Spiritual needs
Reg Naulty considers the benefits of religious association
In a recent Australian census, seventy-five per cent of the population put themselves down as religious believers, but only about fifteen per cent attended any kind of religious service on a Sunday. It is unlikely to have changed much. It seems that the great mass of believers is unconvinced of the benefits of religious association.
Well, what are the benefits? Most importantly, religious association puts us on the road to spiritual growth, which is probably the main reason we are here on earth. If we neglect that for other preoccupations such as career, or amusement, or if we just sink into a rut in which we are getting nowhere, then we may find ourselves receiving wake-up calls. Spiritual development seems to be the main aim of the game.
As that way of putting the matter can become too self-regarding, it is just as well to shift the focus to the Kingdom of God. Doing what we can to contribute to that is why we are here. How do we begin such a project? Opening ourselves to God with like-minded people is a good place to start. Gradually, we find what we need for the job – qualities such as respect for the facts, patience, trust in both God and others, cheerfulness and so on.
This raises another major point. We find out what some of our most important needs are by associating with others. That claim may seem far fetched. Don’t we know perfectly well what our needs are? Not always. Would we know, if the medical profession had not told us, that too much salt is bad for hypertension, or that too little sunlight is bad for bones and so on for a whole raft of conditions? The same is true in other areas. For example, when I went to university to study philosophy, the lecturers kept pushing science at us. ‘I don’t need to know that,’ I thought. But I did. Science is the great knowledge paradigm of our times.
It is the same with our spiritual needs. We need to know what they are if we are to develop spiritually, and we find them out by associating with others. To give another example, the religious tradition I was in prior to Friends made little of leadings, yet these impart a dynamic quality to our spiritual lives. Nor did my former spiritual tradition give much weight to trust in God as a habitual attitude, a lived spiritual foundation, and I found out later that it could be.
Many people miss the point that our fulfilment lies as much in community as in individuality. In a consumer society like ours, individuality is magnified beyond due proportion. The fact is that we are inescapably social beings. For example, our food is produced by people distant from us, our clothes are produced by other people elsewhere, our electricity by others again, our cars by still others and so on and so forth. We are not resplendent all-conquering individuals. We are members of society. Being a person is more like being a thread in a piece of fabric than a marble in a bag of marbles. The fabric supports the thread, and the thread plays a part in supporting the fabric.
That is how we should come before God: together. And when we do, we may find that a feeling of God’s presence unites us. That is worth experiencing for its own sake. It also provides spiritual energy for the journey.
