Presented by: Rev. Dale Arnink

For some years now it has become increasingly popular, faddish if you will, to use the word “spirituality.” The books that sell well these days are books about the spiritual and spirituality. I first talked about the word “spiritual” in 1983. Use of the word was obviously noticeable then but in the last decade the word has increased greatly in use. At that time I reported that in my three years of seminary and five years of Ph.D. work in religion, 1962-70, I hadn’t been able to recall any books, classes or discussions where that word took central place. The words that did occur with considerable frequency were “existential” and “existentialism”.

It is my suspicion that “existential” and “spiritual” are words which, in many ways, point to the same thing. Someone deeply committed to either of these words or a philosophy which focuses on either will of course know there are differences and find my approach shallow. I’m just trying to build some bridges of communication across generations-and at the same time point to some important features of the religious life.

Now one of the clearest links between existentialism and spirituality is that large portions of the population have not understood what was being talked about when the words were used. They are exactly alike in their ability to confound and confuse and obfuscate! “What do you mean?” “Can you define it for me?” “What ever are you talking about—really?” These have been the reaction of millions to existentialism in the 50′s and 60′s and of millions more to spirituality in the 80′s and 90′s. So, you see, we’ve clarified that, haven’t we?!

Mike McNaughton told the congregation this summer that at the religious Leadership School there was lots and lots of talk about spirituality. He reported that he was still rather unsure about what spirituality was, but he came away with the sure impression that it had a lot to do with the lighting of candles. Well, since lighting candles isn’t everyone’s cup of tea outside of birthday parties, many don’t see anything so very special about being spiritual.

One might have similar dismissive reactions to meditation practices, or honoring the earth ceremonies, or drum beating, or channeling, or prayers for healing, or rituals of solidarity, or lots of other so called “spiritual” practices currently popular.

Similarly regarding existentialism, since existentialism came upon the scene in America with the “beat generation”, some thought existentialism seemed to have a lot to do with dressing in scruffy black, hanging out in coffee shops, and being quite unconventional in a very conventional era-and didn’t see much that was attractive for them in existentialism.

Or existentialism seemed related to other practices easy to dismiss because they didn’t “grab you”: absurdist plays, art happenings, incantatory poetry, being rootless on the road, experimenting with dope, being sympathetic to Marxism.

But what I find worth paying attention to lies at the heart of each rather than in the outer trappings. At their best, both existentialism and the spiritual movement ask the question, “What does it take to be an authentic human being;” or to put the question more existentially, which often meant more personally and individually, “How can I be more really me?”-and this not in a simply egotistical sense though in both cases it often sounds egotistical and frequently in fact is. But the question itself is a deep one.

Both have a beginning position that being human is problematic: one is not simply and easily human and being truly one’s self takes some attention. The existentialists also spent a considerable amount of energy saying that modern western commercial and electronic civilization makes it even harder to be authentic and easier to merely live a life pre-packaged and prescribed for us, hectically distracted from even asking who the real me is, or of what an authentic life consists.

“What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of my life?” This I take to be the cry at the heart of both.

Now, a second likeness of the two comes when I tell you that you must not limit the meaning of “meaning” to rational meaning. Existential philosophy was not just about philosophy, about thinking hard, about getting your concepts straight. The existentialists were saying that we humans are vastly complex creatures with reason, yes, but also emotions and feelings and will and instincts and cultural/historical background-and the response to the meaning of life question must include all of what one is, and does not come out as a stated rational proposition but in fact, in the doing, in the living of my life. I believe it was in a similar context that Joseph Campbell said in his interviews with Bill Moyers that people are not so much interested in the meaning of life as in the feeling of being really alive.

It may be my prejudiced ears, as a bit of a rationalist, that selectively hear the spirituality movement say that spirituality is the opposite of reason or is non-rational. As an old existentialist I say, “It must not be;” reason is an important avenue or factor to being really alive as a human.

What I rather think is going on is that many attracted to the spiritual life look at the cultural artifacts of rationality, the rationally structured organizations, the products of a rational planning and production society, the emotionally distorted and starved lives of some who give their lives to rational endeavor, to the efficient and rationally systematic despoiling of the environment, and respond by saying there is precious little spirituality in all that, that rationality-look all around you.

But that is the same sort of critique of the modern world made by the existentialists. They were, however, more respectful of rationality itself and sought to incorporate it in the authentic self rather than belittle it or exclude it.

So, I’ve said that existentialism and the modern spirituality movement are alike in searching for authentic human selfhood and looking beyond the intellectual or a “head trip” in their search.

It is precisely here that there are similarities also in an openness to the arts of all sorts. Creativity and imagination, as producer or as audience, open avenues to deeper reaches and all the compartments of the self. Ritual, dance, poetry, music, painting, drama, fiction, handwork, vocal work, concentration practices-these and many others have been promoted by existentialists and spiritual practitioners.

Having mentioned imagination and drama, I now want you to imagine that you are attending the theater with a group of friends, sitting in a box. You are absorbed as a spectator of the drama which is taking place on the stage below. Suddenly the author and director of the play steps out from the wings and while the drama continues, shouts your name, “Maryann Smith! Come down here on the stage and get into the act, this play is about you.” The peculiar thing is, no one else hears him shout your name and no one else moves or looks at you, for they are intently following the drama below. Now you are aroused and you feel compelled to respond. You are embarrassed to leave your friends without a sensible explanation, but there is no logical reason for entering the drama except the compulsion from within. You begin to feel a panic, perhaps a cold sweat. What will you do? Will you suppress this urge to get into the play? Will you argue with the director? Will you get up and throw yourself into the drama and try to influence the course of action according to the impulse that urges itself upon you? Will you be able to come up with the right words, the right gestures?

So, “all the world’s a stage” and you, you are the actor, but will you act in this peculiar play? You must decide to act, and you must decide on the words and the gestures and what directions in which to try to move the action of the drama. You have no script and no stage directions and no director. You are just called upon to enter into a play, be a part of the drama. Will you do it? You will have to make it up every second you are on stage. Something like this is at the core of the existentialist position. Existentialists focused much attention upon the human experiences of choice, freedom, and being responsible for every moment of your life.

They said it was normal and customary to live by other people’s expectations, their scripts, their rules, their morals-but that is not authentic living; living by the scripts of other actors is not living your own life.

Out of this came a lot of the adolescent-like rebelliousness associated with existentialism. But in truth it was always an option to appropriate the rules or ideas of others as your own rules and ideas in an authentic choice of adaptation.

There is much in the modern spirituality movement which also instructs people to treasure their own individual lives, to be aware of each moment, to preserve their individual uniqueness, to own their own drama.

I was telling Denise Stone this last week how most existentialists harped on how the individual had to realize each moment was full of choices and each person had to appreciate and be responsible for each choice. She responded that that was a lot like parts of the Buddhist tradition that tried to make you fully present while you did the laundry, ironed, sorted, and put the clothes into drawers. Many practices of the spiritual movement, often borrowing from Buddhism or Hinduism, are attempts to put you in touch and keep you in touch with the uniqueness of the moments of your life.

But I notice a difference. Existentialism tended on the whole to be rather grim; the modern spirituality movement, it seems to me, emphasizes the positive and sunny. Existentialists said, for example, that the necessity of choice entailed anxiety and loneliness as inescapable parts of being authentic persons. Many said that the sense of absurdity that goes along with facing life directly can’t be escaped. Whereas I hear many spiritual spokespersons saying these days that one can rise above and beyond uncomfortable feelings and troubles, that spirituality is the golden road to the pursuit of happiness. In fact “happiness” seems to be a fad word that as an existentialist I look upon with a wry eye.

And that brings me to death. Many thought that existentialist philosophy was morbid because it did talk a great deal about death. What is the place of death in life? Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, and Tillich all said that death is what gives structure and meaning to life. Knowing that we will die is what leads people to treasure their lives and seek authenticity so as not to come to death and never to have really lived-like the majority who cop out in fear and live a benumbed life of sleep-walking through life, or pretending it will go on forever so nothing is momentous about it. The authentic life is achieved, in part, by coming to terms with one’s mortality over and over.

At least parts of the modern spirituality movement seem to me to be a denial of the importance of death, a flight from death’s serious demands. Promises “pie in the sky bye and bye” through visions of Heaven or Paradise or re-incarnation or Final Unity or whatever has seemed to me bad mental health and thus faulty spirituality rather than true spirituality. Death may not be the final chapter after all-that is a matter for speculation-but it is a key chapter, and a continuing theme throughout, in the human life.

Finally, another difference between existentialism and the modern spirituality movement is a generational difference regarding suspicion toward all previous human religious endeavor versus acceptance of whatever works.

Existentialism was the precursor of the rebellious revolutions of so many sorts here and in Europe in the 60′s and 70′s. Those born before 1947, attracted to existentialist themes, were highly suspicious of the traditional forms of religion. An authentic religion for authentic selves had to be newly remade. The “death of God” was declared and serious sociologists of the time predicted that the institution of the church was on its last legs and it would be replaced by small community groups called “house churches.” Religion in the past had been domineering and authoritarian, squelchers of freedom of expression and creativity, moralistically producing non-authentic people with little choice. Religion had promoted superstition and Inquisitions. Many wished to leave religion far behind.

Paul Tillich is a good example of one who stayed in the church and promoted Christianity. But he did so by redefining all the terms, reinterpreting and reapplying all the concepts.

Those born since 1947 who are in the spirituality movement are not so antagonistic nor critical of the religious past. Rather than being antagonistically critical they tend to sift through everything to see if there is anything worth trying on or finally buying into. The emphasis is upon personal fulfillment rather than critical appraisal.

There is little new in the “modern” spirituality movement because most of the teachings and practices have been around for ages. The newness is found in the eclecticism, the blending of elements from many religious traditions; it’s the packaging that is modern, not the content. Those born before 1947 were suspicious of and critical of those contents, the words, the concepts, the beliefs, the practices. Those born since 1947 are more inclined to see if those things can be appropriated to make their lives more fulfilling, may be tools for developing a self which feels more fulfilled and authentic and really real.

In their common concerns for what makes for an authentic and fulfilled selfhood, many in both existentialism and the modern spirituality movement would relate positively, and all of us should, to my retelling of the Jewish story: The person arrived at heaven in a confessional mode, bewailing the fact that he was not as avid for God as Moses, as good a friend as David, as courageous as Ruth, as joyous as Miriam, as zealous for justice as Amos, as persistent as Jeremiah nor as patient as Job. The gatekeeper replied likeness to others had not been expected. “We wanted you to be you.”

Presented by: Rev. Dale Arnink

	I'm Glad to be back to "regular" church
		I'm Glad to see people I've not seen for several months
I'm Glad to see people new amongst us, getting acquainted, trying to find here a "place"
           for themselves of comfort and community.
I'm Glad for this pleasant day, for friends, for a good life;
I'm glad to be alive . . . . today . . . . with you.

Gladness need not mean laughter, joking, sunny optimism, though it may include them.
	Gladness is appreciation, gladness is grounded in attitudes of gratitude.

Who had a fun, extensive vacation this past summer?  Where were you?  For how long?
	Good time, eh?   Were you glad to get back home?

After travel, even good travel, most of us are glad to get back home.
	We appreciate our own things in our own surroundings.
	We are glad for our own bed, shower, kitchen, chair.
	Glad to have our own paintings, books, room arrangements.
		Being home, in our own home, is grounds for gladness.

I often recur to a few metaphors which I think can direct and sustain the religious quest,
           the spiritual life.
		One of these is the metaphor of "at homeness."
	We should strive to feel at home in the world and treat the world as our home.
    		The world is our home and its people our family.
A good religious experience is the experience of feeling at home in the world.
Such experiences can be cultivated as well as treasured.

Even home doesn't always feel like home.
We aren't always appreciative of home, and home can be troubled and disruptive.
My religious metaphor of at-homeness is built upon that special feeling of "belonging
            here" such ss comes after a vacation or with some particularly nice occasion or
            family happening.
"At-homeness" means home when it is the  grounds for a special gladness.

The world and its parts,
	the people of the world,
	are often the occasions, the grounds of gladness.
The religious quest is both to find and to stay open to the world about us, its denizens and
            its people,
	as grounds of gladness for having this whole cosmos as our home.

It doesn't always feel like home anymore than home does.
I can understand why some folks find this world a prison rather than a home
	and look to some other metaphysical realm as their "real" home.
		They look forward to their release from prison and return to
			"heavenly home."
I can understand, but I do not agree.  I do not share their outlook.

Sometimes you have to leave home to become aware that home is a grounds for gladness.
	Or clean it, or repair it, or just sit with it.
Sometimes we need to attune ourselves to home to have it feel homely.

Last Friday night I participated, once again, in the burning of Zozobra,
	Old Man Gloom, at the annual Fiesta in Santa Fe.
Burn away gloom and you become aware of some of your gladness.
Zozobra, that paper-mache, ugly puppet, stood this year 51 feet tall.
He's the perfect and classic scape-goat.
With the wonderful exception that unlike most of history's scapegoats, literal and
            metaphoric, who are living creatures or human beings,
		Zozobra is just a huge animated puppet.
For eons people have attributed to the scapegoat what they dislike in themselves and made
            the scapegoat suffer for it
  		thereby relieving themselves of the burden.
Though it is not billed as such I take the burning of Zozobra to be a religious event, and a
            highly effective one at that.
People come from miles around, and begin gathering in the early afternoon.
They meet family and friends, they picnic, play games, talk and drink beer.
	By evening a very few have become obnoxious, but very few.
And the usual human bad apples have been vastly outnumbered
	by the further arrival of hundreds, then thousands,
		and even thousands more just after the evening meal and before dusk.
25,000 this year paid admission to be within the park enclosed area.
I would guess that another 20,000 more were on the hillsides and sidestreets.
It takes time, effort, planning, and hassle to attend.
	It can be a bit of an ordeal.
All to watch Old Man Gloom burn and to rediscover their gladness.
	Oh yes, there are a few speeches, some musical performers.
	Some of the crowd invents games and entertainments and sets up little
                    communities for	themselves.
	For a few years now there have also been some spectacular fireworks
                     accompanying the burning.
 	But few would come for these alone.
Thousands come, young and old, Spanish, anglo,  Indian, black and Asian.
 	To watch Zozobra burn.

As dusk darkens to night, people begin sporadic yells, "Burn Him!"
	A voice hollers over here, then an 1/8 mile away over there, then  just a few feet
                       from you, "Burn him!"
After awhile you become aware of a whole section of the crowd chanting,
	softly, "Burn him, Burn him, Burn him, Burn him..."
This is primitive stuff.  This isn't church or temple. There is no clergy.
	There is no invocation of God or saints or angels or spirits, or even the devil.
This is uncomplicated theology pared down to do just one thing.
Its just a dramatic annual ritual for which people know the sequence.
	And the feelings it can arouse and rearrange.
This is primitive and raw and gut-level stuff.
A few might call it barbaric.
	There is clearly some artistry involved but it shouldn't be confused with art.

Smoky fires are lighted near Zozobra now, threats of what is to come.
	Zozobra, the puppet, has been making low growling noises for awhile now and
                 slightly moving his head and hand.
		With the lighting of th fires he becomes louder and more animated.
 	 The growls now are interspersed with groans,
   		and the movements could be of both anger and fear.
It is about at this stage that I usually stop thinking of Zozobra as a giant puppet.
	This is Old Man Gloom in person. 

This is the awful embodiment of bad days,
	foul moods,
 		depression
			and heart ache.
Zozobra is the annoying people in your life,
	the problems that remain unsolved no matter what you do,
 		the sadness of your aspirations that will never be fulfilled.
	Zozobra is what you fear,
 	Zozobra is what you dread.
 	Zozobra embodies those few things you really hate
		as well as those stupid things which just regularly bring you    down.
 	This is Gloom, Old Man Gloom himself.
Burn Him!  Burn Him!   (Did those words really come out of my mouth?)
	Yes. Burn Him!
Lots of shouting and chanting now.
But people quiet also, staring, transfixed, their eyes focused on Zozobra--
	what are they thinking, feeling?  Their own version of gloom
		hopefully about to be transformed?
More fires taunt;  weaving amongst the fires are small draped figures, ghosties, dancing
           about and taunting and waving torches;
 	and they are joined by skilled dancers dramatically taunting with
		quick and graceful movements.
You Old Man Gloom;
 	its you we want rid of,
 		its you we want out of our lives,
 			its you we can and should do without.
You Old Man Gloom;  You Will Burn.  We will Burn You!!

The fire starts at the bottom of the robed body,
	quickly rise through the body, and into the head
 		until flames lick out of the eyesockets
 			that previously had held hateful, glaring eyes.
Zozobra is going up in flames.
Old Man Gloom is Dead and gone.
The fireworks explode the joy.
 	Gloom is Burned and replaced with the fires of color
 		and sound and movement and elevation,
			and joy irrupting.
Cheers, smiles all around.  People are hugging and patting and slapping.
	They are laughing and enjoying.
Down the streets they pour, out of the gates of the park and down the streets into the city
 	where for hours you will see these hordes of people laughing and smiling.
There is reason to be glad.  Old Man Gloom is Dead.
Zozobra was burned, again, for this year.

It is apparent on people's faces and their interactions that it works
You have to think that it is an effective ritual because so many come,
	and come again year after year.
And you have to believe that Burning Old Man Gloom is efficient and effective religion
            because from start to finish the ceremony of teasing,
  		taunting
   			and burning
				takes only a half an hour!
 All that effort to attend, and it only takes a half hour!
 	In a half hour, for many, many, transformation takes place.

Sometimes we have to clean out our house;
Sometimes we have to clear out our heads and hearts.

Life contains real tragedy.
There is inexplicable pain and sorrow in human living.
By declaring this cosmos our home I do not mean to overlook or belittle people's real
           suffering.
When I advise people to cultivate "at homeness" in the cosmos,
I do not mean to overlook the very real horrors visited upon this world.

But sometimes all
	and in all cases some of what we must undergo
 		has to do with our attitudes and expectations.
These the religious life and a spiritual discipline,
	these a proper theology,
 		helps us to address.

At a deep and basic level life feels itself
 	and knows itself
  		to be good,
   			to be a grounds of gladness.
It is good to be alive.
We learn to forget and to ignore this source of joy
	from those insistent and incessant teachers
  		of cares and sorrows of living.

Care for the world so easily becomes carrying the World.
Troubles abound, bad news is constant, suffering is pervasive.

And what isn't really bad may be imagined so.  We have a fascination for the sordid,
             the dramatic,	the traumatic, the ugly and shocking.

But I address the paradox noted recently by pundits and pollsters in the media:
We are a people who have more but feel we have less.
 	Those who in reality have much, feel deprived.

We are, as a book title says, A Culture of Complaint;
	we suffer from the Victimization Syndrome;
  		another writer refers to the Generation of Whiners.
Thus we are surrounded by an atmosphere which is designed to obscure the grounds for gladness.

Clarke Dewey Wells writes:
 	"When the expression of pain deadens into a series of complaints, all cathartic
            value evaporates.  We simply become adept at the high-fidelity whine."  [One of
            our developmental tasks is "moving beyond playing the game of "Gee, ain't it
            awful."] "A mature religion and creative church can help us in this task. [my
            emphasis]. They call our attention to the potentiality of the human spirit and the
            opportunity ever before us of laying old on  life's energies, in cooperation with its
            larger spirit, to correct, fashion and build our world, within and without in new
            and constructive ways.  After we finish saying, "Gee, ain't it awful,' let's not get
            stuck.  Let's move on to say, 'Now what shall we do?'  To ask that  question
            presupposes a religion of affirmation, esteem;  hope for the human 	enterprise and 	ourselves."  [Ouch and Alleluia, Clarke Dewey Wells, p. 40]

A mature religion and church assists us to affirm what is positive in life.
Our readings and our hymns this morning have reminded us of what is important, of the
           gladness to be found and the grounds for such gladness.

 In the poem "Pax" by  D. H. Lawrence recall the lines about
	"Sleeping on the hearth of the living world' . . . "in the house of life.:"  "like a great 	reassurance/a deep calm in the heart . . . "

In the Gather Together hymn were the words:
" both  sorrow and gladness we find now in our living . . . [but we are] acclaiming creation whose 	bounty we share;"   "we sing a hymn of praise to the life that we bear."

In the Irish tune we asserted that
"Through all the tumult and the strife I hear the music singing;"  the "endless song above earth's 	lamentation."  It is our religious intent to stay attuned to that music.

Sing now #175, which calls us to  open our blinkered eyes to see, our throats to  proclaim
            and our hands to protect the glory of the earth.  "We Celebrate the Web of Life."