Spirituality without Superstition
(Continued)

The evolution of these physical characteristics has led to our search for meaning and given us the ability to look beyond our basic biological needs and instincts to choose a higher path. There is always someone to help, something to improve, something to hope for. That’s why meaning will never run out as long as humanity survives as a species. If we get discouraged trying to save the world, we can help our neighbor’s daughter with her homework. If we feel useless stuffing envelopes for a political campaign, we can volunteer at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving. If our children are grown and have moved away, we can give time and money to a local charity. As we move from helping ourselves, to helping our families, neighbors, and societies, finally to helping our species and even our world, we find that our need for meaning is met by our own choices and actions.

There are many worthy causes and many ways to find meaning in life. Eventually each one of us must come to recognize those causes that are closest to our own hearts and those issues that arouse our strongest passions. These may change many times over the course of a lifetime. Some people find meaning in raising a family, others in pursuing a career, and still others in charity work, volunteering, creating art, public service, and many other spheres. Every day we must search our hearts to find out what it is that gives us meaning and to find a way to fulfill our purpose while we attend to the needs of our families, work to make a living, struggle to keep up with our daily responsibilities, and are bombarded with negative news.

The Language of the Spirit
In writing about spirituality, I find myself wondering if I am unintentionally empowering religious extremists by embracing their words. I'm not sure if those of us who do not believe in a personified deity should use the words that religions use at all. When I use the terms “spiritual,” “transcendence,” and “miracle,” as metaphors, am I causing confusion? Can spirituality be explained without using the terms of religious experience? I have no answer to these questions, but neither do I have other words to explain the feeling of a fiery sunset, the satisfaction of living a purposeful life, or the amazing fact that I exist to think about these things.

The path may not be easy, and the goal may sometimes seem impossible to reach, but regardless of what we call it, mystery and meaning are available to all who seek to live a spiritual life.

Further Reading
The Soul of Science by Michael Shermer. The Skeptics Society, Altadena, CA. 2006.

The Van Gogh Blues by Eric Maisel, PhD. Rodale, New York, NY. 2002.

A New Christianity for a New World by John Shelby Spong. Harper Collins, San Francisco, CA. 2001.

Donna Druchunas is a freelance technical writer and editor and a knitwear designer. When she's not working, she blogs, downloads music from the Internet, reads science and sci-fi books, mouths off on atheist forums, and checks her email every three minutes. (She does that when she's working, too.) Although she loves to chat, she can't keep an IM program open or she'd never get anything else done.

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