Donald Clegg: Spirituality an experience of unutterable wisdom

Einstein once said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

His advice reminds me of the old joke about the monk at a wiener stand: What did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor? “Make me one with everything.”

That’s about as simple an introduction to a working definition of “spirituality” as I think I’ll find.

In my last column, I introduced my intention to have an affair with three words that have caused a fair amount of grief, as well as sustenance, over the centuries: faith, spirituality, and god.

See how easy it is? Just one lower-case letter will raise a ruckus with some.

A Buddhist, of course, would say that words are related to enlightenment as, say, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is to justice – that is, not at all.

In any case, words are my stock in trade here, and I’ve had the philosophy bug for quite a long time. So, one more joke: What do you get when you cross a philosopher with the Godfather? An offer you can’t understand, naturally.

I’ll try to avoid that as I step into the thicket of meaning where “spirituality” is, depending on to whom you speak – a nonsense term; a cop-out for lack of religious (or atheistic) conviction; or a New-Agey paean to getting beyond organized religion, just to name three.

Dictionaries are fine, useful guides to meaning, but most language lovers realize that words are more malleable than a definition. I often think, in fact, that we should put mental quotes around “every” “word,” “calling” “attention” “to” their meanings.

What, for instance, does “every” signify? Take this innocuous little bromide: “Everyone should obey the speed limit.”

“Every” is rather problematic, even in this simple case, raising more than a few questions: Are there exceptions to the limit? Does it apply in all cases? Do you get a pass based upon age, race, gender, occupation or some other qualifier?

So, without cracking the cover of my big, fat, unabridged Encarta World English Dictionary (as definitions vary even by dictionary), I’ll offer up my personal definition of “spirituality.”

First, a couple of caveats. I believe that spirituality is to religion as water is to a fish. A fish needs water, and religion, spirituality. Without it, religion is at best a utilitarian tool of dogmatic obedience.

Second, while a belief in “God” may include spirituality, it’s certainly not a necessary, or even sufficient, condition. I’ve known highly religious folks who wear God on their sleeve (along with the Stars and Stripes) without a spiritual bone in their body. Sorry, but that flag doesn’t fly.

An old acquaintance of mine on the radio used to just say, of religious belief, “If your faith makes you a better, more loving person than mine, it’s better than mine.”

Theologian Matthew Fox devoted a book to spirituality as compassion – a very Jesus-y kind of notion, it seems to me. But, after more than four years of killing now, it doesn’t appear likely that the Decider’s going to reach for the Sermon on the Mount anytime soon.

Since he seems more of an Old Testament kind of guy, I just wish he’d have a look again at, say, the Second, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Commandments. Maybe that’s just me, but hey, I don’t have God telling me to attack nonthreatening sovereign nations, either.

Leaving aside His complicity in the Iraq war (Mr. Bush said to former Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Abbas, “God told me to strike at al Qaeda…and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did…”), I’ll expand just a bit on the Buddhist monk joke and define spirituality thus: Spirituality is nonverbal wisdom, the experience of the ineffable.

Spirituality is not “belief” or “faith” in something – i.e., knowledge by proxy – but the actual experience of something. What that “something” is, is the Big Question, of course.

The psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg wrote of “faith stages” in his book “The Philosophy of Moral Development.” Stage 2, which utilizes the logic of “concrete operations,” is the level of proxy understanding. One looks to “incumbents of authority roles” – e.g., religious or governmental leaders, and, of course, God. At this level, trusted knowledge is outside or external to one’s self.

Belief, at this stage, is also means-based, rather than ends-based. God, for instance, can be appealed to and asked favors of.

This is quite the opposite of Kant’s categorical imperative, which says, in part, to treat each person as an end, not a means. There, a philosophical punch line that’s no joke.