The Pageless Book

Before I had proposed to marry Cathy, I would call her just about every other day. The content of the conversations would usually hit upon the same themes and questions. I would ask, “I didn’t do something to make you angry at me, did I? I’m sorry, I just had this feeling I said or did something wrong. I’m sorry…” She, of course, would assure me that I hadn’t done anything wrong, and although this did quell the welling up of emotions for a moment, later on all the guilt and fear would hit me again. Had I made an ass out of myself? Was I too clingy? Why am I acting this way?

These confessions made out of fear and guilt were unhealthy. In a time of life when I felt happiest and had everything to live for, I felt as if I was slowly going insane. I had just been asked to be the godfather of my best friend’s child, slowly building a romantic relationship with his sister, now my wife, and genuinely had hope for the future. Yet I also was suffering from personal demons I never before encountered. As my family has had a long history of mental illness, I knew I had to seek help. I needed to talk to a psychologist.

After a couple months of sessions and discussion, I was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I know that what I’m describing doesn’t sound a thing like the “OCD” everyone jokes about – I’m not obsessively neat, or need to have everything a particular way. I don’t wash my hands every five minutes, and have no need to touch every other parking meter or avoid stepping on cracks. No, my obsession is a constant fear and guilt of someone I care about ending our friendship or relationship over an imagined slight. My compulsion – the way in which I dealt with my obsession – was to confess and ask repeatedly for forgiveness.

Treating OCD is approached from two angles - medication and therapy. The medication deals with the chemical in-balances within the brain to help the patient - in this case me - get a grasp of what it feels like to be on an even keel. The therapy helps break the cycle of repetitive behavior and thought processes that lead to that behavior.

While it has been several years since I last was in therapy, some lessons still stick in my mind to this day. One lesson I learned was that there is a substantial difference between healthy confession and unhealthy confession. Healthy confession is never coerced from an outside force and is never the result of unhealthy emotions (shame, panic, hate…). Healthy confession is safe, spiritual, and healing.

What is an example of healthy confession in Western culture? Catholic confessional, while can be healthy in some instances, is coerced under threat of eternal damnation. Confess and you go to heaven, fail to confess and you to go hell. Likewise, confessions of criminal activities to law enforcement officers does not counts as healthy, as it is usually made under pressure. It seems that there are few, if any, healthy means of confession in modern Western culture.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Psychological therapy is a means of confession that is safe and healthy. Beyond that, however, there seems to be very little room for confession in Western culture, except as something to be forced from person who did wrong. After my personal experience with confession, both in an unhealthy context and a healthy context, I think we may be squandering a potent spiritual tool. So my question is, can there be a place for safe healthy confession within the Unitarian Universalist faith? Is it possible for such a thing to have a place within our religion?

First Photo by Régine Debatty. Second Image by Jade. Final Image by Derrick Tyson.

Photo above by Sarah Cartwright. Pentagram Photo by Epimetheus. Witch Photo by Helena.

Back when Christianity was first forming, most cultures had their own religions or Gods, and no single religion was considered “universal.” Although the Romans attempted to equate the Gods of other cultures with their religion and enforced a state sponsored religion, these efforts were far from being uniform in application or success. For the most part, folks worshiped the Gods their parents worshiped, and gave the religions of conquering cultures as little attention as they could get away with. The alternative was to join a mystery religion - cults whose membership remained secret and whose worship was not always acceptable by the rest of society.

Christianity was lumped together with the mystery religions, as an off-shoot of Judaism. However, this religion, was different than the other mystery religions. The fledgling religion was forced into secrecy instead of choosing it, did not allow their adherents to worship other Gods as most mystery religions did, and appealed to all people, regardless of race or culture. With it’s message of salvation regardless of heritage, Christianity represented the first truly universal religion. As the religion grew and became more centralized, the spiritual leaders emphasized the universal appeal of Christianity by calling their church “Catholic” - which means “universal” in Latin.

Two thousand years after the birth of Jesus Christ, one could hardly call the Catholic Church universal anymore. Not only have the several schisms with Christendom given rise to the Protestant religions, but Christianity as a whole is shrinking as a result of religious freedom in Western culture. While it is still the most popular religion in the world, Islam is quickly closing the gap between itself and Christianity. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but does tend to give rise to the question of whether Christianity was as universal as it purported to be in the first place.

The loss of the universal appeal of Christianity could only be attributed to one important truth of the modern world: the desire for creativity. Modern conveniences and ample leisure time has given rise to a greater focus on individual creativity. Traditional forms of worship and social structure within Christianity seems stifling in comparison to the new egalitarian social structure and mutual artistic evolution of the internet. The only religion that I know of which shares these egalitarian and creative elements in Wicca.

Only having emerged in the last fifty years, Wicca is the newest of the world religions. It is a particular blend of European folk lore which focuses on the rhythms of nature and cycles of life instead of theology. Drawing heavily from the ancient Pagan beliefs, Wicca takes the Roman attempt to consolidate deities of different cultures to a new extreme by reducing all Gods into one God with two aspects (God of Darkness and of Light), and all Goddesses into one Goddess with three aspects (Maiden, Mother, and Crone). They also practice ritual, which they call witchcraft, with the intent of influencing reality in a manner that mirrors modern occultism.

Wicca’s greatest strength; however, is in its structure and liturgy. Wiccans usually worship in small groups of 3-13 individuals, called a coven. Even though one man or woman serves as the head priest, all of the individuals in a coven are considered priests in their own right. This puts each individual on equal footing - there are no “followers,” only leaders who allow someone else to lead for a time. The social structure is more akin to family than in Christianity; no one person is more important than another.

This is reflected in the way in which Wiccans worship. Although one member of a coven serves as the lead, the actual rituals, prayers, and practices need the input of each member. Even those rites which are considered “tradition” are up for reinterpretation by an individual coven. Theology, preaching, and passive participation are absent from Wiccan worship. For those looking for worship to be a creative outlet, this religion seems custom made.

These qualities, found in Wicca, make this religion potentially more “Catholic” than Catholicism. Everyone can identify with family, with nature, and with the cycles of life. Any individual can look at the God or Goddess and see a deity that looks like themselves and represents humanity as a whole. More importantly, there is no authority to appease or to declare you heretical simply because you choose to do things a different way. Is it truly any wonder this is the fastest growing religion in the world?

“Some find God at church on Sundays, but where does God bubble up in our lives the Other 6 days of the week?” - Other 6, Welcoming.

Photo by Jeff Kubina

Spirituality is a social experience for many. There is something uniquely spiritual about sharing your feelings with another person and having those feelings accepted. Other 6 is a website designed to facilitate that social aspect of spirituality, creating a online community geared towards shared hopes and joys.

When you first enter this flash-based website, a burst of blue bubbles emerges from the center of the screen. Some of these bubbles are dark blue, while others are light blue; this is to determine what type of post the bubble represents. Darker bubbles are comments on where an individual poster had found God today - whether it was in a child’s smile, or in a friends laughter - while lighter bubbles are comments from individuals who feel a need for God to be in a particular aspect of their life. Move your cursor over one of the bubbles and a message box will appear, displaying the comment left by that bubble’s creator. Move to another bubble, a new comment will appear in place of the previous.

While it may be tempting to remain a voyeur, peaking in to see other people’s thoughts, the real purpose of the website is within the interaction. Double click on any one bubble, and a larger message box will appear on the right hand side of your screen and display a number of options. You can view comments left by other readers concerning that bubble or add your own comment.

When you get tired of reading the messages of the bubbles in front of you, there is an option just under the mass of bubbles that allows you to view a new set of messages. As you do this, you may notice that some bubbles are actually larger then others. This represents the number of comments left for that message. This tends to make the visitors gravitate towards the bubbles that have been commented on, so the website designers wisely chose to expose only messages that have not been commented on when you first enter the site.

If you want one of those message bubbles to be your own, you have a choice to make; do you want to talk about where you’ve found the Divine in your life, or do you need to express where you need the Divine in your life? By dividing the messages up into those two categories, the administrators of Other 6 can make sure that every visitor is exposed to a fair mix of both positive and negative. I think this is another good feature that deserves to be mentioned, because without it, you might be tempted to cycle through the bubbles until you only can see one type or another.

Other 6 also keeps your identity private; you only need to provide your city and state, as well as initials with which to identify yourself if you wish to post your own bubble. This allows for users to share deeper feeling and issues that you might not want to share publically. I find this to be a good feature as well; it’s hard to be truly spiritual when you have guard your words.

This website is the brain-child of Loyola Communications, a division of Loyola Press, which is the publishing arm of the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus (a.k.a the Jesuits). While this means that this site is Catholic owned and operated, Other 6 is not geared towards one particular religion or another. They claim to push no particular agenda and welcome all “who seek God with a sincere heart.” I’ve tested the limits of what that means myself and believe that their open invitation is honest. That being said, Other 6 is mainly Christian, and you will encounter a few messages and comments that reflect the site’s Christian leanings.

I find Other 6 to be a refreshingly simple web page that achieves what its purpose through thoughtful design. I hope you give it a try… and while you are there, see if you can find my bubbles.

Photo by M.H. Johnston

Ritual is one of those things that is so intrinsic to human nature that it has been present in every society and culture since the beginning of recorded history. Whether it’s form is as primitive as dancing and singing around a bonfire, or as sophisticated as the swearing-in of the United States President, ritual speaks to the human psyche on a deeper level than words alone. Yet, in this modern day and age, we see ritual in decline. I can’t help but think that perhaps this has more to do with our present misunderstanding of what ritual is and its purpose.

I’ve had the chance to witness a Catholic Mass three time in my life. Twice, I have come away with the feeling that the priests were just going through the motions, soullessly reciting the words from rote memory like a child rambling off dates in history class. If I were to judge all ritual based on those two experiences, I would have to say that it’s dull and lifeless. The priest obviously did not invest themselves into the meaning of what they were doing.

The third time I had attended a Catholic Mass, it was a funeral for a family friend. The man had been a member of the Knights of Columbus, a fraternity of lay members of the Catholic Church. The priest who presided over the Mass and the Last Rites was a personal friend of the deceased, and meant every word he said with every fiber of his being. I still get chills thinking about the power in the father’s voice, and gravity behind every action that he took.

What was the difference? Was it the situation or was it the man? It is neither the situation or the man, and yet it was also both. Ritual, you see, is an art form. Unlike other art forms, the primary audience of this art form is the artist. If the ritual does not have meaning for the performers, then what we are left with is an empty shell - actions that have no effect, and words without definition.

Outside observers can easily see the through the veil of insincerity. So much in this society depends on appearance, that we are exposed to empty ritual on a regular basis. Eventually, anyone would get bored of hearing the same meaningless sentiments and seeing the same limp motions. Why concern yourself with something that is so obviously pretentious and vapid? The impression is that all ritual is just rote recitation.

Western society has come to distrust ritual in all forms, and yet it is still very much apart of our human nature. I think it’s time we take back ritual. I don’t mean just for religious purposes, but for our own well being.

I want you to do something meaningful for yourself - perform a ritual. You don’t have to believe anything beside the meaning inherent in the ritual. Just try it. If you have a loved one who is currently overseas, light a candle and place it in your window to light their way back home. If you have regrets that you never had the chance to share with a departed love one, take a white lilies and name each of your regrets as you place the flower upon their grave. If you have succeeded in something you never expected to, give yourself time to dance, howl, and sing in the moon light. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as it has meaning to you.

Try it, then come back here and tell me how it felt to reclaim ritual for yourself. I promise you that there is nothing to lose, except some old preconceptions.

Namaste.