Build-It-Yourself Religion

Culture watchers have a new name for us: the Quest Generation.

They are referring to the noticeable number of Americans now off on spiritual journeys. Some leave church or synagogue behind, others preserve that tradition but add to it by writing, walking or simply breathing their way toward a deeper understanding of the purpose of life.

“More people are turning inward on a genuine quest for spiritual meaning,” says Wade Clark Roof, a religion sociologist at UC Santa Barbara. Roof was among the first to use the term “quest culture” for the Generation Xers and aging baby boomers he studies.

“They are experiencing a profound spiritual struggle to make sense of what is going on in the world, the violence, poverty and disease,” Roof says. To find the answers, “people are going off in all directions. I see a lot of do-it-yourself spirituality.”

Instructions and practical tools are essential for this venture. Some questers go on an urban pilgrimage, others make a rural retreat. Some practice tai chi, or chant or study meditative dancing. Some do all of the above.

If one thing sets a modern quest apart from any in the past, it is the way a searcher will interlace cultural and religious traditions seldom seen under one roof: Catholic Buddhists, Episcopalian Sufis, Unitarian Taoists are not all that uncommon anymore.

Holly Hart of Los Angeles, who is in her 30s, was raised with no religious affiliation. Last year she began studying Taoism, the ancient Chinese philosophy, as part of a creative writing course offered at Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church in Pasadena. Students read from the Tao, a sacred text on how to live a moral life, before they write. “It’s a help that I don’t have any formal religious background,” Hart says. “It means I have no preconceived ideas.”

Victoria Dendinger is a practicing Roman Catholic in the Newport Beach area and a student of Zen meditation. Her mantra comes from a prayer of the Russian Orthodox church. “I don’t think I am outside the Catholic tradition,” she says. “This augments it.”

Churches, too, are going further in their search for a richer spiritual life. They’re borrowing from every religious tradition.

“I did a lot of wandering,” says the Rev. M.R. Ritley, raised in the Hungarian Reform Church and now a priest at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco. She dipped into the Roman Catholic and Serbian Orthodox traditions, studied Buddhism and New Age philosophy, and had a brief interlude as a Quaker. Then she gave 10 years to the study of Sufism, delving into the mystical side of the Muslim faith, which many Westerners associate with whirling dervish dancers. Now she teaches a class in Sufi spirituality at her Episcopal church.

Ritley, who is in her 50s, has found a home at St. Gregory, where a Sunday service includes an incense laden procession inspired by the ancient Byzantine Christian church, the ringing of a Zen gong and an African tribal dance by the congregation gathered around the altar.

“The spiritual and religious experience is like the great American mall experience,” Ritley says. Her words conjure images of modern mallsters who don’t necessarily know, or care, what shop they are in. It’s not like the old days, when people went to one favorite store and felt like traitors anywhere else.

“People are less swayed by loyalty to any one tradition,” says Ritley of the spiritual mall she imagines. “And they bring all their experiences--Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism, tai chi, New Age--with them.”

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“Very often in history, the proliferation of spiritual movements responds to conditions in society,” says Luke Timothy Johnson, New Testament professor at Emory University in Atlanta. In the past decade, the rapid changes in technology and the corporate downsizing that have cost millions of jobs left people feeling dispensable and insecure about the future, he says.

Traditional religions didn’t help when they let go of the ancient practices that seemed outmoded. These older ways ignore speed and deadlines to concentrate instead on meditation, contemplation and prayer.

Johnson, who lived as a Benedictine monk for many years, wonders about the depth of our new enthusiasm for tradition. “The realm of the spirit is not a realm of blue skies,” he says. “You don’t leap immediately into the highest state of mystical experience. First you need to be well-grounded in the tradition. It’s not as if the spiritual is as readily available as the Internet.”

Actually, it is--in a way. Spiritual chat rooms are buzzing with questions about how to gain deeper insight apart from religious trappings. “Is there a way that one can embrace the presence of God without getting all hung up in a lot of rituals and prohibitions?” asks one quester, writing in to a cyberspace discussion.

Ken McLeod is a meditation master who teaches Zen techniques at his Los Angeles institute, the Unfettered Mind. “Christianity lost all its spiritual technology in the Reformation,” he says. That 16th century schism that split the church brought a new emphasis on community worship. Meditative practices were discouraged in most Christian churches.

The age of Enlightenment in the 18th century insisted that all of life be explained by science and reason. Spiritual exploration suffered a lethal blow. In the 19th and 20th centuries, churches and synagogues came to serve for social gatherings and welfare programs as much as houses of worship. Spiritual development was not always the first priority.

The 1960s ignited a secular spirituality that led to the human potential movement of the ‘70s. By the mid-’80s it became “the me generation.” Before the end of the decade that euphoric moment had washed away in a surge of cold reality--epidemics of drug abuse, alcoholism and AIDS.

“We opened our eyes and stopped pretending that our lives were working right,” says Melody Beattie, who published her book on addiction recovery, “Co-Dependent No More,” (Harper San Francisco) in 1987. It has sold more than 3 million copies.

The 12-step recovery program created by Alcoholics Anonymous, borrowed by Beattie and dozens of other self-help authors in recent years, played a key role in launching the latest form of spiritual exploration.

“Twelve-step promotes spirituality, not religion,” Beattie says. “It gives a practical, day-to-day spirituality that tells me what I can and cannot control.” It has another feature many people do not associate with organized religion, she says: “There is room to be imperfect and to be someone who struggles to find God.”

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The fact that more people now seek a spiritual dimension in their lives helps explain why spiritual self-help guides account for some of the highest book sales. Several have inspired readers to form study groups. Chief among them is “The Celestine Prophecy” (Warner Books, 1994) by James Redfield. More than two years on the New York Times bestseller list with more than 5 million copies sold, it has inspired countless people to meet and dissect the techniques the book offers.

There are two basic tips. Follow your intuitions and be alert to coincidences. “These things remind us of our unique purpose in life, and our purpose is what everyone is looking for now,” says Carol Adrienne, who travels the country teaching workshops using “The Celestine Prophecy: An Experiential Guide” (Warner, 1994), which she co-authored with Redfield.

Deepak Chopra’s “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success” (Amber-Allen, 1996) and Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” (Tarcher/Putnam, 1992) are other popular books. Writers, painters and musicians are among the 700,000 who have purchased Cameron’s guide, which all but glows with references to the divine. Daily practices include writing down one’s thoughts each morning and taking long walks to clear the mind and make room for insights.

“I don’t distinguish between God and creativity,” Cameron says. “This book is a spiritual tool kit--call it what you want.” Cameron, who is based in Taos, N.M., has been teaching workshops since her book was published.

Lately, the book is finding its way to religious centers. Sister Jo-Ann Iannotti is a Catholic nun who offers “Artist’s Way” workshops at Wisdom House, an interfaith retreat and conference center in Litchfield, Conn. “Julia’s book attracts people of all denominations,” says Iannotti, whose center has also offered yoga classes and Buddhist as well as Christian retreats. “One woman who came here said she is a refugee from organized religion. A lot of people in the room could relate to that. For some who come, this is a way into a religious practice.”

At Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, the Rev. Lauren Artress re-created a labyrinth for prayer, a medieval tradition, as a spiritual tool. She has sold 360 prefabricated labyrinth kits to churches and retreat houses around the country.

“Walking, you are confronted with your interior voice,” Artress says. “It quiets the mind. Then, you begin to pray.”

A spiritual practice is not an end in itself, she explains. “Your walk in the labyrinth has to be your walk in the world. It is a life of action, coming from a base of prayer.”

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“Religious institutions are not beyond repair,” says Daniel Gordis, dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. He shows students how to approach religious laws concerning dress, diet and the observance of holy days looking for their deeper meaning.

Carolyn Katz was looking for such guidance when she met Gordis. “If you are seeking a spiritual dimension to your life, you owe it to look into your own religion first,” says Katz, who was raised Jewish but lost the meaning behind the rituals. She and her husband now celebrate Shabbat, the weekly observance that starts with Friday dinner. “The most wonderful moment is when my husband blesses our two children,” she says. “They really look forward to that.”

The future promises challenge and change.

Ritley sees the survival of the most flexible churches; others will wither.

Johnson worries that a gutted spirituality could flourish, one he sees as “nondoctrinal, non-confessional, and in that sense, more worrisome to the keepers of the classic traditions.”

Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man hopes to steer a moderate course into the future.

“My work is to make the main religious tradition more hospitable to the questers,” explains Omer-Man, who founded Metivta for the study of Jewish spirituality in Los Angeles. He works with clergy of all faiths to find ways of including various traditions with their own.

“Many doors can be open, but we can’t live without walls,” he says.