On Democrats and spirituality
[Note: I'll be away from my computer for the rest of this week. In the meantime, here is one of the more popular posts from the past.]
Surveys show that people who (say they) attend church services regularly usually vote Republican. People who don't, vote Democratic.
So does that mean Democrats can't talk about spirituality? And if they don't, will they continue to lose elections in a nation more and more being forced into a quasi-theocratic mold?
In Bill Moyers' On America, the author talks about aging and how the most successful and happy older people maintain "a capacity for wonder, surprise, and joy -- especially the joy of the present experience."
He talks about his last televised conversation with Joseph Campbell, the longtime teacher of comparative mythology at Sarah Lawrence College, and how Campbell talked about the "guiding idea of his work: to find the commonality of themes in world myths, pointing to a constant requirement in the human psyche for a centering in terms of deep principles."
"You're talking about a search for the meaning of life," I [Moyers] said.World (or national myths), deep principles, and the rapture of being alive -- being connected to something bigger than ourselves. America has just such a tradition and it isn't about religion. Democrats would do well to think about that some more."No, no, no," he answered. "I'm talking about the experience of being alive!" He explained: "People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is the experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive."