AHSS Gift of Years: Religion (Lesson 17)

The fact is that religion is not one thing, but a multi-layered phenomenon, if successful, that can bring people to the height of whatever spiritual mountain they climb. The Tibetan master Sakya Pandita said, “Even in decline the virtuous increase the beauty of their behavior. A burning stick, though turned to the ground, has its flame drawn upwards.” In the elders of every society, those flames burn clearest of all. Religion is not a topic, not a course, not simply a body of beliefs. It is a process of becoming.

Religion has various functions at various stages of life. It is a guidepost from early life through to the end. It is a direction, a map. It is not a guarantee of anything. In early life, the function of religion is the formation of conscience. Religion sets the standards that mark the path. Every religion, according to the Universal Code of Ethics adopted at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, accepts four nonnegotiables: not to steal, not to lie, not to murder, and not to exploit another sexually. There is a law above the law, we learn. And that law is the end toward which we tend.

In middle age, religion becomes a social guide. It creates the standards that measure the quality of the soul as well as the behaviors of a person. It becomes an attitude toward life. Some things are holy, some things are not. It is the ideals to which we cling. We begin to understand that religion is more a deep-down struggle to believe and to do than simply a way of acting, sterile on paper, full of thorns in the flesh.

As we grow older and begin the last stages of life, behaviors and failures are not the stuff of religion much anymore. Now, the ecstasy of life and the surrender to the Mystery become the last of the revelations of religion. Now, everything we learned long ago, never left completely, begins to make sense. Begins to become who we are. Begins our new beginnings as a person. The older members of society teach us how to live, they also teach us how to die, how to make sense of the unity between life and death, how to love life without fearing death – because we know ourselves to have been always on the way, even when we did not know where we were going.

The impacting thing about religion is that it is everywhere – even in places the world never thought it would be. In the communist era of the Soviet Union, whose doctrine was that belief was not to be in religion; belief was to be in the state, the cathedral in Moscow’s Red Square was filled with the elderly chanting, singing and praying. This always surprised visitors.

In the later years, religion ceases to be simply a series of rites and rituals, of rules and answers for which we get some kind of eternal points. Religion becomes what it was always meant to be: a search and a relationship with the Spirit Who draws us on. Always on. Even to the point where “on” is unclear. Religion is not a millstone around the neck anymore. It is the warm, soft, strong, hard awareness that yes, it has all been for something worthwhile.

Sister Joan Says: A burden of these years is the fear that I have not practiced religion well enough to be worthy of the life it teaches. A blessing of these years is the awareness that yes, it must be true: there is a God who created me and who is calling me upward, beyond myself – home.
1) Many people today claim to be spiritual rather than religious. Suggest several reasons why.
2) Do you agree with Sister Joan writes, “Finally, as we grow older, when we begin that last stage of life, it is clear that behaviors and failures are not the stuff of religion much anymore.” Discuss why or why not.