One of my favorite books, re-reading... not an apology for religion at all, not an attempt to create a new one-- instead, a rescue of some critical functions of religion the secular world has not taken with sufficient seriousness. One of my favorite chapters has to do with our human tendency to forget what we care about and our need to remind ourselves of our own values, repeatedly-- to paraphrase Galway Kinnell, to reteach ourselves our loveliness. There are plenty of secular sources of such reminders-- art, poetry, film, music, essays... and most of us probably dont use those in as intentionally and regularly as we could. Churches do this with liturgical cycles-- secularists could adopt some similar practices. This could take many forms-- as an example, one could plan times of the year to contemplate specific themes-- death, birth, justice, compassion, vicarious joy, inevitable losses, the meaning of property, wisdom, truth, the passing of time, our smallness in the great universe, beauty-- and have a collection of visual, sound and literary aids that could be used and re-used over the years. One could even have rooms in the home dedicated to such, with triggers-- triggers can be positive, not just negative-- for the specific purposes. If you did something like that, what would be some of your central themes? I think I would include in the mix a room and/or month for beautiful transience amid the powerful faces of nature; one for justice and solidarity; one for vicarious joy; one for wisdom. alaindebotton/religion/
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 14:03:53 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015