The training wheels for spirituality?

"I see religion as the training wheels for spirituality — a form of support to be discarded once the practitioner has developed the skill to go in alone," writes Dr. Seán Ó'Loaire in Setting God Free. "This is not to say that community is no longer important. It is. But its function is no longer to herd and censor; it's to provide encouragement and challenge for the individual, mystical journey of its members. The rigid schoolmarm approach must give way to the Socratic method and the mother must allow the kids to cut their social/religious umbilical cords."

This reminds me of a question I once heard when I was living in a Hindu monastery. A young guy from Italy asked the senior monk — who was about 80 years old and 300 pounds — if we should go to church on Sundays.

His reply was something like this: Well, if you have a spiritual practice on your own, no, you don't need to. But if you find you're spending all your time watching TV and running errands, and have no time to contemplate the metaphysical... then maybe you should go to church.

Of course, you can do both. Or neither. Unless you live in a country where it's either outlawed or mandatory. (Ah, the many faces tyranny can take.)

Setting God Free: Moving Beyond the Caricature We've Created in Our Own Image is about how humanity's tendency to tyrannize each other has been projected onto God. I've been reading a few pages to my son each night and many subscribers have told me they are now reading it too — particularly after my much loved and hated post from February titled: Was the God of the Old Testament a psychopathic tyrant?  

John C.A. Manley

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story, the forthcoming All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of speculative fiction. Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber at: https://blazingpinecone.com/subscribe/