Response from Ben Mann

As I am writing, I feel a distinct mourning and recognition of my own mortality. The world that has birthed my sentiment is one of heaviness and darkness. As a citizen of the United States, I have been relentlessly let down by the status quo of my own country. Despite being a nation of incredible resources and intelligence, we have allowed ourselves to fall prey to the deception of our own pride, which attempts to convince us that this life is an immortal one, and that in order to preserve it, we must subjugate one race, sexuality, gender, or class to another.

This choice has led to some dire outcomes, including injustice for people of color, women, poor people, people with disabilities, and LGBTQIA+ people – to name a few. It has also led to a system of governance that is quickly destroying our environment and exacerbating diseases and suffering. And, on an even more practical level, this choice makes it hard to just be a friend, neighbor, or employee, because it is hard to hope as our humanity decays – just as our mortal bodies do.

Against this backdrop of sadness, I offer that there is more, and that there is hope, yet it is so hard to recognize. Why? One theory: opportunism from the privileged and resourced who see hopelessness as a means to profit. Don’t believe me? During a recent trip to a major retailer, I noticed that the company posted signs in its windows reading, “You Matter”, “We are in this Together”, and the like. While I appreciate and agree with these messages, the fact that they are being offered by the design of a multi-billion dollar corporation seeking to profit, instead of a church or other community committed to the common good is disturbing. Companies like this one spend millions of dollars selling their products, and something in their expensive research informs them that the hopelessness that I describe is so valuable and so needed that it is worth building into the marketing of their products.

Nonetheless, against this backdrop, I offer that there are answers that can inoculate us from our own deceptions and the corporatization of our hope, and that is spirituality. Right away you might be tempted to shut out anything that follows, if you have not already done so by my use of flowery and stark language. Also, I am a pastor, so me saying the word “spirituality” conjures perceptions that I am about to attempt to sell you on my religion, a concept called proselytizing. 

So, let me be clear, I am not concerned with your belief matching mine or those held by my community, which vary wider than you might imagine. What does concern me is that you realize that the power and ability to adapt and grow even in the unhealthiest or threatening of circumstances resides within you. I think of that power as your spirit.

Some may call it your calling; others, your purpose, but whatever meaning you hear in those terms, I believe that we all have it; yet, like our mortal bodies, our spirits need to be coached, appreciated, exercised and treated for what ails them. We have been trained to think of spirituality – or the concept of understanding our spirits – as some form of cultish ritual or anti-intellectual escapism, we disregard wise advice and guidance that might otherwise help us find the hope that we need to counter the darkness.

An example from my own path: I found success in 12-step programming to address several personal challenges. Such programs are “spiritual” in their practice, because they ask participants to release some control over to a version of an external power. A dear friend has also found the same success in 12-step, but he HATES the concept of religion, and so has endeavored to shape the language of the program to meet his needs. Had my friend outright rejected the program, he would be in a toxic state.

This is a minor example of why we need spirituality now, because we have so limited our concept of spirit that it is preventing us from meeting our immediate needs for long-term growth and development, especially as humankind. In this shortcoming, however, there is much opportunity to become the resilient, capable people that can exceed our own expectations.

This is why I write, to be your partner and peer in what’s possible for you.

Response from Carrie E. Neal

For me, spirituality is liberation. Spirituality is experiential and activates meaning-making, connection, and maturity. It is about both being in the moment, and having a belief that there is more than just this moment. 

When asked, “Why Spirituality Now?”, I immediately find myself expanding outwards and think, “Spirituality Always”. If you are living in the United States in 2020, then you know that this has been a trying year. Living under a shelter in place order, unemployment, unsure political futures, and black siblings still being killed by police violence in very public ways. 

Now seems like the exact right time for spirituality. If spirituality can help us understand what’s happening in the world around us and inside us, then this seems to be the time to activate it. Friere tells us that authentic liberation is the process of humanization [1]. Now seems to be the perfect time for more humanizing systems, organizations, communities and relationships. Spirituality humanizes us and it liberates us.

When I think about the experience of being alive, the experience of 2020, I have a full range of emotions, many thoughts, plenty of fear and longing, and some hope. I also have rage, grief and deep sorrow. And mostly I think, “I, like every human who has lived, lives with both hope, and experiences trial, recognizing that most of my experience is out of my control. There has been pain at the level I experience today in every generation of humanity.”

What do I mean when I say spirituality activates meaning-making, connection, and maturity? 

My personal spirituality, as well as the cultural and societal environment that I exist within, give me language to process the world around me. If I believe that I should worry not for tomorrow (Matthew 6:34), and I am able to live into that, then I will experience the trials of 2020 in a very different way than someone whose spirituality teaches them to “share the guilt of creatureliness and the guilt for anything they ever thought.” [2] In this then, our spirituality informs our actions, our thoughts, our meaning-making and interpretation of experience. This recognition that spirituality is connected to my experience and allows for meaning-making releases me to the joy of the intellect. I love to think, research, and reflect. This is a spiritual practice for me. 

When I refer to connection I think about connection to self, connection to others, and connection to the Everything. The Everything that I can just begin to recognize when I get a sense of interbeing. Interbeing is an expanded inter-relational understanding of how we are situated and interact withtime, space, humanity before us, with us now and into the future, the natural world and all of life. [3] Connection to myself is how I understand inner-knowing. Connection to others is how I practice community. And connecting to Everything positions me with humility. 

And where does maturity fit in? When I think about maturity I think about personal and social development. I think about relationship to community. I think about recognizing transformation in myself and others. Maturity is a combination of synthesizing and assimilating observation, and making choices that honor oneself and one another. It is about presence, mindfulness and decision-making – it is wisdom. It is both earned and innate. 

So, how is spirituality liberation? I believe that believing in something more than ourselves is liberating, brings hope, helps us feel connected and interconnected, and increases empathy. This work – the work of being spiritual beings – becomes the work of humanization and interbeing. It is what moves us towards being people with ubuntu [4] and towards the future. It brings us equanimity, and peace. 

Wherever you are, in 2020 or any other point in time, I say, “Spirituality Always”.