Moving into a Bigger Life
Rejecting Narrow Religion Can Take A Variety of Forms
Is it possible to be a mystic or a contemplative even after losing one’s faith — or, at least, losing one’s religion?
“Life is bigger, it’s bigger than you” sang Michael Stipe of R.E.M. in their 1991 song “Losing My Religion.” The message is simple: whether the “you” is addressed to God, or to a lover, or to anyone, this idea of losing religion — losing faith — seems to be linked to accepting a new way of viewing the world, that often might be far bigger than what one had previously imagined.
Religion, like almost anything in life, can be healthy or toxic. It seems to me that one of the ways we can tell when religion isn’t healthy is that it tends to point us toward a life that seems small. A life shaped by limitation or at least fear, fear of offending God, fear of running afoul of one’s religious leaders. When religion is confining like this, it is a brave act of spiritual liberation to move into a bigger life — even if it means casting off the religious confines that had previously functioned like an inner prison.
Not all religion is so constraining of course; but I suspect the religions that help us to find as big a life as possible tend to be religions people are far less likely to abandon. A healthy religion, like a healthy marriage, always gives us plenty of room to grow.
From the perspective of mysticism and contemplation, the entry into a mystical spirituality is quite similar to “losing my religion” — for what is mysticism, if not the embracing of a bigger God, a bigger spirituality, a bigger interior life? Mystical spirituality is big enough to contain paradox, and ambiguity, and uncertainty: the mystery of the cloud of unknowing. Perhaps the difference between mysticism and agnosticism boils down to this: one requires a rupture with old religious beliefs, while the other is simply a moving-beyond those limits, a quiet reformation rather than an explosive revolution.
Even as I write these words, I know that the Spirit can never be reduced to such a neat and tidy formula. Today’s agnosticism just might be tomorrow’s mysticism (and vice versa). But back to my original question: can you be a mystic after a crisis of faith? Of course.
Quotation source: “Losing My Religion” from the R.E.M. Album Out of Time (1991).