Swimming the Sacred River

Wikipedia has a good article on Religious Naturalism. I mention this because that pretty much describes me. The basic definition states,

All forms of Religious Naturalism agree that the natural world must be placed at the center of our most significant experiences and understandings. [...] Religious Naturalists affirm the human need for meaning and value in our lives, drawing on two fundamental convictions in those quests: 1) the sense of nature’s richness, spectacular complexity and fecundity and 2) the recognition that nature is not only the realm in which we live out our lives, but that we and who we are – our physical bodies, our amazing brains with their capacity for human sensibilities and understanding, and even our predisposition to be religious – are actually part of nature.

A maxim that many of my friends are familiar with states, “Success is your proof.” The concept behind this simple statement is a very good one—to know if something is worthwhile or effective, one need look no further than the outcome of its execution. But things get tricky when we try to define “success.” Not so hard when a goal is clearly defined, such as making an A on a test or landing a job. But when it comes to large scale aims, it gets cloudy. What is success in life? in spirituality? in relationships? At some point, one simply has to start making choices about what success looks like.