Not Religious But...
Dec. 12th, 2022 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo"I'm not religious but spiritual". This is something I try to avoid saying. It feels glib- even evasive- because I don't have a ready-made definition of either term. For "religion" I could probably cobble something together, but "spirituality" is really elusive, tricky, hard to pin down. I have similar problems with the word "God". Do I believe in God? "Well it depends what you mean by God" is what I try not to say because that's equally glib. Can I define what I mean by "God?" Not really. Words fail.
This is what literature is for- especially that branch of it we call poetry. Literature- and poetry in particular- uses words to push the boundary of words. Somehow if you get them in the right order and give them rhythm- and perform other magic tricks with them like rhyme and alliteration- you can get them to transcend their dictionary meaning- and hint at the depths on which they float.
That was a detour, because the purpose of this post is to make a note of a definition of "spirituality" I just came across. It's prose not poetry. It doesn't transcend the words of which it's made, but it does draw an out line around this concept I'm having difficulty with. It marks out a boundary. It says spirituality is this and not that. I think it's useful.
It comes from Dr Eben Alexander- a medical scientist whose life and understanding of life were turned round by a near death experience. He should have died but didn't- and when he came back from the week-long coma that should have been the end of him he was carrying information.
Anyway, this is what he says:
"Spirituality is an acknowledgement of meaning and purpose in our lives, as well as a sense of deep interconnection with others and the universe at large."
This is what literature is for- especially that branch of it we call poetry. Literature- and poetry in particular- uses words to push the boundary of words. Somehow if you get them in the right order and give them rhythm- and perform other magic tricks with them like rhyme and alliteration- you can get them to transcend their dictionary meaning- and hint at the depths on which they float.
That was a detour, because the purpose of this post is to make a note of a definition of "spirituality" I just came across. It's prose not poetry. It doesn't transcend the words of which it's made, but it does draw an out line around this concept I'm having difficulty with. It marks out a boundary. It says spirituality is this and not that. I think it's useful.
It comes from Dr Eben Alexander- a medical scientist whose life and understanding of life were turned round by a near death experience. He should have died but didn't- and when he came back from the week-long coma that should have been the end of him he was carrying information.
Anyway, this is what he says:
"Spirituality is an acknowledgement of meaning and purpose in our lives, as well as a sense of deep interconnection with others and the universe at large."
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Date: 2022-12-12 12:55 pm (UTC)More generally, I think a good use of poetry is to try to communicate something that we've not yet quite figured out a more, say, analytical, direct statement of, to at least capture what of it we can.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-12 01:01 pm (UTC)