What Spirit Guides Us?

 This is a rainy day in Iowa, and rain is just what we need right now! We’ve been diligently watering a massive number of bushes and small trees that we’ve planted on our hillside, and rain would be a “godsend”. The sun has just come out as I sit by my south window, but if the weather reports are right, we’re due for some more rain tonight. 

Because it was wet outside, I’ve been working at my desk, catching up on current events and doing some research on religion. What started me off was a post on Joe Biden, celebrating his ability to respect every person, putting no one ahead of anyone else, including himself. And I resonated with that. I know evaluating his term in office is a complicated thing, but his basic goodness is inspiring to think about. I don’t know anything about Joe’s religious beliefs, but I know that he cared about everyone in this country, whereas it is clear that the present people in office do not. And this made me think about the divisions that so often occur because of religion. Right now, there is a Christian “right” effort to block other people from citizenship or inclusion because of the differences in their beliefs or practices or the color of their skin, or their country of origin. And if we look back in history, we’ve had wars upon wars based on differences of religion. 

A wide look at the present time on earth shows that we have a particular species who evolved from a simple animal into a very powerful manipulator of the planet. There are a lot of us now, but we are all the same species still. We are not gorillas or pine trees or flamingos. We are all people, and in the grand scheme of things (which is where religion comes in), we are the same: upright-walking, big-brained homo sapiens. We live in a complex natural world that includes much more than us. If we bother to look around, we are small. The hills and valleys, the prairies and forests and oceans and plains are teeming with other life, even underground and in the air. I understand that we may need something to steady us, to set us apart from the rest of life, to give us comfort and support, like a superior being to look after us. But to go to war because our religious beliefs differ from other people’s seems crazy. 

I know that in some religious systems, people believe they will go to heaven because they are “saved” whereas people who have not gone through that process will go to hell. There are strict rules of behavior and strict beliefs that everyone is supposed to follow in many religions. In contrast, I grew up a Quaker. One of the beliefs of Quakers is that there is that of God in everyone, no exceptions. Because of this, they have played a key part in ending slavery in this country, and speaking out where there is injustice. Of course, they are not perfect. In fact, I grew up in a small Quaker meeting where almost the only folks who spoke out of the silence were kind of very old, messed-up, distressed people, speaking of hellfire and damnation and sins of the flesh and hypocrisy! This can happen when the floor is open to anyone. My parents and others in their generation tolerated those speeches, and occasionally more level-headed and open-minded folks spoke, thank goodness. What saved me from rejecting Quakerism altogether was that I was sent to Scattergood, a Quaker boarding school near my home, for high school. It was a wonderful experience. And from there, I got a healthier view of religion and Quaker values. 

The Quaker values that are lived and expressed in my current Quaker Meeting here in Iowa City are just what I need. These values include honoring that of God in every single person, that long-standing value I knew in childhood. Our current values also include the belief that we each can look inside and be in contact with our spiritual higher power. We don’t need someone to translate or interpret for us. We do not hold that we are better or worse than people who have different beliefs. And there is no pressure to abide by certain required tenants. No one is urged to “be saved” and there is no fear of judgement about going to hell or heaven. We all do our best, and we honor each other in our quests to know our right path. When we’re sitting together on Sunday morning, any of us can speak out of the silence about whatever moves us to share. It can be something inspiring or something of concern or an individual experience that has taught us something. We can speak of an experience in the woods. We can talk about concern and appreciation for the living world, or for the local immigrants scared to leave their homes. Whatever seems important to share is OK. There is no necessity to speak in “Christian” language.

I have always been attracted to Native American spirituality. That attraction grew as I attended the 9 weeks of the Resilience and Acceptance course. I know you must be tired of hearing about this course, but it was so very life-changing that it is still influencing me. And especially the part featuring native american elder wisdom went deep. I realize that what many tribes call the Great Spirit is similar to the kind of presence us westerners call God. Yet somehow the word God has gotten so tangled up with the failures and divisiveness of religion that it feels better to me to think of that overarching life force as the Great Spirit. I’ve read up about the “great spirit” on Wikipedia (so look there for more details). I’ll only quote a few fascinating things here. The Lakotas call the great spirit Wakan Tanka, which translates to the Great Mystery. Oh my, who can not agree with that! Mystery, indeed. The Wakan Tanka reminds us that everything is sacred. The Haudenosaunee call the great spirit the Creator. It’s a creator that lives in everything: us, the earth, the moon, everything. And the Algonquian peoples believed the spiritual and fundamental life force is manifest in all things, all living things and perhaps non-living things on the face of the earth, all the organisms underground and in the skies, as well as all events here on earth. The wisdom of indigenous philosophy somehow speaks more clearly to me than any other religion, for it is accepting, embracing everything.

This post has gotten longer than intended, so I’d better wrap it up now. In these challenging days of 2025, it is important for me to make time to keep contact with my own inner spirit, whatever I call it. In the midst of bustle and too many responsibilities, I need to remember to step back, let myself be part of the greater whole, the spirits of all the living and non-living relatives on this earth, and be connected with it all. My small self can be held in the whole web and the Great Spirit who interweaves through it all. Then whatever comes next, we will be there together…..