Swimming the Sacred River

One of common elements of theistic religion is the belief in a beneficent force that is aware of and concerned about individual humans. I assume that people have a wide range of emotions about this force, from fear to awe to comfort. We non-theists lack faith in such a supernatural consciousness and so we are absent of the anxiety or hope of our actions, thoughts, and prayers being weighed on celestial scales.

But Nature is not without its forces, blind to the welfare of humans as they might be. It is possible now to understand the world in a way that is far different than the clockwork materialists of the Enlightenment. Religious Naturalists no longer see the universe as being filled with just a bunch of matter knocking about the proverbial pool table. Rather, we can see an intricate web of subtle processes, a metaphorical river of being and creation.

A virtuous person is one who intentionally seeks personal excellence. Of course, what defines excellence has been a topic of contemplation and debate for the entire history of humankind. Plato recognized four virtues: temperance, prudence, fortitude, and justice. Christianity looks to traits such as faith, love, meekness, and chastity as important virtues. Submission to the will of God is the central virtue in Islam. The Buddha extolled compassion. Humanity, filial piety, and loyalty are Confucian virtues.

In all, there are countless traits and actions that world religions and cultures have put forth as exemplars of excellence. Starting with this foundation, psychologist Martin Seligman and his colleagues have outlined a list of human strengths and traits that potentially lead to well-being—knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence, each of which have a sub-list of yet more traits. No doubt research will continue to look into the scope and outcomes of various human traits.

Sacred River offers its own system of four cardinal virtues: Courage, Integrity, Beneficence, and Openness. These are not presented as immaculate virtues in the sense of a divine or revealed ideal. Rather, they are ways of being, both in action and attitude, in service to our central spiritual aim—leading a more meaningful, fulfilling, and joyous life.

Needless to say, I am thrilled that Obama was sworn in yesterday as our 44th president. Although I expect to be frustrated and even disappointed by him from time to time, I am ultimately hopeful and enthusiastic about our future. In his speech, he said a couple of things that I really appreciated.

The first was his mention of “non-believers”. Considering that about 13% of Americans are non-theists, it is about time that we were acknowledged. It will be a long time before being non-theistic will no longer be a political liability. But that journey starts with the understanding that we exist and that, unlike popular misconception, we are not minions of Satan, we are not morally rudderless, we are not withering in existential misery (at least not more than anyone else), and we vote.

The second was his statement that science will be restored to its proper place. It has been painful to watch the last administration treat science as an inconvenience at best, tossed aside whenever it conflicted with conservative ideology. But as many are now finally realizing, ignoring scientific data doesn’t make reality go away. Having a president who actually respects science is a huge breath of fresh air, indicated by Obama’s excellent appointment of Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy. Let’s hope that this is but the start of a grand revival of science in America.

Ever since FDR first introduced prayer at the inaugural ceremonies in 1933, they have each and every one invoked a monotheistic god. A strong case can be made to say that including such prayers is inappropriate at one of our chief secular rituals. Nevertheless, they are here to stay for the foreseeable future. This year, with Rick Warren, the anti-gay pastor of the Saddleback mega-church, set to give the opening prayer at Obama’s inauguration, the issue has grown in significance. His support of California’s Prop 8, which strips the right of marriage from gays and lesbians, makes his participation especially abhorrent.

Since it is safe to assume that his prayer (and those of the other religious speakers) will again call on a personal Father-God, I wanted to write my own benediction from a naturalistic orientation. The following is hardly poetic or memory-worthy, but I will be reading it during Warren’s invocation, dreaming of a time when supernatural beliefs no longer have a place in our secular life.

On this historic day we inaugurate our new President and Vice-President, that solemn ceremony epitomizing the secular process of our enduring democracy. We offer our gratitude to those great minds that courageously embarked upon the American experiment, who had faith in the essential goodness of humanity and envisioned a country whose every citizen might equally enjoy the freedom, security, and opportunity that the rule of law might provide. We further give thanks to all those individuals, both civic and military, who have sacrificed all they have to forward the fortunes of our nation.

On this day, we grant unto President-elect Obama, Vice-President-elect Biden, as well as their families and members of their administration our support and our hope that they will find the strength and wisdom they will need in the coming years. In light of the challenges we as a nation face, may they never fall short of the fierce courage, unwavering integrity, compassionate beneficence, and broad open-mindedness they must have to fulfill the potential of their profound duties.

Despite the darkness of these days, we recognize that this can also be a wondrous time, a time of great renewal and revitalization. We must now reaffirm our dedication to a culture of social responsibility and environmental stewardship. Once again we must look to our own resources to refill the national vault, not only with economic prosperity, but just as importantly with our wealth of humanity—education, the arts, science and green technology, health care, and a new age of justice, liberty, and progress. The world is ready to look to us once again, not only as moral leaders, but as a partner in the struggle for a healthy planet and a lasting peace, and we must not, we shall not fall short of these sacred obligations.

Let us mark this day as a turning point in the journey towards the splendor that is our potential, a potential measured by our dedication to a world without poverty, injustice, or fear. A world where all humankind can embrace each other as the Great Family we truly are, and live as one on this divine earth as virtuous and responsible citizens.

It has been recommended to me to give a site update, to let readers know some of the things that have been added recently to Sacred River. I’ve been working hard on the site in my spare time (which has been dwindling lately) and I want to share what I’ve come up with.

• Sacred River Bookstore. Sacred River now has an Amazon Affiliate account. You can browse and purchase titles through this site, and we will earn a small commission for every item sold. So, if you are in the market for a new book, this is a great way to get your read on and support Sacred River at the same time.

• Photo Gallery. You might have noticed that photos have started to appear on Sacred River. My brilliant partner Janet, herself a talented photographer, suggested that images might liven up the place. She was right! Most of the pics are from my camera, but I plan on using more of her photos in the future. The Gallery is simply a page that puts all the images in one place for you to enjoy. Eventually I hope to add a nice slideshow app, but that is on the back-burner for now.

• Lots-’o-Links. I’ve added a fair number of links to our new Links page. I want to strike a balance by listing a fair number of useful and related sites without becoming a link repository. That said, if you have any suggestions, or would like to offer a link exchange, just let us know.

• Communications. Speaking of which, there are a couple of communication additions. After much coding toil, I have finally got threaded comments to work. You (yes YOU) are invited to add your thoughts and start conversations in the individual posts. No registration is required. Also, I have added a contact form to the site, which you can get to from the bottom of every page in the footer. Questions, comments, and suggestions are strongly encouraged.

There are many plans for this site, which is only now in its version 1.0 phase. However, you are invited to add your voice to what we are building here. If there is something that you would like to see here at Sacred River, by all means let us know. Although the site is essentially a blog at the moment, eventually we want the site to become a thriving online community, ideally evolving into real-world groups and activities. We are excited by this vision and want you to feel welcome and inspired to volunteer your own efforts to Sacred River.

We often see descriptions of healthy living that delineate various domains, a common set being “mind, body, spirit.” Within Religious Naturalism, of course, we do not acknowledge the existence of a “spirit” needing tending. Although we do not have souls that need to be nurtured, it is certainly reasonable to talk about developing a healthy spiritual life.

Exactly what this looks like will be different for every individual, of course, but one might say that it essentially entails promoting meaning, fulfillment, and joy, perhaps from an explicitly religious perspective. By this I mean from an orientation that includes experiences such as gratitude, reverence, and a sense of deep connection with all things.

But if we agree that there is such a thing a spiritual life, it is not really separate from “mind” or “body”, but rather emerges from the total matrix of our biopsychosocial self. In this sense, one’s spiritual life is not unlike one’s sex life. As important as it is for adults to have a healthy sex life, few would list it as a primary domain, e.g. mind, body, sex (although many might list it as a primary interest, of course).

But what really sets spirituality apart is the degree to which it can potentially become infused with virtually all aspects of living. For this reason Sacred River delineates seven core areas of living, all of which can be profitably approached with a spiritual perspective:

In reality, all these Spiritual Streams are interconnected via the body and mind; however, developing a spiritual life is not a metaphysical exercise, but ideally becomes an approach to living. In other words, this list is but a convenient way of focusing attention and implementing pragmatic action. At the same time, I am confident that it does a fairly good job of modeling, if not irreducible then at least well-demarcated domains of human life.

Some of these areas are not traditionally associated with spirituality, especially the Epicurean or Intellectual Streams. Pleasure is often seen in many religions as being the enemy of spiritual purity, with the latter often being the enemy of faith. We think it is time to change both sets of attitudes. I look forward to getting into specifics in another essay, but for now I will say that sacralizing both pleasure and knowledge is a vital step towards integrating spirituality with the goal of genuine human fulfillment.

The point of this brief note is to express the notion that spirituality isn’t something done alongside physical health, emotional well-being, or one’s job, family, or hobbies. While a life can certainly include explicit spiritual practices, such as ritual or meditation, spirituality ideally becomes infused within all activities, allowing for even the most mundane activity to become a source of meaning, fulfillment, and joy. This act of sanctification, of consecration is of living itself. No external authority is needed for this, only the power inherent in your being as a holy expression of Nature.

One of the central tenets of Sacred River states that intentional change is a moral imperative. This is grounded in the idea that the one thing that makes us most human is intentionality, the ability to plan, reflect, imagine, and act with forethought. We can choose to think and behave in ways that our primordial disposition might otherwise prefer. Further, we have the power to learn; one’s store of knowledge and skills is never fixed, even if age makes the process more challenging over time. And because our choices have consequences not only for one’s personal well-being, but also in regards to our social and ecological impact, we have an obligation to “educate the will” as Emerson put it.

The Second Virtue within Sacred River is Integrity. One aspect of integrity is genuineness, which can be interpreted as embodying one’s most authentic self. Of course, this “self” is not an unchanging relic, but an emergent process of being. There are many keys to achieving this flow of genuineness, but perhaps the most salient is self-knowledge or self-awareness. It is no small thing to be able to pay attention to the self, to one’s quiet motivations, expectations, beliefs, assumptions, fears, values, and all the obscured habits of the mind, to follow the tangled thread in the cognitive labyrinth that leads to our manifested actions and feelings. Any increase in such awareness can be considered another step in the journey of personal growth.

If you have noticed a dearth of new posts in the last few days, that is because a lot of effort has been going into the site’s plumbing. Images really spice things up on a blog, so I’ve been adding photos from my own collection as well as from Janet’s, my partner. She’s the better photographer, so you’ll likely be treated to more of her pics. I also got threaded comments to work finally, so a reminder that you are invited to add your thoughts or questions. This site will be undergoing major changes in the future as Sacred River grows, but I think it’s nearly settled in to its present configuration.

Our understanding of the world is informed by Science—we express our relationship with the world through Art. This is the matrix of knowledge and imagination, of empiricism and inspiration, of curiosity and creativity. This marriage of Science and Art lies at the heart of Sacred River.

2009 promises to be a year of momentous change. The rise of progressivism is long overdue, although too many Democrats are still under the sway of Reaganomics and general conservative thinking. The country, however, is ready for something new and if enough pressure from progressive groups is kept up, the incoming Obama administration might break the conservative chains that have shackled America for the last three decades. Although we can gripe about specific policies (and we will), overall we can look forward to a renewed respect for knowledge, science, education, health, and sustainability, all of which were largely abandoned in 1980. If we are lucky, we will also see major reform in corporate culture and government corruption through a resurgence of an ethic of responsibility.

No doubt about it, we have a mountain of problems to fix—two wars, an economic meltdown, a broken healthcare system, a melting planet, decaying infrastructure, and civil rights under siege. Although so many complex problems cannot be blamed on any one cause, I believe that a major component has been the abandonment of the idea of the common good, replaced by the promotion of selfishness, greed, and radical individualism. In fact, the notion of civic cooperation for secular purposes (religious efforts have been excepted) has been long attacked as communistic and fascist. One must admire the propaganda efforts put forth to convince so many Americans that when a tiny group of wealthy elites do well we all do well, and when they hurt we all hurt. Large cracks have finally appeared in this fantasy, but it will take many hammers from progressive groups and thinkers to shatter the illusion. This must happen, because our problems are so many and so large that only cooperative efforts will effectively address them.

The state of our country was not inevitable; we have the resources and knowledge to address what ails us, but they have been suppressed under the yoke of conservatism. My own greatest hope is that the new administration will make the necessary investments to turn our assets into pragmatic solutions that will benefit one and all. We also have a chance to begin educating people on both the realities that face us and the ways we can better our situation, all without the filter of evangelical and conservative ideologies. Further, we can, if we are lucky and industrious, put forward a new public ethic grounded in empathy and integrity. In some cases this will need to be accomplished legislatively, especially in regards to corporate behavior, but ideally it will happen through example.

Many Americans are waking up from the dream woven by corporations, evangelicals, and conservatives; they are becoming savvy to the lies, fairy tales, and twisted logic. This is an opportunity for Naturalists to offer an alternative, one based in reason, empiricism, and pragmatism that is also guided by compassion, imagination, and wonder. It is an opportunity to remind people of the virtues of cooperation and shared sacrifice in service to the greater good. It is an opportunity to make the switch from throwaway consumerism to sustainability. The pabulum Americans have been given has been attractive and sweet but ultimately without nourishment—it is time for people to find true sustenance, a richer fare that feeds lives of meaning, fulfillment, and joy. That is my wish for this New Year.