I just saw one of my old aquaintances from high school post about his experience teaching young people about faith - and in the proces talking about:
death, hope, despair, grief, happiness, creation, meaning of life, time and eternity (quoted and translated).
Sitting alone at home in my empty house this really hit me.
I used to go to church with my family. I used to actually believe in god.
And I never really cared about all the mystical parts and about the things that atheists constantly try to falsify scientifically.
I did however (and quite unconsciously) cherish and value the whole spiritual part of that experience. A feeling of purity and moral greatness. A feeling that doing good and following the words of Jesus (or Buddha or many of the other great religion figures) led to a pure and happy life.
I parted ways with religion in my late teenage years as I couldnt connect the real world with it.
I have since enjoyed many aspects of life. Also the aspects that religion tend to disallow. Alcohol, drugs, unmarried sex and a range of selfish deeds.
Those are the visible tip of the iceberg things and rather quite normal activities in our western society. And I actually do believe that those are all good things to some extent. Looking deeper I have slowly but surely moven my moral barriers.
I lost my compasss.
My compass was christianity.
And no, I am not about to become faithful again.
This is not only about morality. This is about spirituality. And I believe all of us need to gather and talk about deep subjects. We need to form ourselves through social talks about life, death, hope, despair, grief, happiness, creation, meaning of life, time and eternity.
I want to figure out if this dosis of spirituality is possible outside of religion.
Having a life partner that value deep conversations is probably a good start, but I truly believe we need to make spirituality a social and outspoken activity.