Before we get far on the topic of leading with your spirit, we ought to say a few words about religion. To be clear, I don’t plan to write a whole lot about religion on this site. But wielding your spirit intersects with religion on the topics of courage, community and positivity.
I have a lot of respect for religion. I also have a lot of respect for science. Just sayin.
When I distill my religious upbringing down to the pieces that I find to be most valuable, what I’m left with is courage, community, and stories that express important life lessons and values. To me anyway, I believe that these are the specific things I seek when I turn to religion.
The challenge for religion is that it is not the only place capable of building courage, community, or stories about values. Exacerbating the challenge is all the other BS that most religions present: overly specific rules; needless wars and bloodshed; gossip, clicks and drama; threats of damnation; scandals due to lack of proper vetting of priests, rabbis and imams and others in leadership; etc. These failures and shortcomings take away from the good things that religion does for people; and risk creating too much frustration for congregants.
I was raised Episcopalian, which is my dad’s religion, and I attend services sometimes. My mom added her own thoroughly Catholic philosophies to my upbringing. I honestly have a ton of respect for religion, and all the religious people that came before me. The religious machine in the world is huge and powerful. But things change. Times change. The environment, the challenges that people face, and the philosophies that allow people to make sense of it all, they all change.
There’s a theme you’ll probably sense in perhaps all Spirit Wielder posts. It’s that committing to a philosophy promoted by other human beings to the extent that you must blindly agree and never question one of the philosophy’s talking heads, will end up being a bad idea in the long run. Essentially, don’t let yourself be lead astray.
People are hurting. People feel left behind and duped. Though uncomfortable, this is natural and even healthy from time to time, because as noted above, things change. And change can be frustrating and frightening. But anger and frustration has gotten too frothy. This is a topic that I could go on and on about. Not sure what good anger really does for anyone. It can certainly make bad situations worse. People point to a lot of reasons or excuses for the anger. In many cases, though, the solutions are simple. But most religions sadly no longer peddle those simple solutions, or if they do, it too often comes with strings attached. My theory is that the simple solution is positivity, with a hint of spirituality.
On sites like LinkedIn, you see a lot of people calling themselves life coaches or gurus, so much so that this has become the punchline of a lot of jokes recently. But a theory I’d put forth is that this is a demand-driven phenomenon. There are so many people expressing frustration (sometimes violently). But no traditional institution like religion is really stepping in with the right remedy, and entrepreneurs are seeing an opportunity to help out and earn a living at the same time.
Personal finances seem to be a primary concern these days. I should know. I’ve struggled with this also. But corporations just aren’t ponying up the raises because of their employees’ plight. Instead corporations are saying “oh you really think you have it that bad?” and “why should I give you a raise when I can go find someone else to do your job for less pay”. Heartless really.
And religion might give you a warm fuzzy feeling of confidence on Sunday morning. But if you can also get that from a good book, and avoid whatever other awkward situations a mosque, synagogue or church might put you in, religion seems less and less a good idea.
Courage, community and positive life lessons was the origin of most of today’s religions. Tyrannies, natural disasters, and oppression over the past 2,000 years drove people together so that they could discuss the dangers and challenges, and share ideas on how to persevere. During times of strife, positivity is the single most valuable thing that people are looking for, and religion can deliver.
But also, it seems that today many of the biggest churches, mosques and synagogues, being funded by large donations, have come under the control of politicians. Nothing distracts from people honing in on their positive and courageous life/survival plans, then being told by their priest that they really ought to vote a certain way in the next election.
The term “Catholic guilt” has been used a lot over the years. I’ll bet other religions peddle that too. It’s a good thing to teach people about right and wrong. But threatening damnation in order to control the masses isn’t a way to build trust or faith in a congregation.
People used to trust in others fully with important things like religion, career paths, the future. But life today has become too fragile to welcome any unnecessary challenges. It pays to focus your energy on things that build courage, community and positive values. You can still find that in organized religion, but I think it pays to be cautious about going “all in”.
This is a “heavy” post. I like to keep it light, but it just feels important to put this out there. Thanks for reading. Feel free to comment on this.