engage in a lot of different spiritual practices.
Maybe you do yoga, or tai chi. Maybe your spiritual practice is long bicycle rides, or walking. Maybe you meditate. Maybe you do a regular community service project that’s a spiritual practice for you.
The questions to ask are:
Do I do it regularly?
Do I do it intentionally, for the purpose of growing my spirit?
Do I do it holistically, with my complete attention?
I have two main spiritual practices. Neither one of which would be recognized by most religions, but they work for my spirit.
I mentioned during the children’s message that singing in a choir is a spiritual practice for me.
Is it regular? Yes. We rehearse every week, Thursdays at 7pm. And I have to do some rehearsing on my own, too. And we perform a couple of times a year.
Is it intentional? Yes, for me anyway. For probably most of the guys in the chorus the group is a social opportunity, or they sing because they enjoy the aesthetic quality of the music. But for me, it’s that, plus, I’m also intentional when I sing about having a spiritual experience. I intentionally connect with something larger than myself. I add my piece to the work of the whole. I find my place, in the music but also in the universe. I connect with myself inwardly and I give my gift outwardly.
And is it holistic? Yes. I turn off my cell phone. I watch the director. I listen. I concentrate. I engage my diaphragm. I focus on my breathing. I sing with my whole being.
The other spiritual practice for me is working out at the gym. I exercise regularly. I’m intentional about not just working my body but also growing my spirit. I concentrate on what I’m doing, mentally and physically. It’s like a meditation for me. And as a good spiritual practice should, my exercise makes me feel good, less anxious, stronger, energized, positive, healthy.
Your spiritual practice might be prayer. It might be gardening, or hiking, or knitting.
If you want to start a spiritual practice it doesn’t have to be one more thing in your life, but perhaps as simple as changing how you do something you’re already doing. It might be as simple as committing to joining the Fellowship for worship regularly, intentionally, holistically.
Because you are human, you have a spiritual life, whether you use that word for it or not. A practice that would keep you connected to that transcendent world of ideals and goals, the true, the good, and the beautiful, could help you grow, could help you stay grounded in your deepest values and reaching for your highest self. A spiritual practice could help you find your way if you feel lost, stay on your right path once you’ve found it, and go further along your path toward your life’s goals.
Whatever god you have in your heart, and maybe “god” is not the word you use for that inner light and guiding direction, that vision of the best that calls you forward, that infinite other, greater than ourselves that we call “Thou”:
Be thou my vision, thou my best thought,
Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true word;
Thou my best shelter, thou my high tower,
O Power of my power.
Thou my inheritance, now and always;
Thou and thou only, first in my heart.