Communion

When we attend churches, synagogues, mosques,  temples, or the gatherings of other worshiping communities, we don't automatically become dangerous because of our religious path; but we do become destructive when we are religious only, and not also on a spiritual journey. Religious roads are divergent, offering people varied paths from which they can begin a search for meaning. Spiritual journeys are convergent, leading people, no matter their beginning point, toward a single destination and a common purpose.

All by itself (as a 3-year-old's psyche is prone to prefer), religion is a horizontal connection that  accentuates differences in ritual and ideology, connecting us with some people and disconnecting us from others. As religion's complement and vertical adhesive, spirituality opens us to a universally shared connection with the divine creator and, therefore, with the rest of God's creatures.

Alone, and especially when it is hijacked by culturally, economically, and socially competitive structures, religion leads us into the ever-shrinking box of protection for self and fear of other, which is a polar opposite state from the one for which we were created. Religion provides us with a point of origin. Spirituality offers us the promise of a destination. Are you merely going wherever your fear drives you, or are you on a spiritual journey that has a specific "somewhere" ahead of you – not just as afterlife pie-in-the-sky, but a life’s journey of active presence?

Religion is a lot about specific ways of doing; spirituality is about ways of living, breathing, and being. Religion teaches us to gather together in like-minded community to share bread and wine. Spirituality shows us our connection to the people around us who are hungry and dares us to also feed them. 

© 2015 Todd Jenkins