Graduation Speech on the literal/metaphorical power of Self-Reflection

My high school friend Tori Ball gave a fantastic speech at CES-JDS's high school graduation. Besides her supreme wit and winning delivery, this speech calls the graduates (and all of us) to commit time in our day and in our lives to self-reflection and self-reckoning. This is definitely a lot of what I mean by spirituality-- tending for the fact that one is a spirit, a being capable of self-awareness and reflection.

Scientific Secular Spirituality!

It's in the news, people! I'm not the only one...

Article on recent survey of atheist scientists and their spirituality

Look for acknowledgement that mystery, awe, beauty and connection to something great than oneself still exist, regardless of God.

My one concern: There's an appreciation of secular spirituality as something highly individual, and thus free from communal authority figures. While I see that spirituality tends toward the personal, I would love to find a way to create communal spiritual principles, expressions, and celebrations that draw their authority from the community.

Atheist Cosmic Consciousness

+I got all cosmic about atheist spirituality in a recent book report. This is an excerpt.

Spirituality equals inter/connectedness, an idea which involves unity, transcendence, and presence. When things are connected, that which appears other is actually bound up with thesame. Thus, in connection, things are unified, and so things extend beyond their apparent boundaries, and so things that appear discrete actually have a certain presence in others. The universe is a complex and deeply mysterious place in which, as science progressively shows us, all the parts are interconnected. Given this interconnection, and man’s increasingly cataclysmic power over the Earth, it might be argued that it is of spiritual importance to modern individuals and pluralities to have an engaged “relationship to the Whole.”

I use this expression “the Whole” to refer to the unity-in-multiplicity without falling prey to other mistakes. “The Whole” is conceptually separate from the parts, in that it represents ‘all things at once and in connection,’ but it’s still difficult to predicate agency to the object of such a phrase. Thus I feel that I can have love and awe of “the Whole” but cannot imagine how it might say “I am.” I can relate to the Whole without having to give it a face and thinking it loves me. By my very existence I can tell that the Whole “abides” me (at least for the time being), and isn’t that enough? I don’t need the Whole to delight in my existence—I can do that myself. I can delight in the “endlessly diverse manifestations” of being, without having to imagine Being-Itself doing the delighting also. Can I appreciate that life is a dance without needing to call the Universe a dancer? Can I typify evolution as “serendipitous Creativity” (Gordon Kaufman) instead of “self-disclosure” and “inner drive”? (20) Most importantly, can I share the universal human imperatives of “justice, decency, and civility” without the concept of tselem elohim (image of God)? (30) Must we call reality “God” in order to inspire humans to be good?

The fact that humans are unique in their ability for self-reflection and world-understanding is what truly matters.That, and the fact that we are powerful. The combination of power and self-reflection produces the fact of responsibility towards The Whole. God doesn’t need to call out to us, asking about our treatment of the world. We can ask it ourselves. We are the only consciousness in/of our world.

What is spirituality? The pamphlet

Secular Spirituality 1

What is spirit?

What is Spirit?

"Spirit" is manifested by anything that combines subjectivity and objectivity. Objectivity is characterized by material nature-- objects have a beginning, an end, a composition, etc.

Subjectivity is characterized by consciousness, and even more so, self-consciousness. The subject, while still susceptible to external intentions, also produces its own intentions.

I won't weigh in on animals and their minds, but I label a human mind inside a human body as spirit. With my initial definition, it should be made clear that "spirit" can mean more than simply one individual. When two or more thinking people come together, for good or for ill, that too is a manifestation of spirit. A group of people is also a combination of objects and subjects, and so may be called "spirit."

Why call it Spirit?

In common usage, the phrase "human spirit" signifies a potential for greatness in humans as individuals or in groups. To me, this greatness can be thought of as both a depth and a height. There is a depth in the human experience, such that people are able to consider themselves, their actions, their relations, their place in the world, and the world itself-- indeed a person, by thinking and re-thinking, can contain the world and many possible worlds in their mind. There is a depth also between humans, found in the complexity of subterranean echoes that occur in almost every human interaction. We are more than meets the eye-- we are deep, and there is no need to invoke the idea of a "soul' in order to make this point. The vertical metaphor works in both directions, as "the human spirit" also indicates the new 'heights' that individuals and groups may attain. Feats of athleticism, moral courage, or simply getting up in the morning and heading to work/school-- we make 'more' of ourselves, transcending former limitations and definitions. We are more than meets the eye-- we contain in ourselves the future, and a promise of greatness. And there is no need to speak of God in order to make this point.

The word "spirit," to me, speaks to our potential for both depth and height. It also, quite conveniently, refers to the humanity of both the individual and the collective. In these ways, using the word "spirit" is helpful for me in order to think and speak about the human experience as a whole. Moreover, it captures for me the power (and thus the importance of considering seriously) of living as a subject/object. There is so much to say and respond to, being a subject-infused object and simultaneously an object-infused subject.

As Obama says before giving bad news, let me clear: to be spirit, whether individually or as a group, is to have the potential for both beauty and depravity. To borrow some language from religion, the human capacity for greatness can just as easily be demonic or angelic. The richness and complexity of the human experience produced the Renaissance and the Inquisition, the pyramids in Egypt and the slave labor that built those pyramids.

What is Spirituality?

Subjectivity sets spirits apart from the rest of the world of objects. As a subject, one has awareness, and that awareness has the ability to expand itself, to attempt to even include itself. To me, spirituality is about giving careful/caring attention to the fact that one can be self-aware. I take my inspiration for this definition from G.W.F Hegel's concept of internal critique--the process by which one can have ideals, attempt to fulfill them, and then re-assess whether one's actions are appropriate to the ideals, or whether the ideals themselves are appropriate at all. Our ability to "think twice" is a spiritual skill. Commitment to thinking twice is a spiritual practice.

There are many other spiritual skills/practices to be discussed, but for now I'll be happy that my blog definition of spirit has been written. If you found this confusing, I hope to say it all over again many other ways for the rest of my life. Also I hope to post the pamphlet definition of spirit, if someone will kindly tell me how to attach a pdf to a blog.

The Spirituality of Utter Silence

Atheists like me need to have a positive relationship with the concept of "nothingness." The Humanist movement intelligently turns attention away from the fantastical 'other-world' of God and heaven, and towards the very real 'this-world' where life actually happens. Meaning and redemption have to happen in this life, because everything beyond this life is "nothingness." (Ecclesiastes 9:10) But I think that this nothingness still deserves our attention.

As someone who loves words, I often equate human life with speech. When I imagine the world before humans evolved, I always imagine it as 'silent'-- anyone who's spent any time in nature knows I do not mean this literally. But still-- can you imagine the world without its current cacophony of inner monologues, all that thinking and feeling and scheming-- doesn't it seem quieter? An ego-less world-- seems quiet. Outside the realm of human thoughts, a deafening silence.

These thoughts about silence come to me when I think of the expanse of time in which my very short life occurs. There is a noise that's been going on for the last 27 years, and hopefully for another 100, and I call that noise "me"-- in fact "me" is the sound it usually makes. But before and after my life, there's a silence where this "me" will be and will once have been. I emerge from and return to nothingness, in between briefly participating in physical and conscious life. But, in either direction in time, a vast nothingness surrounds me.

I attempt to find peace in this experience of silence. It takes some of the burden off my existence, as I remember once again that non-existence is my more common state. I find it sobering and strengthening-- sobering because all of my cares and concerns are seen in its light (or rather, darkness), and strengthening because my time, and the ideals I might promote in that time, becomes that much more precious. In little silences during my day, and in the middle of the night, I am reminded of that greater silence, and I take comfort in its constancy. I am here for now, and that is enough, because it must be enough.