We Need a Reset

Full disclosure. I am a recovering Catholic. I went to parochial schools from first grade through undergraduate school. I entertained majoring in theology at a Jesuit college. I spent ten minutes thinking about becoming a nun when I was in 8^th grade.

Religion is interesting to me. I am drawn to the idea of a God or gods, benevolent ones only. I sense the reality of a spiritual world that marches next to us as we grapple with life. I love rituals that lift and connect. I don’t want to let go of the idea of a universal creative force. I can do religion very well.

But I also feel that too many religions have been weaponized. It’s due in part to our disconnection from each other. It’s also related to the human tendency for us to want power and control. Certainly, some of it is attributable to the religious wars of the past and the forever-poison for which there seems to be no antidote.

Over a decade ago, I tried to write a book about adolescent social drama, but then Donald Trump became the president of the United State, and my brain shut down. He did social drama on steroids every day. The issue of adolescent social drama paled in comparison to what was happening in the Oval Office.

When I finally emerged from my Trump-induced trauma, I realized that the book I needed to write was going to be about adult social drama, the kind that was turning our world into a made-for-TV reality show.

As I dug into the literature on adult bad behavior, I found myself thinking about the bad behaviors of people who played roles in religious communities. It felt awkward and somewhat sacrilegious to criticize people who were supposed to be good, but who were doing evil things, but it was a road I had to go down.

We are a religiously diverse country. That means that we all won’t subscribe to the same set of beliefs. It means we won’t all have the same world view, and as long we accept each religion’s right to ascribe to practices that don’t break the law, it can all be good.

It is the belief part that is problematic. A belief is an opinion or a platitude. It is not a fact. It’s hard to argue beliefs, but it shouldn’t be hard to argue facts, but even that is dicey these days because of the proliferation of lies and conspiracy theories and the numbers of people who believe that the nonsense is factual.

Some religions assert that the only sexual activity that is morally right is between a man and a woman. Some believe that abortion is murder. We are all familiar with the tenets of religious ideologies that follow these types of prescriptions, but some religious groups think that their idea of what is right and wrong should be codified in the laws of our country. That’s how civil wars start. That’s how we destroy ourselves and each other.

When religious leaders seek to impose their ideology and dogma on all of us, and when they have acquired enough political influence to affect the laws that govern us, we are in trouble. Just look at the history of religious wars. It is never about love; it is always about hate and power. Religious leaders who condemn and vilify certain people or groups are giving their believers permission to hate them as well.

We need a reset.

We need to look at each other more. Eye contact and a gentle smile are a warm way to greet each other. Then, we need to talk to each other more, not in sound bites and snippets, but in real conversations that begin to build trust. If we have learned one thing from living in our screens it’s how to think and speak in short, cryptic blasts. Screens help us sustain relationships, but the return on investment is low when all our connections with each other are through screens. I love talking to my grandkids on facetime, but the sustained contact that we have when physically together is what builds our relationship.

The more time we spend staring at our screens, the lonelier we get, the more isolated we feel, the more our separation from each other grows, and the more fractured our society becomes. We still need each other in person. Our development as humans requires us to be in each others’ presence. We need more of each other, without judging, and not through screens. We need to see ourselves in each other. I invite any religious leader of any religion to preach on that. Amen.

Let’s Hang Together