What was happening? Everything. How else to explain being alive?

Everything that happens happens right now.

My walking and breathing were my current state of affairs in life. Every waking experience is personal—if you are a person and are awake.

Honor your feelings. Your thoughts. Open every drawer. Unlock every door. Drawers and doors are meant to be opened.

A windy day in the Windy City. A bracing baptismal breeze of cool moisturizing mist swept over me in vertical waves at irregular moments—refreshing on a muggy July day. I was a considerable distance from proud Buckingham Fountain, with its computerized dance of playing water jetties, but could still catch the humidifying drift as it suffused the air. Children near the fountain would squeal and run to avoid being captured by it. I watched the teasing approach and avoidance dance of the youngsters with delight. It was as if they had just discovered water—or the potentiality of it. Adults near the fountain stood still and quiet, as if they were asleep.

It was a perfect day—an original day. All days are original and perfect. You could not ask for anything more—nothing more was needed or desired. This was it.

I stopped and let my small black backpack slowly slip along my arm to the ground and lowered myself down to the carpet of grass. I sat near a row of barberry shrubs under a sheltering white pine. I felt my body contact the earth.

The big sounds of the City with Big Shoulders were currently evidenced by the smashing noise and reverberating thuds of a distinguished-looking brick structure a block to the west of me being demolished. The unmerciful punishment was competing for attention with the sounds of commerce and commercialism. Conceit filled the air. History was taking its licks.

Drowned out by the noise of urban smugness was the gentle slapping of the waves on the lakeshore boulders. The warming sunshine, loved because of its inevitable decline, gave me an uncompromised sense of the sacred.

I focused my attention on a tenor saxophone overplaying the eighties disco hit, “Don’t Leave Me This Way.” Amicably chatting people on the sidewalk with disengaged looks ignored the plea. An occasional explosion of laughter from a private joke would disrupt the moisturized air.

The intensity and clarity of the cloudless, cerulean sky domed the unrestrained cityscape. My eyes swept up and down from the intensity of the color overhead to the paling of it at the edging horizon line of Lake Michigan.

I fanned my hand across the recently sheered blades of lawn in front of me, and noted the dozens of shades of green making up the living carpet. Only my sweeping arm cast a shadow under the high noon sun.

I felt connected to my own being.

Then–Cassandra, whose name meant in Greek “one who ensnares men,” scurried by me in an oversized pair of purple men’s slippers.  She was a renowned kleptomaniac who only spoke with well-known lines of characters from legendary films.

“Give me back my slippers,” I heard a frail male voice say from behind me. “Give them back…or I’ll…” 

“Ha!  Rubbish!  You have no power here.  Be gone!  Before someone drops a house on you.”    She was nabbed by the nurse as she passed the lounge and asserted, “Not me that needs to see a psychiatrist, Blanch.”

Arriving at the conference room for Report, I noticed Oedipal Al, slouched in high-back plastic armchair just outside the door.   He was coined the name by the staff.  He believed he had killed his father and married his mother–now deceased.  No need for penance, apparently.  He’d meet everyone with a smile, he was supporting his bony elbow on the arm rest and repeatedly flicked with his fingers the ash off an invisible cigarette.   I had never seen anyone hold an imaginary cigarette so stylishly.  He waved hello to me with his free hand.   I handed him an ashtray that was not there.    

“It’s all about protein molecules,” he said as he meticulously brushed off the nonexistent ashes from this lap. “Yup…those molecules.”

I drifted in and out of the conveying of relevant information by the nurse to the oncoming staff—machine-gunned fragments, mostly.  “Bowel movement. Refused meds. Public masturbation.”  As I stared at the bird-of-paradise-patterned wallpaper, I thought of how I would feel if someone surveyed me for eight hours and then summarized me–my identity–in six words.  “American Gigolo.  Accidents happen.  Not saved.”

My thoughts returned to Gloria.  Her God had been construed for her by her religion of definitive answers.  Faith can be a beautiful thing only when it is a mediator of a new consciousness.  Living in a rigid frame of reference is confidence in an opinion with unyielding borders.  If we interpret a spiritual reality through a particular set of someone else’s defined conjectures, our life will become this someone else’s desired guesswork.  If we need objects of authority and edicts for our convictions to be compelling, then our life is one of detailed fears.   If we need a chronicled faith, then our life is history and following directions. 

Spirituality is not quantitative or qualitative.  There is no primary superior character or routine to it, standards to be valued or measured, identifications to cleave to or methodologies to abide by. 

Organized faith is conventional, habitual, uniform.  On paper, it’s ideal.

Spirituality is innate, effortless, open.  Noteworthy.
 
 

“What is the meaning of life?  …The great revelation…never did  come.  Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.”     

Virginia Wolfe (1882-1941)

I tossed my phone onto the sofa and settled back down in the sunshine framed on the floor. It felt warm and intimate. Paging through my newspaper, I found religion—the religious and local social news section.

The first two pages were a mix of articles on local church events and a lassoing feature on the popular new phenomenon of cowboy churches. I turned the page.

BAM! An explosion of local church ads hit me in the face like an airbag. All in tidy square boxes, the ads created grid designs covering several pages. I was reminded of the car ads I had just been perusing.

I remembered from Latin class that the word “religion” means “to bind together.” The religion section of the newspaper successfully exemplified this. There was an obvious chafing in these tightly woven ads of faiths. The optical effect was blurring. There was no room to breathe. I could hear the disquieting sounds of historically and socially fragmented religions—mostly Christian—lobbying and bustling against each other. It was like looking at a colossal box of nestled square chocolates … Which one to choose? They all looked alike. The ads seemed to physically push the boundaries of the pages. I could feel the pressure—I was sitting in the margins.

I reminded myself that these pages were only from one newspaper of one city. I’d once Googled religion and noted there were two hundred and ninety-two million sites. I had surfed for a few minutes more but lost interest after visiting the first twelve. Eleven were about definitions—descriptions of religions, cults, sects, denominations, the occult, and freemasonry. One was about consulting services for learning religious tolerance. You could learn about religion and then how to tolerate it.

My eyes bounced from one small box of the ad pages to another. They were indeed want ads. I felt wanted.

I scanned the pages. Most used the same generic layout—as if the churches had the same thinking in mind. There was conformity and monotony. Within the tidy boxes was the name of the church or denomination affiliation, a church logo in one corner—lots of doves and flames—the imaginative world of symbolism. Some ads contained signature slogans. Addresses and scheduled times of services were included.

Overwhelmingly welcoming pages, many ads proclaimed either “Everyone Welcome” or “A Welcoming Congregation” or “Visitors Welcome.”

What does “welcome” mean? Did “welcome” imply a freedom to express your own opinion?  Religion is not about freedom—this is the concern of spirituality.

I contemplated the smorgasbord of Christianity before me. It didn’t make any sense. Smorgasbords don’t. They are a hodge-podge.

Christianity is a historical religion of traditions and conditions.  A primary tradition is squabbling over conditions (usually about who is in charge, means of salvation, rituals and doctrines), leading to dissent, leading to creation of new Christian divisions.  Like the boxed ads promoting them, this “tradition” was setting up boundaries—defined edges.  All religions formulate basic statements of faith.  This is not just to remind believers what they are supposed to believe, but to tell believers from nonbelievers, and true believers from false ones.  

Let’s look the truth in the face here. So many religious venues … all of them a blend of something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. But they are all on the same “page.” They all have the same agenda: Christianity was a missionary religion.  Each “box” in my face wanted to talk about what they have to offer.  But do the churches these ads were promoting encourage the discovery of flexibility? Do they support pushing personal boundaries with the guidance of reason? Do they appreciate that humans have yearnings, but that belonging to an organization was not necessary for faith?

 I had read that thirty Christian denominations had chaplains in Operation Desert Storm. Does comfort need to be customized?

I visually and mentally lumbered through the ads for Episcopal Churches, traditional Episcopal Churches, and Evangelical Episcopal Churches; Presbyterian Churches in America, Presbyterian Churches USA, and Reformed Presbyterian Churches; a Methodist Church With Vision and a Methodist Church with Open Minds; Primitive Baptist Church Dedicated to Biblical Teaching, and a Free Will Baptist Church Teaching the Bible with Dedication. Ads for The Brethren, Church of the Brethren, and Brethren in Christ. Ads for the Church of Christ, the Church of God, The Churches of God, and the Church of God in Christ. One ad asked, “Are You Looking for a Real Alternative?” by the Anglican Orthodox Church—currently assembling at the United Methodist Church across the street from the Assembly of God Church. And then, an ad for Holy Name Catholic Church, stating the incontrovertible words “Dedicated to the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church.”

I recognized quite a few of the churches listed from my drives through the area. Several edifices were lofty and emotionally remote. Some were captivating eye candy. Others looked like military installations.  I could hear my dad’s words—as relevant for selecting a car as they were for choosing a church—“Well, whatever works for you.”

Accidents are not necessarily mishaps. Whether or not something is an accident depends on your perception.

As for my birth, I was a cesarean baby; I waited for someone to come and get me. I did not arrive with a splash but immediately responded to life as most of us do: I cried and sought solace. When I felt comforted, I regained my composure. Comfort brings calmness. We can become attached to what brings us comfort.

When you are young, winter does not seem so cold, summer not so hot, and articles of faith not so blunt. As I grew, I was indoctrinated into a belief system—before I could understand what a doctrine was or question why I needed one. I just followed the program. That’s what people do. We usually find ourselves in a group, a collective.

Yes, people are not born mature. We need shaping. We are influenced. We begin as a human silhouette and hopefully develop into a self—a person, an identity—by way of the formative forces that surround us: family, culture, society, and education. These authorities and persuasions become our roots. Roots help us feel we are not alone. Roots give us the strength to incorporate changes in our lives. Roots can also govern our lives.

Who was I? Like many, I grew up looking at my life and myself with eyes colored by a particular worldview, a particular platform, a particular religion, a particular culture. My perception was not produced by my thinking, my inquiries, or my solutions.

I had no awareness of this cultivation of faith identification, no understanding of why dedication and devotion to a faith was necessary, and no encouragement to develop my own inner sense of the sacred, my own inner sense of self. Curiosity about faith—supposedly the most vital part of your being and identity—was practically considered a disease in the Catholic religion, as is true in most religions. You did not ask questions.

I wore an interior and exterior uniform my entire twelve years of schooling. I was a reflection of others—inside and out. I never had to be concerned with staying in style, mull over what to wear each morning, or hear from my mother, “You’re wearing that?” Uniforms provide an instant identity. Uniforms are economical. In grade school, I had a mere two pairs of blue corduroy pants. I could fly by the seat of my same pair of pants for several weeks—nobody would know. I didn’t know. I didn’t think about it.

Uniformity is unconsciously comforting.  Group identification provides security.

Several years after leaving religious life and returning to the “world,” I traversed northwest on the planet from Chicago to visit family in the Twin Cities.  I desired to spend some time with my grandmother, and a Sunday morning found the two of us heading to church together.  My Grandmother was an original … with her original teeth … original hips … practicing an original religion. She embraced the formalized formulas of faith on her own terms—with her own terms.  I remembered her innovative rendition of the Apostles’ Creed was less heady than the approved version and provided a window into her mind and heart.  It captured my imagination with its ironical, nifty ideas.  

We walked up to an aged, blended Romanesque, Byzantine, and something-else-I-couldn’t-put-my-finger-on, Roman Catholic Church called Epiphany on a brilliantly blue skied, bitingly cold, Minnesota morning.

I was an invisible man to the two elderly women standing behind me as I pulled open the heavy bronze door of the church to admit them in. They clutched each other for physical support from the blasting, icy wind.

“If your lips are dry, you are in the first stage of dehydration,” the one murmured to the other.

I unconsciously swiped my upper lip with my tongue. My lip was dry. What was the “second stage”?

As I  held the door open to let the women pass inside, one, or both, smelled like lilac talcum powder. Intense.

I was not acknowledged. Did they think church doors opened by magic?

Propping a foot against the door, I cautiously guided my eighty-four-year-old grandmother slowly across the threshold into this house of worship called Epiphany.

This was my grandmother’s church, not mine. The church of my youth didn’t have corners.  It was one of those contemporary, copy-cat “theater-in-the-round” models in the suburbs. The grandiosity we were entering was imbued with marble and timeless manners (artistic detailing out the wazoo) that spoke legacy and stability.  Its only vulnerability was dwindling attendance.

On rare occasions as a youngster, I would spend the weekend with her and we would walk to Sunday Mass—a quick, two-block stroll. We would pass another Catholic church on the way.

“That’s the Irish church,” she once said dismissively. We were not Irish. Epiphany was a German church. We were not German. Yes, confusing. Memorable.

Now on our way into Epiphany, I asked, “Grandma, do my lips look dry?” I aimed my lips in her direction.

“Your lips! There’s nothing the matter with you!”

The heavy brass door slowly, silently closed behind us on its own—with the weight of its convictions.

“God almighty, it’s dark in here!” I said.

“You’ll get used to it,” she replied indifferently.

The narthex—or, in secular language, lobby—of the church had a startling interior and the ambiance of a mausoleum. Heavy with dark, cold marble, it was windowless and deadly silent. It is intimidating to challenge the authority of marble. Darkness, like death, is the great equalizer—acne-faced teens were indistinguishable from sun-spotted seniors in this interior.

The architectural elements of a church often weave religious meaning into their general what-it-all-means context. I probed for the character of the mausoleum lobby … Life is short? The connection between faith and death? What happens in the lobby stays in the lobby?

Unimportant things seemed to fall away in this space—making an echoing clank as they hit the stone floor.

I tried to focus on the Holy Water font I knew used to be just inside the door to the left. “There he is,” I said to myself as my eyes adjusted to the gloomy atmosphere. I found “him”—a shoulder-high pedestal of a frozen-in-marble, sorrowful-looking angel holding a marble bowl. The only light of day he ever saw was when someone opened the door.

Unlike a majority of parishioners, my grandmother did not have a “family pew.” She transmigrated weekly.  She always settled on the right pew for her after giving the space a thorough review.

“Where would you like to sit today, Grandma?” I asked.

She lifted her head, squinted and scrutinized the massive church.

“Well … Not up there with those old people.”  

I scanned the church looking for the “old people.”  Upon finding a small cluster of elderly women up front to the right, I smiled as I quickly surmised that they were younger than my grandmother.  

I wondered if humans ever in their life span see themselves as they really are.  (Yes, perhaps too scary.)  Carl Jung said only a small minority did.  Most need feedback from others to know their true nature.  But how receptive are the receivers?  How perceptive are the perceivers?”

People have a selective attention system and perceptions are heavily influenced by accumulated expectations and engraved former experiences.

One sees what one wants to see—or not see.  One chooses what one wants to feel—or not feel.

As this was my first visit to the Bel Paese, the Beautiful Country (Italy) I did the usual tourist fare: the hot August crawl through the “important” churches and the standard exposure to Michelangelo’s anatomical research.

I learned while touring several churches that too much anatomical revelation required the wearing of something of a hybrid between a brown hospital gown and a paper trash bag. These “wraps,” as I called them, were handed out free of charge at the church entrances by male attendants to women subjectively discerned—by the men—to be clothed disrespectfully. Disclaiming aesthetics, they were designed to merely cover the shoulders and knees. One size fit all. My shoulders and knees were, evidently, not disrespectful. Universally derided, they clearly made the “chosen women” look like transients. To glance at gatherings of women on their knees in prayer before shrines was to look at rows of potatoes. They discarded their “wraps” at the church exits. Dress codes were only enforced at particular high-traffic churches. Some sacred places were apparently more sacred than others.

Feeling too hot and weary to even wipe the sweat off my brow, I sat with Joanne on the wall, motionless, presenting like a Duane Hanson sculpture. My only evidence of being alive was the beads of sweat dripping off the contour of my American nose. Joanne was playing with her bangs, trying to revive their whirls.
In the center of the sequestered cobblestone piazza where we sat was a towering object of wonder. My eyes traveled scrupulously up and down the vertical structure of stone. It was a confiscated ancient Egyptian obelisk covered with hieroglyphics undoubtedly speaking of matters political and religious. The obelisk was a four-sided eulogy commemorating the loss of a conquered and circumscribed civilization. Capping the apex of the “prisoner of war” was an iron Christian cross. The emblematic Egyptian loss was now a mere architectural pedestal paraded past by pizza-seeking pedestrians. Holding its ground in a swirling sea of philistines, its engraved messages were nonetheless irredeemably lost, reduced to mere distressed decorative text on a monument promoting a now different bearing of belief.

Stationed under a red, white, and green striped umbrella snuggled up to the side of an unimaginative building was a fortune-teller at a small round table covered with a red tablecloth. The only objects on the table were two candles, an inexpensive wristwatch, and a yellowing paperback of Planet of the Apes. The fortune-teller had straight, shoulder-length blond hair and strikingly resembled Madonna—the singing one. Her low cut black gown was resplendent with sequins and gold threading—stereotypical fortune-teller couture.

I had kept an eye on her as I loitered on the wall. The teller’s smile was raffish, but her overall manner was solemn when working with clients. No crystal ball—it was all in the cards. I remembered from a different era art history class that it was Baroque sculptor, artist, and architect Gianlorenzo Bernini who had created in church architecture the concept of “theaters within a theater”—side chapels of a dramatic stage design within the larger stage of the church. The setting of the current fortune-telling created a small sideshow on the fringe of the larger theatrical piazza. This was a location for stargazing, monument hazing, heaven and hell raising, all wrapped up in a single sight-seeing extravaganza.

The aqua colored walls were covered with an overlay of Christian symbols and scriptural quotes strewn with an attitude of seeming indifference as to where they would land.  One could face in any direction and be reminded of the correct direction.  These arterial halls were an unequivocal right-of-way. 

On the opposite wall from my obsolete pew hung a plastic literature container of brochures in red, white and blue.  No need to browse, they were one and same.  The cover was titled in bold letters “The One True Church,” and below it, the subtitle, “Jesus Built Only One Church.”   The name of the One church was not mentioned on the cover.   No need.  I understood.  I was standing in the one.

I walked over and took one of the brochures, as I folded it and slid it in my shirt pocket, I heard church bells. 

Taped to the wall to the right of the patriotic-colored brochures was a near life-size, cut-out poster board figure of a child with moveable limbs sporting the garb of a Crusader. 

The blond youngster, perhaps age ten, was wearing medieval military battle gear.  It was cartoonish, with eye-catching colors and lacked depth.  Groundless, he hovered several feet above the tiled floor charging toward the viewer.

The preppy-looking child was a knight anticipating a definitive fight.  The individual parts of his apparel were labeled in a lettering overlay stating the metaphorical meanings of each article of gear.

He carried with pride, on this left forearm, a declared “Armor of God” shield emblazoned with a red cross across a field of white.  A hoisted, pointing to heaven and also the drop ceiling, silver “Sword of Truth” was held righteously in his right hand.  On his head he wore a silver “Helmet of Salvation” that looked like that of a Spanish Conquistador.  Blond locks of cartoonish hair sprouted from under it and spread across his severely Caucasian forehead.  He had large spurs on his metal boots.  The spurs and boots carried no labeled symbolism.     Across his chain-mailed chest was the primary refrain: “PREPARED FOR THE ATTACKS OF SATAN.”

There was an immediate shift in behavior and mood in both the combatants. The skirmish deflated to face-to-face taunting then into a slow backing away from each other into their own corners while mumbling bite-sized, over-the-shoulder jeers. It finally smoldered down to subtle glares as each grabbed their “gear” with angry, dramatized swipes of their hands. They both hunkered down in their desks. Disappointed hecklers in the class booed. A couple of girls applauded. We could have been at a karaoke club.

Still, the usual sanctions had to be administered. I told them both to stay after class. A “steer-clear” contract would be signed. I would write up the incident on the all-too-familiar pink form, place it in the appropriate basket in the dean’s office, and get in touch with both students’ parents later that night.

I barked the name of a student who had never spoken in class—I suspected lockjaw—recommended a tetanus shot—and asked him to go the office and cancel the “call.” The office staff was aware my button didn’t work and knew the routine. Someone in the dean’s office would state a few words of thanks and send him back to class.

Was this incident of noxious energy just about adolescent egos and mechanical reactions? Pushing mental and emotional buttons? No, I thought. This had something to do with the bigger business of human life. Real life—not a still life.

Today’s episode was not just an unvarnished portrait of teenage self-image and unsuppressed emotion surrounded by huddled groupings of giddy teens in splashy clothes bickering about who knew the most about what matters least. It was a retrospective exhibit of historical adult histrionics on a stretched canvas of human ignorance, lathered with divisive opinions and critical desires.

The tragedy in my mind was that socially conditioned forces were compelling these young men into conflict. Religion had become an adornment for their egos. Both students were wearing culturally imprinted medals of honor as they defended what they were taught to believe … taught to defend.

Religion is a perspective on life. A perspective on life is a viewpoint and a lookout. It is always a point of view with an angle. There are always different outlooks at the same picture of life. Different slants—imaginings in the mind’s eye influenced by minds no longer alive.

Religion provides comfort, yet it produces fears. Fears in the affiliates of the majority religion of a particular society that they will lose their power status, and fears in the members of minority religions that they may be in jeopardy. If there were no fears of religion, no one in my class would have taken notice of Katelyn’s brainstormed blurt of “School prayer!” and she would not have even uttered it.

Religion motivates and moves an individual toward good and evil. Absolute beliefs can create unrest within an individual and between individuals. When such convictions emotionally overtake a person, a society, or culture, they hurl living out of balance, out of perspective—but not out of control.

The religion of religion is control.

Points of view can become views with sharp points.

The lives of a billion human beings have been lost in religious conflicts.

Innate spirituality is to absolutist religion as patriotism is to nationalism. Patriotism is a love of country. Nationalism is to think your country is best. Genuine spirituality does not plead, declare, or argue. These behaviors are noise of the ego.

The ego is not interested in truth. Neither is religion. Both are concerned with your opinion of yourself. This opinion is paramount and reveals itself in the image you reveal to the world. We all play roles in life, but if we get lost in them, the drama we produce is from a fictional self. To be interested in truth, you must exercise self-responsibility, conscientiousness, and blameless accountability.

To be open to truth, you must see yourself in the other.

To know others is nothing more than to know yourself. We all exist in a network of interdependence. This perspective paves the way for understanding others and ourselves. This perspective brings peace.

We would revisit our “rooms” of one-point perspective in tomorrow’s class. Next week’s project would be a practiced understanding of two-point perspective.

“Now can I go to the bathroom?” Alexi pleaded.

“Da.” I handed him the sticky bathroom pass as the welcome calm of the room

was shattered by a declarative reared up from a back corner.

There it came again! That reflection of humanity—the search for self—the fallacy around the quest for perfect love in the real world. “You love me? You would die for me? You don’t even know me … baybeee!”

“The best religion is tolerance.”

— Victor Hugo (1772–1821)

At 6:20 AM, I laid in bed listening to the overflowing silence.  It was loud and clear. The bed was the width of a surfboard and just as comfortable to lie on. It was a row of pine boards with a three-inch foam pad on top. My tailbone was parked on the planks. The edges of the thin sheet covering me were frayed. There were yellow stains near the center. They reminded me of James Joyce. He provided the insight that, when you wet the bed, it at first feels warm and then turns cold. In that room it would ice-up. I was not responsible for the stains. The room smelled like a carpet deodorizer—without a carpet.

There was no mirror in the room. To look at yourself was vanity. You might notice self-importance and pride … or emptiness and hollow eyes.

I felt my heart beating as I lay there silent and still. I listened to it. I felt it pound. It rocked my entire body as if I was on a freight train riding over the rhythmic glitches of an old track in a repeated endless swayback. Like riding gentle waves on my surfboard. What were the beats saying? Some day they would stop. I would stop. I was at the right place. Monasteries are about stopping.

I caught a sliver of light out of the corner of my left eye. Turning my head, I noticed a two-inch wide, eight-foot long, horizontal bar of gold slowly appear and intensify on the wall of my room. The left end of the bar looked to be physically supported by the wooden cross on the wall.

Wondrously, another bar slowly appeared one inch below the present one. A third appeared. A fourth. A fifth.

Speaking in silence, the bars illuminated the landscape of my room, bringing clarity to the intentional emptiness.

It was not a religious vision. There was no mystery. The rising sun was shyly creeping up from behind the winter hills and entering my room through the half-open plantation blinds.

In less than five minutes, my entire wall was covered by bars of light.

It was a spiritual experience because I paid attention to it.

Spirituality is rooted in being awake. Listening. Observing.

I had fifteen minutes to make a landing at Lauds in the monastery chapel at 6:45 AM. Lauds is the second of the eight “offices” that make up the Liturgy of the Hours, the official prayer of the church that consecrated the day to God. Matins, which I had missed, is at 3:15 AM. The remaining seven were spread throughout the day with Compline to call it a day before those in the monastery retired at 7:30 PM. In summer, the day starts in the dark of the night and ends in the light of day. The idea was to “flow” with the timetable of the day—and night. An intense preoccupation with structure here. It was a repetitive daily schedule that was a nonstop journey. The days did not finish with a period or even a semicolon. There seemed to be no beginnings or endings. Sleep was a comma, a pause.

I quickly dressed, stopping in at the industrial, bleach-smelling communal bathroom. The water faucet marked hot was cold; the one marked cold was hot—sort of. There were Zen elements to this place—challenges to consciousness and expectations. If your mind is yearning for something, you are living in the realm of the intellect and belief. I surrendered to the icy water. I paid attention to my shivering body. It reminded me I existed.

I made my way through the empty, silent, bunker-inspired corridors to the recently renovated chapel. The pictures in the hall recounted its former state. Its interior had been converted from a plastered, ornamental gothic structure to a cavern of bleak monastic minimalism. What to say about it?  The only conclusion: less is more.  That was the idea.  The brick walls were exposed and painted white. The stained glass windows of angels and saints were replaced with simple geometric forms in hazy pastels. The dark, medieval-looking, carved wood choir stalls for the monks were replaced by sleek, squared-off constructions in natural oak that brought to mind check-in counters at airports.

Words are meager resonances in life that usually pass unnoticed. Exceptions are when they are declared truth. The resultant reverberations can echo and thud.

I noticed a subtle tremor of uneasiness on Alice’s face as I said my closing words. She quickly recovered, produced an acute smile, and mentioned once, and then again, how attractive my perennial flowers were.

“Is that a crown of thorns blooming?” she asked as she and her mother slowly turned and descended the steps, as if engaged in a pleasurable garden stroll.

“Could be. I don’t pay attention to names.”

I loved flowers and was indifferent to what anyone called them. Names become imprints. Imprints leave impressions. Impressions are not a real thing. Flowers are real, do not find themselves to be inadequate, and do not have any desire to be someplace else.

But, yes, I did understand. When I looked into their eyes I saw their religious Truth. What is this truth? The factuality of the motivations and feelings you perceive to be realistic. If you think my definition to be dismissive or simplistic, come up with your own meaning. How would you define religious truth? This thinking is worth the effort.

Alice seemed nice, I thought. She was nice. Too bad religion came between us. Religion does this—come between people.

Organized faith can also come between a person and the true self of that person.

For people struggling with what is perceived as the ultimate problems of human life, being loyal to an explicit set of beliefs helps them cope. Most people need solid answers to hang on to. However, we know that humans can—and do—attribute meaning to anything. With various levels of awe and mystery thrown in, heritage, history, heroes, the unconscious, obstacles, illness, fate, and fortune—you name it—have all been used to provide a sought-after understanding of who we are and have all been used to find meaning—significances—in life.

I wondered if my visitors felt a disappointment from this visitation or had their “righteousness” only been bolstered by the apostolic encounter? Had the trueness of their perceived “Truth” been reinforced by this experience of a well mannered, but still true rejection? Perhaps. Were they aware of the truth that all members of proselytizing “Truths” feel the very same righteousness? Again, perhaps.

Still I admired their audacity and perseverance. I had no experience in door-to-door sales—except selling chocolate bars in Catholic grade school to raise money for the missions.

As the morning shadows yielded to the rising sun, I looked through my oval window and watched my departing visitors—Faith colder, Alice with youthful spiritual hunger—as they got into their car. They drove away slowly, turning their heads and surveying the residential landscape as if on an inspection patrol.

Here is where we live. Now is what time it is. The hands on the clock of life always point to now. Nobody alive knows his or her destiny. Destiny isn’t meant to be known.

I saw nothing except the way things really are.

In spiritual living, fixating on what you want and evading what you dread does not result in spiritual progress or self-liberation. These desires supply a comforting way to reconcile good and evil and provide a unifying social experience with the like-minded. Religious designs can be compelling structures.

I liked my visitors. I felt cared for by these people. I did not feel cared for by their God. If their God so loved the world, would he annihilate it?

Standing still in the reverent sun, I moved on from my religious encounter to a moment of spiritual recognition: enlightenment is everywhere, in everyone, and all have an inner capacity to access it and respond to it. It begins with a quest for being without seeking answers. Life does not need a remedy.

What would I resurrect with the remainder of this day? I had a choice in the matter. I rolled up the sleeves of my shirt as I let my mind sing my childhood song’s now remembered, pleading last refrain, “Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

Spirituality is about the possibilities of happiness found in reality.  Religion is about postulated happiness after you are a fatality. 

Spirituality leans toward life. Religion leans toward death.

“Everyone believes very easily what they fear or desire.”

— Jean De La Fontaine (1621–1695)