Seeking Authentic Voice

 A few days ago I wrote about my pursuit into the study of philosophy. I am reading, for the first time, a book I purchased at least a decade ago. “Philosophy: Something to Believe In” was written by Richard Paul Janaro and it seems to be a text book for a community college course. It was published in 1975. The end of the first chapter summarizes his thesis: “Philosophy is good for humanity because it is the practice of asking questions and developing the art of reflective thinking in order to understand something about what we believe and why. Philosophy is the discipline of reflecting upon the consequences of human action and the sense of responsibility which the social nature of humanity seems to require. He posits the notion that many of our beliefs exist “just because we must have belief….The act of believing, he writes, is a form of experience bringing about its own peculiar and profound pleasures. Even the momentary anguish of confusion, of knowing what to...

After several weeks of setting aside Chittister's book., "Called to Question," I have once again returned to reading it. I am only on page 22, plodding through slowly as every paragraph calls my attention and stirs my thought process. For the most part I appreciate the way in which she is drawing the conclusion that religion and spirituality are intertwined. For example she writes: The very purpose of religion is to enable us to step off into the unchartered emptiness that is the spiritual life, freely but not untethered. We have under our feet the promise of the tradition that formed us and the disciplines that shaped our souls. We can then wander...religion gives us the structures that weld the habits and disciplines of the soul into one integrated whole. Those same structures can also, however, smother the very spirit they intend to shape...spirituality is a commitment to immersion in God, to the seeking that has no end. No doubt I left church because the structur...

As I mentioned yesterday I am reading, again, Joan Chittister's book, "Called to Question," in part as a response to the NPR "Talk of the Nation" interview Theresa McBain, the UMC minister turned atheist. "Called to Question" is a sometimes brutal reflection on the differences and connections between "religion" and "spirituality." Chittister considered this eight years before Diana Butler Bass, Brian McLaren, and Marcus Borg, took it up. Actually, because the book is the culmination of five years of journaling and then the creation of a book she probably started considering this question in the late 1990's. A Roman Catholic nun much of her scathing response to religion is the result of living in the confines of the Roman church and the limitations imposed upon women and laity by the teachings of the church. I appreciate much of what she writes. This morning I am reading the second chapter of the book. Taking it slowly, ponderi...