Waking Up an SBNR

 

A couple of days ago I started reading Anne Bokma’s memoir, “My Year of Living Spiritually”.  It took me back to all those times I started and stopped various practices that bordered on seeking spirituality but never quite got there.

There was a period when I read books such as Wayne Dyer’s  “There’s A Spiritual Solution To Every Problem”, James Redfield’s “The Celestine Prophecy”, Marianne Williamson’s “A Woman’s Worth”, Gary Zukav’s “The Seat of the Soul”, among others. I consumed them, looking for something that would resonate with me. And I did find nuggets of wisdom, healthy living practices, daily reminders, along with a lot of ‘Woo Woo’ as Bokma’s book tagline suggests. But…after a while, these fell by the wayside as I learned to trust my own gut and instincts more than what others instructed as the right path.

My religion fell by the wayside too, as does Bokma’s in her book. I was raised Catholic. Now I enter a church only for weddings and funerals (although empty churches are always appealing). Remember that REM song – Losing My Religion? I’ve always loved that song. I lost my religion a long time ago. In Bokma’s book she talks about how a majority of people now define themselves as SBNRs – Spiritual But Not Religious. Bokma writes that “Thoreau chose the woods over the church”, which does resonate with me. I frequently maintain that nature is my church.

Anne Bokma’s memoir is a reminder of how we all seek meaning in our lives, in different ways, in some form or the other, be it making art, writing, helping others, teaching, or raising kids. But it is also a reminder that meaning does not have to be in one big milestone, one big hurrah that you’ve arrived! It is in a series of little things that we do – that friend or relative you helped through a difficult time, the essays you wrote that never get published, the child you sent out into the world, that walk in the woods where you picked up someone else’s garbage off the ground, the meals you cooked for your family, your charitable donations. We may not all achieve something in some big, recognizable way but our lives can be meaningful in a myriad of small, intentional actions. Intentional.

Bokma cites Sam Harris (neuroscientist, philosopher, author and podcaster) and since his name has cropped up for me several times recently (one should not ignore such timely suggestions), I downloaded his app, Waking Up, which I am trying out (free) for a week. I am undecided if I will subscribe to it after the end of the trial period. I subscribed to the meditation app, Headspace, for a year, but found I was using only a tiny percentage of the content, even though I did enjoy a few minutes of the daily segment almost every day.  But when the year was up, I did not renew.

It was the same with reading all those books - a smorgasbord of offerings. I’d pick and choose a few tidbits, then walk away, again and again returning to my own internal compass. Always returning to my sanctuary of home, solitude, books, walking and writing to make sense of life. Sometimes adding a few extras - incense, fresh flowers, the occasional candle, an essential oil diffuser, a meditation app. But the basics of comfort and contemplation are always the same.  Yours may be different.  

This is not to say that I am not interested or curious in listening and learning from people like Sam Harris (or Anne Bokma). I am indeed and this week I will be listening and reading, pickup up what I can to carry along with me on my walk through life.