About twelve years ago, I was at an Auckland Literary Festival, with a talk on ‘The Influences that Have Made a Writer.’ The greatest influence in my life, my faith, I left until last, aware that some people were allergic to talk about religion.
I said if anyone wanted to leave at that point, I would not be offended. Two women got up and quietly left.
The unexpected happened. The rest of the crowd found a freedom to talk openly about their spiritual experiences. This was grace-filled time for us all.
If the room has not been needed for the next speaker, we could have gone on for hours, nearly 500 people eager to own the sacred in their lives.
This kind of sharing is now usual, although on a smaller scale: two women drinking tea and talking about “coincidence;” a stranger stopping on the street to ask for prayer; a car pulling up at the gate and a man introducing himself – he’d had a profound spiritual experience and wants to understand it; people coming to their first retreat day and saying, “I’m not religious, but…”
Conversations about the great reality we call God have become so common that we’ve coined the name, “Cup of Tea Spirituality” but apart from that, people wear no labels. Many have never been part of a church, don’t know the Bible, and ecclesiastical language is foreign to them. Some have left church.
Yet clearly God is working in their lives.
In these encounters I hear many wonderful stories that I can’t repeat. They are not my stories to tell.
However, because people have often made a statement about being spiritual and not religious, I have asked, what’s wrong with being religious? The answers vary but almost always the word “judgmental” comes up. Sometimes that word carries pain.
There is anomaly in that people know they’re talking to a committed Catholic. While I try to explain that the Church is a very wide umbrella covering people at all stages of formation, I suspect that doesn’t go anywhere.
I wish I could adequately describe the richness of the faith, the love, the Mystery that is beyond words. But I guess that has to be experienced, and can’t be truly known from the outside.
Late last century a Massey survey revealed that while 80% of New Zealanders believed in God, less than 20% went to a church. The gap is huge, and I have to leave it with God. I don’t have any answers.
But I do know that God is much bigger than our ideas about God, and instead of clutching at certainty, it is good to pray our questions. My biggest question concerns my own judgements about judgemental attitudes! Mea culpa!
Of this, I’m sure: New Zealand is not a secular country. We are all spiritual beings on a human journey, all looking for ways to come home to ourselves.
Awareness of the sacred is everywhere.
- Joy Cowley is a wife, mother. grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.
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