Where does religious practice fit into a humanistic
understanding of religion? What would be the role of prayer and ritual as a
form of connection to a deity that we have defined as ineffable and
incomprehensible?
Since leaving the world of professional work in the field of
religion, I have found myself free to reevaluate the formalities of communal
and personal prayer and ritual in my religious life. Rote congregational prayer
has lost its significance, and personal prayer seems to have morphed into early
morning writing of which this essay is a product. I have struggled to find a
way into a religious practice that will facilitate a sense of the sacred in my
life.
The eminent psychologist Abraham Maslow writes about peak
experiences. There have been and still are people who have what could be called
“close encounters”—a sense of a direct experience of the divine. These
experiences overcome these people, even overwhelm them, give them a sense of connecting
to a cosmic presence. They experience the wholeness of the cosmos and of
humanity and their sense of belonging to both.
Yet, as Maslow points out, these “peakers” are most often co-opted
by the practitioners—the organizational people, institutional leaders, clergy
and those who function at their behest. I know this because I used to be one of
these people. Indeed, I would suggest that we can trace this pattern in the
development of biblical religion. The Bible records a number of instances of
the peak experience. Abraham is called to abandon his homeland to undertake a
divine mission. Moses climbs a mountain and receives the blueprint for a holy
nation. How would one worship as part of this sacred community responding to
Moses’ peak experience?
“Make an altar of earth for me and
sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and
goats and your cattle. Wherever I cause my name to be honored, I will come to
you and bless you.” (Exodus 20:24).
This seems to describe a personal and spontaneous
experience. Do you want to worship God through animal sacrifice? No problem.
Pile up some dirt, offer your sacrifice, and God will bless you. Yet, no sooner is this simple divine message uttered than it
begins to be institutionalized. We regular people can’t just build a simple
earthen alter and worship. We need a Tabernacle, a sanctuary a church, a
synagogue. No, not a simple house of prayer, but an edifice. So first of all,
we need money, stuff, lots of it: gold, silver, bronze, lapis, carnelian,
sapphire, scarlet fabric, crimson fabric, gold thread, acacia wood. Everyone
has to give as much as they can to build the sanctuary.
And of course, we regular
people can’t conduct this worship on our own. After all, what do we regular
people know about the proper way to worship? We need professionals: Levites, priests,
rabbis, pastors. Of course, they have to paid, so we need tithes and taxes, first
fruits and heave offerings, membership dues and donations to sustain the
sanctuary and its officials.
And we can’t have these
professionals conducting worship in jeans and a polo shirt. The priest needs an
ephod and a mantle made of the finest fabric threaded with gold thread and a
girdle and a belt and a mitre and a breastplate and urim and tumim.
And then, pretty soon, you
think you can just build this sanctuary anywhere? On, no!! There can only be
one sanctuary, in the king’s capital, Jerusalem, where the king can oversee
things, make sure the priests are on his side. Do you live too far away from
the capital? Is it too much of a burden to shlepp
your ox or your goat to the capital to worship? Not a problem. Just bring
money. Our friendly neighborhood ox dealer will be happy to sell you an ox. Of
course, there will be a 20% markup, and for a slightly higher fee, the ox
vendor will offer a money-back guarantee that the ox is without blemish.
And this is what Maslow
notices. These peak religious experiences become institutionalized,
bureaucratized. They are co-opted by a hierarchical social structure that
injects issues of power and authority.
I’ve written elsewhere (http://www.pjll.org/content/chukat-numbers-19-221)
about an essay titled “Priest and Prophet” written in 1893 by the popular
Hebrew writer and founder of spiritual Zionism, Asher Ginzberg, known by his
pen name, Ahad Ha-am. Ginzberg begins by noting that like the physical
universe, human society is sustained as a balance of opposing forces. Yet, the
prophet’s vision transcends this balance. The prophet’s vision is exclusively
focused on his radical universal idea. Then the priest steps in to restore “the
complex ‘harmony’ which has resulted from the conflict of that Idea with other
forces.” The prophet envisions, and in the desire to institutionalize the
vision, the vision is compromised by institutional authority.
There are at least two critiques of this quest for a peak
experience. The most obvious one is the fact that most of us are not peakers; a
sense of direct and immediate connection to the divine, the sacred, the
transcendent is rare at best. More to the point, however, is to question the
dichotomy entirely. Do the routine rituals that we practice in our homes and
houses of worship block our peak experiences? Do they become barriers to our
encounter with the divine—as I have begun to think—or can they become vehicles,
vectors transporting us into those peak experiences?
The fact is, humans make sense of the world through the
identification of patterns. This is how we come to know and understand the
world. We classify our observations according to repeating patterns. We see a
pattern of animals that nurse their young, and we call these animals mammals. We
see animals that live in the ocean and use gills instead of lungs to absorb
oxygen and we call them fish. We see that some of these fish have shells, and
we call them crustaceans. Our epistemology—our way of coming to know the
world—begins with classifying phenomena based on the observation of patterns.
The most basic pattern is the cycle, the circle. The entire
cosmos operates on the basis of this pattern. Circles, spheres, ovals, bodies
rotating and orbiting seem to form the basis of all matter and energy appearing
and operating in the universe. No wonder the circle comes to have the meaning
not only of eternity, but also power and authority. Just ask Siegfried of the Nibelungenlied, or Frado Baggins in Lord of the Rings.
The cycle that seems to impact most immediately on the human
mind and imagination is the cycle of time: the cycle perceived in the celestial
bodies and the calendar that measures it; the cycle of the seasons and the
corresponding cycle of vegetation—life, death and rebirth. Our lives resonate
with these cycles, are determined by them. Our religious practice—our prayers
and rituals—can provide opportunities for us to enter into and participate in
this cycle of time that seems to pervade the structure and order of the cosmos.
By means of morning and evening prayers, festivals that recall the cycle of
seasons, but also recurring historical themes, we can attune our lives to these
cosmic rhythms.
The embodiment of cycles and patterns through practice is
not unique to the religious life. Rituals of waking, washing, dressing, eating
and working are ubiquitous even in our secular lives. I often find myself most
grateful that students in my classes always sit in the same seats. It makes it
much easier to learn their names. Yet, these rituals and patterns, secular and
religious, can become rote and meaningless. When that happens, they become
barriers to any kind of encounter with the divine or any kind of access to the
sacred.
The key is what in Hebrew is called kavvanah, literally, directig the mind and heart from the rote act
into the cosmic pattern that it embodies and expresses. That’s the hard part;
one that I continue to pursue.
"Do they become barriers to our encounter with the divine—as I have begun to think—or can they become vehicles, vectors transporting us into those peak experiences?"
ReplyDeleteI suspect - at least for me - that it's not an "either/or" proposition, but rather a "both/and".... depending on my mindfulness at the time I'm engaging in the ritual.
Good questions, Richard. Thanks!
Mary,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for your comment. I apologize that it didn't get posted sooner. I changed my e-mail address and wasn't getting notices of comments posted, so I assumed I wasn't getting any. Please feel free to comment some more and let other interested people know.