America's Spirituality -- lost?

I have a final paper due in “Mysticism in America” this Sunday. I have researched and organized until I was blue in the face. Not really knowing where to take all the material that I have read and accumulated. Tonight sitting in anguish, it occurred to me where to go with the material I have acquired. Application is the key word here. I will apply it to myself. I have become the dinosaur. Seeing the injustices in our society for the first time [again], I now understand that we are a society of lost hopes and dreams, with a “vast interpretation” of spirituality; those dreams I speak of were focused on an object that can only be obtained through simple living. Hopes and dreams cannot be seen, but they have been replaced with automobiles and fancy cell phones: the perfect body and sexiest clothes: and youth only living for the moment, because many young people of our upcoming society care nothing the deeper meaning of life but for the pleasures of the physical sense and the causes of all this is the generational problems from the ages of 35 up.  Yet we take no responsibility for our actions nor are we really aware there is a problem.

 So many blank faces are searching for the ultimate happiness and the “virtues of morality” that were once spoken by great men long gone and lost in some pages of an obscure book that just now teaches, but provides no definitive answer except in the individualized interpretation. In doing so, we have lost the concept of moderation in the tools we use at hand. (Stegner) Seeing how so closely we are interwoven with each other, there is a need for inter-dependency, but what happens when that has become broken? This is when every many a man or a woman builds an outer wall of very little trust in themselves or their fellow man. “We give people our trust today because they have been trustworthy in the past.” (Berg 113) But what happens when that too is no longer a consistent factor in the society of a Western Culture like America especially since the very trust that was given were to our pseudo-spiritual associates and advisors that we see on a day to day basis? We seek something that is higher than the trust of man and when we feel that is not satisfactory and we pay dearly for it. According to modern philosophers like Pema Chondron, pain is very essential in life. (17)  “We live in difficult times. One senses the strong possibility that conditions may become even worse. (Chodron 146)

Through personal experience, I have witnessed many parent, go to the store and buy for a special occasion like Christmas gifts for one child totaling more than $500.00. I use to wonder why? I can honestly say that I never did this, but have witnessed many relatives that did.  I asked one Christmas not so long ago, why they were buying their child so much. I was not pleased with the answer. “Julia, you had a great up-bringing. We had nothing. I want to give my child everything I did not have. Now it is the other way around, you have nothing and I have everything.” Does possessing so much make us really happy? Are those possessions truly a gift from God as an earthly payment for being a good follower?  I really did not have a lot, but only carried what I had very well.

Another relative through saving over the years (who is more than 10 years my junior) has acquired more than $1 million dollars in savings and personal assets for hard times and retirement. But as we have aged over the years, I noticed they are not happy because they often tell me of the pain they are in emotionally. I have also noticed that relative appears to look almost 10 years my senior in age. In a comparative nature they drive a fancy new car, live in an upper-crust neighborhood, go to their church regularly, take the spiritual existence to a higher power through mediation, and go to collegiate ball games. They also have a designer dog. Yet, they let it be known that they are missing something in their lives. At 35 years old, the husband and wife can barely stand to be in the room with each other. Yet, they play in the summer time and perform charity work through their church winter time. They are constantly trying to improve themselves but never making the steps to figure out why they are unhappy. Their daughters attend the elite schools in a southern city, go to elite functions, have the best parties in comparison of their peers, and are not happy really happy either.

If I were to compare my relatives to their equal counterpart, acquaintances of mine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, their overall outcome is not so nice. They are 100% equal to my younger relatives including in property to 2 daughters the same difference in ages—except older. Both their daughters have had stays in mental illness facilities for being belligerent, cutters, excessive drinkers, and lacking in simple parental affection. They also try drugs of choice at liberty and have multiple sexual partners. They too have attended elite women’s preparatory schools to learn fine wines and different sexual exploitations [in some cases] to protect their virginity. Their parents smile a tremendous amount and seem to have a positive attitude in public. In private, the minute the back door opens, the father reverts to his office [den], closes his doors, and a ball game can be heard on television. The mother sits and figures out what room needs to be redecorated. 

“So what shall we choose – between living reactively or proactively, between selfish desire and desire to share? The correct option seems so obvious—but the desire to receive for the self alone is like a highly addictive drug. We’re hooked on the euphoria it can provide. The drug has become so much a part our lives that we’re not even aware we’re using it anymore?” (Berg 67) Are these families product of a lost spirituality?  “It is a ‘feel good’ spirituality for the urban and affluent and it has nothing to say to the poor and the marginalized in society, other than offering them a regime of compliance, a new ‘opiate for the masses’. (Carrette 107)  Each family only shared when they felt it was required of them for religious standards. If this being the case let us say they represented 75% of their social class. If 75% of this class is proactive then they actually do not have the nature to want to share. Corrette and King followed up in their book by contending that this is somewhat going along with a trend in today’s society where corporate America is becoming more spiritualized by encouraging a more community service front of their management and employees…”a vague do-good-ism.” (28)  This not only enhances specified corporations but lends a human charitable aspect to increase their consumer base and positive reflection in the community. (29)

This is where it is determined that certain social classes in society are just now going through the “motions” of living and not very happily at that. According to Berg the more that we are proactive, the more we are needed to be proactive the “less satisfied the individual will feel.” (Berg 67) There is where an almost catalyst affect begins (or a ‘domino effect’).  This effect of being less satisfied has begun a trend of borrowing traditions from Eastern religions to ease a type of ‘unknown detachment” of the Western Cultures. These traditions are popping up into a new industry of self help guides in Zen, Yoga, or New Age Buddhism. (Carrette 89-94) The books are available to assists the Western Culture in getting back on track, to help get their hopes and dreams back. But if they are so productive then why is it when a new cell phone or a more computerized car comes on the market or even a new play station is introduced, that consumerism of a “need to have” floods the market? Even though we have separation of church and state, why is it that we have taken to individuals who are “highly spiritual” in the political arena—only to be dissatisfied with their performance when realization sets in?

I feel that “a hopelessness” has swept across the Western Cultures due to various factors.  One being the there is a lack in the production of real heroes in the past 20 years. The heroes on the open market are a reproduction of comic strip characters, such as Captain America, which was [common knowledge] introduced during World War II. Other heroes constantly reinvented would be Spiderman, Superman, or X-man. Second would be individual interpretation of spirituality itself in context with Western evangelical religion. This was enhanced by the media political reinvention of the (“Ozzie and Harriet”, “Make Room for Daddy” or “Father Knows Best”) 50s core family values. Audie Murphy died a while ago, but did anyone have a ticker tape parade today for Dakota Meyer? (CMOHS) Where was his press? Where are his movie contracts? Did he make front page on anything like Ted Bundy? Or Bernie Madoff? Yes society is confused and so are our presses.

Family values were not realistic but a media invention also [common knowledge]. The religious interpretation, some in the forms of self help materials, would like for the consumer to believe their life would be better served or enhanced. The only thing enhanced for the consumer is the changing of religious interpretations and the pocket of the Eastern producer selling the material. A good example of this is being black: Zen and the Art of living with fearlessness and grace by Angel Kyodo Williams. This particular book is not necessarily about Zen, but how Williams assimilated parts of a traditional religion (Zen) in her life to suit her wants. Other products along these lines would be Yoga, African oils to enhance the spirit, or Mary Hendricks Funky Meditation for the Young. The Yoga will help us maintain a healthy physical lifestyle. In studying all of this, it occurred to me that whatever happened to simple prayer? Why is there a cost for church? Why is there a cost for religion? Hopelessness and interpretation of the spirit from the original meaning is getting lost as religion is redefining itself to meet the needs of the person and not the cause of the religion.    

But I have to ask through all of this, what is morality and virtues dealing with the evolution of today modern spirituality and religious values? In the 1950s, a Supreme Court Justice pointed out that society is changing and very fast. Trends of the needs are changing to the wants of material greed. And soon we will lose our hopes and aspirations of something “bigger or more important than ourselves” we will lose it to our possessions. (Gediman) He was correct. In most cases, society is seeking the want more and forgetting what is a spiritual; and since the actual original aspects of religion has changed from turning off the designer cell in church to the sinful nature of obesity then it explains why hopes and dreams can never be again be because we are too busy texting? 

Citations

Carrette, Jeremy and King, Richard. Selling Spirituality: The Silent Take Over of Religion. Routledge: New York 2006

Gediman, Exec.  Prod. Dan. This I believe. The Bob Edwards Show:  2^nd October 2009.  William O’

Douglas. “My Father’s Evening Star”.  Ca. 1950s.  http://thisibelieve.org/essay/16507/  Web 1^st

October 2011

Berg, Michael. The Way: Using the Wisdom of Kabbalah for spiritual transformation and fulfillment.

John Wiley Publications: New Jersey 2001

Chodron, Pema. When things fall apart: heart advice for difficult times. Shambhala.  Boston 2009.

Gediman, Exec.  Prod. Dan. This I believe. The Bob Edwards Show: 2^nd April 2010.  Robert

Stegner.  “Everything is Dangerous” Circa. 1950s.  http://thisibelieve.org/essay/17017 

Web  1^st October 2011

United States Government. Congressional Medal of Honor Society: 15^th September 2011.

http://www.cmohs.org/recipient-detail/3480/meyer-dakota.php  Web 9^th October 2011.