I’ve recently been invited by the author of a religious blog called Making Chutney to apply to join a religious blog network called The Daily Scribe. Unlike the 9rules network which I ultimately decided not to join because of its restrictive rules and seeming lack of respect for its members, this one is focused exclusively on contemporary religion and has a nice collection of authors and good thoughtful writing.
Anyway I was discussing with that author which existing “channel” of their network my site would best fit into. We both agreed that my site is neither expressly pagan, nor specifically fits the religious academic section either. There was some talk about starting a “religion and psychology” section, but I feel like even that doesn’t adequately describe the approach that I have here, or that any of you seem to have in our cross-cultural inter-disciplinary approach to contemporary life and spirituality.
The closest term we could come up with was “convergent spirituality” to describe this approach we share at this site. What do you guys think of that term? Does it make sense to you? Does it seem appealing, too snotty, not specific enough? I’m curious to hear what classification other people would have for my site, as I’ve never quite found one that fit. I played around with gnostic for a while, but ultimately discarded that as the modern gnostic movement took a decided different direction than I was interested in. I’ve also caught a lot of flak from “occultists” who insist that I am not occult enough for them. So it seems that labels are a very tricky thing as they tend to govern our expectations of what we will find.
If nothing else, there are scant few uses of the phrase “convergent spirituality” online, so it might make sense as a nice linguistic shorthand for us to actively colonize. One of the only uses of the phrase I can find online with meaningul information about the term refers to someone named Keith Ward, who offers the definition: “‘The many religions of the world are metaphorical or symbolic systems encoding paradigmatic forms of spiritual experience, experience leading to liberation, that the goal of each is ‘liberation from greed, hatred and ignorance to a reality of supreme wisdom and compassion’.”
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9 Comments
i`m optimistic enough to think that we are after a liberation from greed, hatred etc, but i think it`s more relationship with our personal pre-conceptions that get us in trouble……..but convergent spirituality works for the purpose of branding.
http://hypgnosys.blogspot.com/2006/09/lifting-up-edge-to-see-whats.html
and it`s all psychology at the end of the day………my belief is that if we can all deal with our own shit on a basic level we are less threat to others. the greed, hatred and ignorance are all effects of the fragmented psyche. when we can intergrate ourselves meaningfully we become at peace………firstly with ourselves, then with others.
“convergent spirituality”
I like it! I think it fits well too. Tim, I’ll run it by the staff and see if we can’t rename the channel you are in presently. Is that OK with you? It’s your channel bro.
Oh, welcome to Scribe btw! We are better because you are here.
My testimony is— I like this site because it offers a wide, open ended creative perspective on the spiritual dimension of life- which encompasses everything from A to Z….and offers a template in which to consider with curiosity the seen and unseen mysteries, realities, undercurrents of life without commiting to an exact certainity..
(I remember this post)
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005/11/10/the-power-of-labels/
but if convergent spirituality it is— sign me up.
Convergent Spirituality seems just open-ended enough and yet descriptive enough to work. You’re not going to be able to squeeze what you do into any little label, but this one’s as good as any, and definitely better than the existing choices you mentioned.
I’ve been wrestling with the question “What’s in a name?” myself these days and, in fact, just posted on the subject this morning. So I empathize with your process of finding a label that fits.
Based on the Keith Ward definition you provided, I think “convergent spirituality” fits. You could apply that definition to all of us at The Daily Scribe, really, otherwise we wouldn’t be participating in this kind of collective project. But most of us are not arriving at our spirituality by a convergence or confluence of disparate philosophies and trying to make sense of the result. Is that what you are doing, Tim?
In any case, we’re glad to have you, whatever channel we find you on.
I don`t really know this site so well , but I might suggest - spiritual muddling - as a title.
Nothing pretentious about that, and in reality that is what we mostly do.
The other sounds like you are actually getting somewhere, kind of like trying to triangulate an abstract concept. Convergent Spirituality does not sound personal enough. Spirituality is always a solitary path. Every one believes differently.
The best that can be said for spirituality is that it is practical, ensures personal liberty, protects the environment, protects innocence, etc.
The bare bones reality of the situation is that there are only two things that are completely natural for man.
Eating and screwing.
And not necessarily in that order.
The rest is our attempt to find meaning.
Pretty poetry. Some good poetry, some bad.
Meaning , purpose and beauty are the way we try and reconcile our existence in the world.
These are tricky areas, subject to lots of muddling through.
Sometimes rather than get flowery about greed , hatred ignorance, etc. we may as well admit that humans are not perfect and we think in those terms and may always.
I suggest you stay away from anything with religion in the title. That word has bad connotations. A lot of hate mongering associated with it.
Sounds pretty good. Have you bandied about any others?
What about:
Aracane Analogies and Antithesis - great acronym, always first in the yellow pages and may gain credibility with the eggheads.
Majickel Malatheosophikalpropism - kitchy
Integral Geo-political Economic Religiosity - more nuanced, for lack of anything better
my choice, simply:
The Mage known as … Tim