‘Every whisper, of every waking hour
I’m choosing my confessions
Trying to keep an eye on you
Like a hurt, lost and blinded fool.’

(REM ‘Losing My Religion’ 1991)

How easily we make assumptions. How easily we absorb ideas and concepts without exploring them a little further. ‘Oh no I’ve said too much, I haven’t said enough’! I really liked this song from the early 90’s, I also liked the band REM. But I dismissed it pretty quickly as being another anti-Christian pop theme. It wasn’t until years later I found out that the song was in fact about the break up of a relationship and that the term ‘losing my religion’ was an old southern US expression for being at the end of my tether. The fact that Western European countries were ‘losing their religion’ made me read something into the song that wasn’t there.

That whole awareness made me think about being more conscious about the decisions we make and the ideas we ascribe to. Many people these days like to attach themselves to the tag ‘spiritual but not religious’ without too much examination of what the spiritual that they ascribe to actually is. Although the word ‘religion’ is commonly associated with how we relate to the divine its Latin root word religio, literally means to ‘read again.’ This was seen in the sense of ‘going over’ ‘choosing’ and ‘considering carefully,’ which seems appropriate to my theme. Monism is a very popular concept that people seem to be absorbing. ‘All is one’…that there is a unity among everything and that if we just wish it so it will be so. Does anyone ascribing to this stop and ponder a while on the reality of evil in our world and whether this is something that they want to be ‘at one’ with?

Do we all just want to sit around singing John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ and imagine all will be ‘I’m ok, you’re ok!’ ‘Imagine all the people, living for today a-a- a,a,a!’ sounds good on the surface but then if we contemplate this further (yes, ‘contemplate’ isn’t a word we hear much of these days) living for today ignores two vital aspects of our existence; the past that formed us and the future we place our hope in.

A popular book at the turn of the century was ‘The Power of Now’ – I would ask ‘what now?’ and ‘whose power?’ Is living for today currently about being consumed with concern for a conflict in Eastern Europe when we haven’t yet come to terms with and processed what went on in the ‘now’ often forgotten pandemic?

Other popular ideas, that are often absorbed without critiquing, are –

Manifesting…that the universe is some giant vending machine…you put all those good thoughts into the slot and out pops what you desire. Its a bit like Aladdin’s magic lamp…give it a rub and out pops the genie.

Mindfulness/ meditation…still the mind and hey, notice what is going on around you and within you. Great, but then what? How do we deal with what’s around us and within us?

Critical thinking…creatively question everything…and don’t look at the possibility that there could be a thing called objective truth. And so the list of mantras goes on…

‘Just say yes!’….no, no, no, no, no, no!

‘equality & diversity’…with diverse levels of equality?

‘but it feels so right it can’t be wrong’ … ‘Whoa! I feel nice, like sugar and spice. I feel nice, like sugar and spice. So nice, so nice, I got you. When I hold you in my arms I know that I can’t do no wrong. (James Brown)

Everyone should ‘keep up with the times’ (when we’re not keeping up with the Jones’) and should be on the ‘right side of history’…as if we are all clairvoyants with regard to how history will be viewed in the future.

And then that most truly vacuous of statements, ‘love is love!’…no explanation needed, it’s obvious, eh?

So is this what we ascribe to and become when we are ‘spiritual not religious?’

Be your kind of spiritual all you want…I’d just ask us to question the values, beliefs and moral precepts that we embrace, what are they and what are the possible consequences of holding them? Pretending that you are not religious is a way of avoiding looking at the fact that we all ascribe to values and beliefs in some shape or form. Pretending otherwise is to live unconsciously and allowing someone else to make those decisions for you.

So let us question the values this world throws at us, and if accepting them do it consciously and hold off on being ‘me in the corner – absorbing new religion!’

See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fulness of life in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

(Colossians 2:8-10)

(Thank you to Roger Buck – author of ‘The Gentle Traditionalist’ – for the inspiration for this and his inspiring journey from New Age advocate to faithful Catholic)