On a recent trip to Illinois I visited a wonderful friend who’s a Franciscan sister.1 We love sharing our different yet related experiences of spirituality with each other, so I happily tagged along with her to a Sunday Mass at her favorite church in Englewood. In fact, that day we had not one but two liturgical experiences, both very beautiful in their own ways. Music, singing, words shared from the heart—it felt the way church ought to feel.
Community—that’s what I felt, standing there as people sang and prayed. The warmth of welcome; the generosity of being in a space that felt safe and embracing. This is something that, as an adult, has deeply impressed me about some religious organizations. That palpable feeling of support—it’s something I long for.2
But I don’t identify as Catholic or Christian. I guess if I had to define myself, I’d say I try to be wildly open to the embodied experience of any spiritual practices that resonate with me. And I just love sacred spaces…and the sense of community that can come with them.
How do we create community? How can communities of care and unconditional support be created beyond the bounds of belief?
As a spiritual but not religious person3, I have long wondered how community could be created to support those of us who aren’t all that interested in creeds or correct practices, but instead create a personal, embodied spiritual experience inspired by different traditions and new insights.
In the spiritual-but-not-religious realm, it seems like communities do form—in this internet age—around charismatic leaders who are good at filters and posting lots of content on social media. There can be a great depth of support in such communities, yet they can also struggle if their founder is revealed to be abusive or harboring some other awful secret—or more prosaically, if the founder just doesn’t know how to respond and genuinely lead in times of crisis.4 (Another dear friend and I were discussing the inability of a lot of new age-y “spiritual leaders” to respond effectively to the pandemic, especially in 2020 and 2021. “We’re going through hard times,” they’d say, vaguely.)
If these communities can’t respond in practical ways during a crisis, then one might ask how helpful they truly are? Your online leader might send prayers and listen to you vent on your private Facebook group, but what about those times when what you really need is a hug and, I don’t know, a casserole?5 (I am so Midwestern!)
Is there a way to create community without dogma and the requirement of certain beliefs? Even some of the new age-y circles I’ve belonged to have their own sort of lingo, their own unspoken set of beliefs that you need to ascribe to in order to feel like you belong.
Is there a way to create a community that exists to support and do good, that’s not about following someone vaguely attractive with a good ring light on Instagram, but instead about providing a safe, sacred space for a multitude of beliefs and spiritual expressions to flourish, a place where we can genuinely be ourselves and support each other, a place of spiritual succor for whose membership all that is required is a truly open mind and heart?6
Oftentimes spiritual differences are couched in terms of “tolerance.” But what if we used the word “celebrate” instead? What if we erased absolutes and instead delighted in the abundant, myriad ways of exploring our spirits and this world?
Too, such a community would need to create ways of holding each other in difficult times. Because we all go through them. We all need help. Collectively, as a society, we need help with issues that are greater than any individual person, but which impact us all in different ways—things like the systemic oppression of the non-white, differently-abled, non-heteronormative; issues like, I don’t know, global pandemics; and of course, climate change. Then there are our individual sorrows, our losses, our separations, our health struggles. What help is a community that can’t support us through all that?
I think maybe it’s possible to create something like this. There could be programs and presentations from all sorts of spiritual perspectives (but please dear god, not anything about creating your spiritual business7). This space would put people first. It would put our humanity and our relationship with each other and the community of nature and the earth first.
And it would create sacred spaces for all to enjoy. Sacred spaces that feel safe and welcoming, a shelter from the tempests of the twenty-first century.
Here is a vision that I love: the possibility of traveling to some other place around the world and entering into a sacred space that’s been held and created by the spiritual-but-not-religious. A space that’s open to all. A welcoming space that supports those in need. A place that is about something bigger than ourselves, and yet is as down-to-earth as the most practical mama. And what if those spaces could start to be created…everywhere?
And there would be rapport with traditional religious folks and spaces, too. So that you could offer a friendly exchange in a church, synagogue, mosque. So that you would feel the spirit of belonging everywhere, the spirit of welcome, the spirit of generosity, support and understanding.
This is the kind of community I dream of. What about you?
(Maybe a place or organization like this already exists. If you know about it, please let me know!)8
Her name is Sister Julia and you should definitely check out her blog and podcast!
Of course, not every traditionally religious space I’ve entered has felt welcoming or safe. I have often felt a disconnect in such places between my experiential relationship with the divine and the rote recitation of words and phrases. But I’m lucky and grateful to have been in some genuinely open-hearted spaces that have made me feel deeply connected to spirit and others.
I prefer to write out spiritual-but-not-religious in the full rather than adopt a shorthand for it, like the term “None.” When I was first told that religious organizations call folks like me “Nones,” it’s not too strong to say that I was astonished and actually offended. “None” implies that I have no spiritual practices, no beliefs. (There are people like that. They’re called atheists.) Imagine someone saying to you, “You’re a None.” “None” etymologically appears to be pretty close to “no one.” So when someone says we’re “Nones,” what I hear is no one.
Or let’s just say they spiral out and start working with alt-right groups.
This is not even touching on how toxic some of those groups can get around difficult life challenges like health or relationship or financial issues.
I say without requiring certain beliefs, but that’s not totally true. I believe that we need to agree on some basic human decencies, like being anti-racist, welcoming of all genders and sexual orientations, willing to dismantle systemic oppression of all types, and at a bare minimum acknowledging that climate change is real and will most impact those with the least resources to mitigate its effects.
Because this is not a for-profit enterprise! This space would not be created with the intention of making its founders or leaders six or seven figure incomes. Yes it’s radical to say that in the current new age-y spiritual-but-not-religious climate. Sooooo many woo folks are about reclaiming money and declaring their financial abundance and crowning themselves sovereign over their income, but at what point does that stop being empowering and become a collusion with capitalism?? (Especially if you’re a white person.) I’m not saying money is bad. But I think our relationship with it is a lot more complex, or should be, than it is often presented in certain circles.
And if you read through these rather verbose footnotes…bless you!