Spiritual Literacy at Midlife
The Alphabet of Spiritual Literacy describes the key spiritual practices -- from attention to zeal -- that spell the meaning in daily life. Here is the book to share with your children, family, colleagues, and friends as you explore together the bounties of the spiritual life.
-- From the back cover of Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life
This girl I've been dating bought me a book - not my
birthday, or anything. Just out of the blue, this book
arrives to invade my home with its
superior winks, accusatory nods, it's sly, I'm a gift, pal,
you'll never escape me... It knows its power. It stares
right through me from the coffee table; its mandorla eyes
follow me from room to room, its happy rainbow
cover, humid day by August day,
curling in a smug, enlightened smile. Spiritual
Literacy, it hisses as I switch on the tube, Reading
the Sacred in Everyday Life. I swear I'll read it
someday, when the laundry's done, the dishes dry,
the cat box clean, this poem complete, the new Fall Season
tried and found insipid once again. I have nothing
against anyone's religion, New Age or Old. But my own
irrepressibly Enquiring Mind embraced Life's
Mystery Compleat when I was ten: You, Too
Can Contact UFOs, Ghost Dog Invades
Elated Owner's Pantry, Bigfoot Sighted...
just about anywhere. That stuff's too rich
a legacy to trade for anybody's "Truth." Rub the Buddha
for Luck and Money! should count for something
spiritual. I sent my dollar. That book is begging
hard for a piece of my mind. I'm wondering what it says
about that girl, about who she thinks I am, or could be
with training. I'm wondering
if there's going to be a quiz before sex
becomes a real possibility. I'm wondering if there's a chapter
in that book on Tantra... I have my own selective Spiritual
Literacy, by God(s). And I'm wondering
why this all, in the end, doesn't bother me more. When I was twenty
I surely would have sweated on this deal. These days,
I'm barely warming up. At midlife, the deal
is all too insidiously clear: That book is hungry
to make a meal of something precious, and that girl
for even more. And suddenly I'm wondering
what that book would see with its Sacred Everyday
eyes face down in the carrot peels and cans, the scooped-out
litter clumps that populate my trash. You can bet it won't be
NASA Photo: Virgin Mary Alive On Mars! I know
Sacred when I see it. That one
went straight into my permanent collection.