A New Spirituality For The Third Millennium

We as humans live by stories - grand and sweeping meta-narratives that tell us who we are, why we’re here and where the future will eventually take us. These narratives provide us with much-needed purpose, meaning, security and comfort in a cruel and capricious world that rarely has any to off er.

By our very nature, we are storytellers. Long before humans possessed the necessary insight and tools to suft ciently understand the natural world in which we live, we created stories that filled the vast gaps of our unknowing - stories of invisible watchers and protectors in the sky. These ancient mythical narratives attempted to satisfy our insatiable curiosity by bringing meaning to life in a time in human history when people were desperate to answer the tough questions pertaining to birth, life, love, nature, suffering, death and what possibly awaits us beyond the grave. Even now, in the high-speed digital age of the 21st century, humans still seek these answers through these ancient stories we continue to share.

But at this critical point in human history our competing worldviews seem to be doing more harm than good as our ancient explanations becomeincreasingly implausible and morally irrelevant.

It doesn’t take the gift of insight to look around and see that much of our global conflict is due to the violent tensions created by such competing narratives. If observed by alien intelligent life from afar, surely the overwhelming conclusion would be that we as humans are a very sick species - so sick that we are willing to denigrate, discriminate and even kill our own because our personal and cultural versions of the metanarrative don’t match that of others. We’ve mastered the art of scrutinizing our differences by forgetting how to embrace our commonality.

So it seems the greatest threat to our survival as a species lies in our inability to unite under a common story. As we move deeper into the human future we desperately need a new story capable of transcending the empty promises of ancient religions - a story that doesn’t require we bedismissive of evidence, science and reason, a story that can pull humanity out of the ruts of an ancient worldview and beyond an adolescent state of consciousness. The good news is we already have such a story and it’s actually not new at all. It’s the oldest story there is.

Everything we have learned thus far about the natural world tells us the universe is 13.7 billion years old and the earth is 4.6 billion years old. The fossil record of our home planet has also revealed how complex forms of life have evolved from simpler forms of life through numerous, successive andslight modifi cations over extremely long periods of time. Through deep time we can hardly comprehend, countless meteorite bombardments, extreme changes in the climate and the extinction of millions of species, Homo sapiens stand triumphant as the most highly evolved animal on the planet today. Against all odds, we are here. Against all odds we are privileged beyond comprehension to reflect upon our own story.

To look up into the sky and contemplate that somewhere in the backwashes of the universe there exists a minor star, and spinning around that minor star is a tiny planet with conditionsfavorable for life, and on that planet there exists such a highly evolved primate its brain is fully capable of grasping its place in the midst of all this time and space - I’m deeply moved and humbled by this reality.

It’s truly amazing because it’s amazingly true. It elicits deep within me a feeling that can only be expressed through the language of spirituality, humility, gratitude, wonder and mystery.

The greatest obstacle facing our species and planet in the third millennium is our unwillingness to embrace our own true story. But for most people, telling ourstory through the language of science doesn’t produce a spiritual response even though the word spirit originally comes from the Latin word spiritus, which literally means to have breath. To be spiritual is to breathe. It is the willingness to raise our awareness of that which is already before us in the present moment.

True spirituality is physical, sensuous and tangible. What religious people experience when they participate in religious practice and sacrament is very real and necessary; unfortunately, we too often attribute such feelings and experiences to that which is miraculous and otherworldly. So how do we rethink human spirituality without the notion of the supernatural?

The time to explore the sacred elements of the universe is now. We need spiritual leaders of a new age to step forward and embrace an ethic rooted deeply in humanism and ecology. We must naturalize our notion of spirituality and by doing so, as Carl Sagan once stated, “draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by conventional faiths.” ERIC YATES IS A FORMER MINISTER AND LOVER OF ALL THINGS OUTDOORS. HE AND HIS WIFE, HILARY, LIVE IN FAYETTEVILLE WITH THEIR BOYS, ELLIOT AND EVAN.

Opinion, Pages 11 on 11/10/2013

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