Energy

"There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny!" - Han Solo

What is the point of spirituality if you don't believe in a personal god, or for that matter, an afterlife? For me, it's largely about energy. Having the energy to take care of all the things I have to do each day and still have a little left over. Possessing the confidence that, no matter how hard the day may get, I will find the energy to meet all of the challenges. Being able to maintain my patience when the little ones require so much. Putting things in perspective, so that they seem less overwhelming and the energy of hope remains possible. Spirituality, as the cultivation of various forms of energy, is immanently practical.

Thich Nhat Hahn teaches about what he calls the "five spiritual powers": faith, diligence, mindfulness, concentration, and insight. Each is a practice, and each brings with it a type of energy.

• Faith is believing that the path you have chosen to be on will lead you where you wish, and this provides hope and motivation.
• Diligence is continual effort to improve yourself and your circumstances, and this brings confidence and satisfaction.
• Mindfulness meditation calms the mind and brings joy.
• Concentration is much more fruitful when the mind is calm, and it yields a deeper insight into ourselves and the world in which we live.
• Insight is a real dynamo, because it starts a chain reaction of positive feedback with all of the others.

When these powers combine, they form an engine that provides sustainable energy. I have practiced these disciplines neither for a long time nor well, but they have still been impressively helpful. The strength of such a paradigm is that, aside from the rather unique practice of mindfulness meditation, these are things that we do all the time - just not necessarily well. They seem to be an essential part of being human. Intentionally focusing on their cultivation just makes us better humans.

Becoming a better human should be the point of spirituality.

September meeting

Hi, all. Thank you so much to everyone who came to our August meeting. It was a blast... and very encouraging! It went better than I expected, mostly because I didn't even have to coax anyone into participating. :-)

Good times are definitely ahead.

Speaking of which, our next meeting will be on Saturday, September 10th. Same time: 5 pm. Same place. Tony and I will be sending out invitations soon.

For those who didn't get to come last weekend - no worries. If you're able to come this time, please do. You'll be able to join right in without feeling like you missed anything.

I'll update this post as we figure out the plan for food. I'll also be posting some more food for thought before we meet, so check back soon.

Why?

Why start a monthly dinner party that will feature conversations about spirituality, religion, and the like for those who either do not believe in a God, or struggle to believe?

There are many answers that I could give. In fact, I'm going to - just not all in this post. For now, I will share just the most basic reasons, which stem from my personal experiences as a 36 year old husband and father who still sees great value in spirituality and religion, even without faith in a personal God of any kind.

To be completely honest, the most basic reason is that I need to be a part of such conversations myself. I need such a group to exist, because I still believe that the best way to construct meaning and build a happy life is in community with other, diverse people. This is the same reason that my family recently joined a church again after enjoying years of gloriously empty Sunday mornings. We need help to conceive of life in such a way that we form the type of habits which lead to, take your pick: health, energy, happiness, success, fulfillment, self-actualization, or whatever. However, while church is very helpful in that regard, I need a space where we can freely construct critical spiritual sensibilities without freaking out other people or limiting the conversation so as not to do so. These dinners will enable us to use our gifts of open-mindedness for building up and not tearing down. I hope that anyone, regardless of faith or lack thereof, will feel welcome and comfortable at these meetings, and will benefit from them. I also think this will be a lot of fun.

Obviously, this means that I differ from militant atheists, anti-theists really, who would end humanity's proclivity for religion if they could. Throughout its long history, whatever religion has been, it has at least partially been a repository of wisdom for ordering our individual lives and societies so that we get what we need from them. Major religious discourses are rich enough that they can be mined, even in partial dissent, for the raw materials that we need to reconstruct spiritual and religious sensibilities that will serve us well in the 21st Century, and prepare our children for a future that seems to be careening ever more precipitously down the track. Over the course of our discussions, I will have much to share about how we can redeem certain religious language and use it to communicate a rational worldview that has striking symmetry with those religious traditions from which it is drawn, and therefore has the potential to bridge what is often a deep divide and create allies among traditionally religious folks.

I also want to hear from you, which is one of the reasons that we are structuring this as a rather informal dinner party. As I post things on this blog to serve as prompts for our discussions, what do you think about them? What thoughts or ideas do you want to share? If religion is spirituality-in-practice (my working definition for it), then many of our conversations should be about sharing practical "life-hacks" with each other. What do you do when you need to improve your spirits? What things make you happy? What have you done to successfully improve your life up to this point? What have you learned that you found to be particularly helpful? How had you been making things harder for yourself, but after you realized it, life became much easier? Whose writings or artworks inspire you? Fellow parents of young children... WTF do we do now? :-)

If all of this sounds like fun, and like me you think it could be mutually beneficial, then I look forward to seeing you soon.

Welcome! (Alternately: Who, What, When, and Where)

Welcome to Spirituality from Scratch, the community blog of a discussion group/dinner party that meets monthly in North Canton, Ohio to talk frankly about spirituality and religion in critical yet constructive ways.

Everyone is welcome, regardless of faith or lack thereof. However, since we have limited space in the private home in which we meet and food preparation is involved, these events are by invitation only at the present time. Information about the meeting location will be contained within your invitations.

Food will be mostly potluck style, with a main dish being provided and side dish self-assignments coordinated through email. We may, on occasion, order pizza, chicken, or some other such food instead.

At some point we will get into a rhythm with our meeting schedule, but for now each month's event will be scheduled ad hoc until we can figure out what works best for everyone.  Our first dinner party will take place on the evening of Saturday, July 23rd.

We will be providing on-site childcare by arranging for multiple babysitters who can watch the children in another part of the house, in order to facilitate the conversation and so that parents/families can easily participate. (The organizers feel your pain.)

Invitations are being sent out now, so if you found this blog by way of invitation then I hope to see you at one of our events soon. Please RSVP if you plan to attend.