People are struggling to make sense of the world around them, of their own lives, and of life in general. I’ve written about the collapse of traditional religion, which has been a primary source of meaning for many people in times past. At the same time, dramatic cultural shifts have led to people questioning many of the things that traditionally gave life meaning and value (jobs, marriage, children, friendships, possessions, etc.). And now the economic and political world order that’s been in place more-or-less since World War II , or even earlier, seems to be in the process of pulling itself apart.

Not surprisingly, people often have strong emotional reactions to this sense of disarray: despair, anxiety, alienation, lostness, abandonment, hopelessness, anger, and so on. These emotions grow out of our sense of being dependent upon our destabilized culture and its shaky institutions. Their fate will be ours we fear.

Culture gives us much of what we believe makes human life unique and enjoyable. It gives our lives structure and is the source of deep meaning and satisfaction. Historically, however, we know that no culture lasts forever. They all go off the rails at some point, sometimes with a resounding crash and other times with a gradual, though often difficult, transition to something new.

We may be in such a time now. But even while the cultural ground we’ve been on may seem to be crumbling, there always remain solid places to stand and supports to grab hold of. Again, the history of such transitions show that the seeds of the new order were already present in the old. And it was often people we now identify as the world’s great religious and spiritual figures who arose during such periods to show the new way forward. Speaking for Israel’s God, the prophet Isaiah declares:

Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?

Most of the time, we don’t “perceive it” because we are too attached to “the things of old” and afraid of losing them. In this case, Isaiah is saying that both the suffering and the “new thing” are somehow God’s doing. We need to go with the flow.

But even if we are ready to detach from “the former things”, I’m afraid the danger today is the temptation to look for the great leader we think will lead us into the future, the “man on the white horse” as the false messiah is called in Revelation.

But it may be that we are also past the time of even true prophets and seers who will lead us to the next promised land. Instead, I wonder if the “new thing” now is for us to use our modern human knowledge and awareness to find the new way ahead on our own.

I think this is what is happening in the religious world now. The Covid lockdown knocked the supports out from under many traditionally religious people and, perhaps to their surprise, it wasn’t so bad. They discovered unexpected advantages to becoming religious “free agents.” Some now move between churches, in person or online. Others have fashioned their own spiritual practice, alone or with others, often with resources from multiple traditions.

But Covid came in the midst of an already growing movement of the “spiritual, not religious.” These, too, were people seeking a meaningful spiritual life apart from religious structures. Or rather, not being restricted by belonging to a single religious organization or tradition. Recently, there have been new stories about a return of young adults to church but I don’t see it. Instead, this is another expression of the search for meaning and practice which explores whatever is available, including organized religion.

A good example of this is a young journalist and author featured last week in The New York Times. Lamorna Ash recently published Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever: A New Generation’s Search for Religion, which recounts her travels across Britain exploring young people’s search for religious meaning and experience. Her journey was, of course, a self-exploration, as well. For the moment, she has more-or-less settled into a traditional Anglican congregation. But like many of her subjects, her conclusions are still hazy.

Sometimes publishing a book conveniently coincides with reaching tidy conclusions. But Ms. Ash says her years of reporting on religious belief has if anything left her more ambivalent, both about whether she believes in God and about the simple question of where she should spend Sunday mornings.

What Ash and so many people are discovering, I suspect, is that there is no need to push their uniquely shaped peg into the square hole of traditional religion. Ash recounts that a welcoming Quaker meeting she attended had an entryway sign that read, “Thou shalt decide for yourself.” Which, incidentally, is the original meaning of heresy: choosing for yourself.

Today, people are not searching for the right doctrines or ideas but spiritual support for the life path they find themselves on. They want to adopt spiritual practices, new or ancient, which help them both know a reality which transcends this world and also guides them in their relationships and in the nitty-grittiness of daily life.

Despite their popularity with religious authority, the didactic teachings of sermons and catechisms have never been very popular, or effective, with folks in the pews. Instead, what has moved people are stories. These are the parts of religious literature, including the Bible, that are most remembered and continue to be meaningful and powerful centuries later. Jesus, of course, was a master story teller, causing people to say “he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.”

One of the early signs of the church’s weakening was the rise of the novel in the 18^th century. Sermons no longer moved people, whether the interminable lectures of traditional churches or the emotional harangues of evangelicals. Novels, however, spoke of real life, both its joys and its struggles, and readers felt their own lives opened up and understood.

Another recent feature article in The Times was an interview with award winning author and teacher, George Saunders. In 2013, Saunders gave a graduation address at Syracuse University, where he teaches creative writing. It was then reproduced by the NYT and soon went viral, with over a million shares. A little later it was published as Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness. Recently, Saunders was honored by the National Book Foundation for being, as the presenter said, “the ultimate teacher of kindness and of craft.”

Kindness is not the same as niceness, Saunders says. Being nice is often shallow or can even backfire and cause us to do hurtful things, however unintentional. To be kind one has to be genuinely aware of another person and their situation. Saunders points to a story where Jesus exemplified that awareness.

I always loved the woman at the well, when Jesus, as I understood it as a kid, comes up to this woman who’s scorned by all the people and goes, I see you, I love you, I forgive you. I thought that was such a novelistic move.

In Saunders’ novels, characters and readers are often confronted by someone who is offensive. The challenge becomes to view them as a full person. This is when literature become a sacrament, Saunders says, and both he as the writer and we the readers are lifted beyond our simplistic judgments into relationship. Speaking about the lead character of his most recent book, Vigil, he says.

That seems to me part of the magic of fiction, because in fiction I can make a person that I really don’t like — like this guy in the book, he’s a stinker — but through the weird side door of trying to make the language about him more interesting, pretty soon “like” and “dislike” become almost useless phrases. You are him. You have been him. Specificity negates judgment. So as I work harder and harder to know that guy, my sense of wanting to judge him seems juvenile. Anybody can judge. Let’s go deeper. I really cherish that feeling. Of course it doesn’t last beyond the page, and I’m sure if I met his real-life corollary, I’d be sneering at him. But what a blessing to, for a few minutes a day, ascend up out of your habit.

And those few minutes make a difference, if we follow regular practices that lift us out of ourselves. In addition to his Catholic upbringing, Saunders follows Buddhist teachings and practices meditation. Together, they have led him to recognize three delusions that keep us from truly living.

Death is the moment when somebody comes and says: You know those three things that you’ve always thought of? They’re not true. You’re not permanent, you’re not the most important thing and you’re not separate. So I think about it a lot, but I find it a joyful thing, because it’s just a reality check…. I don’t know about the afterlife. But I think any moment in this life when you get clear of that trio of delusions, you’re saved. Because then what’s to be afraid of?

Both Ash and Saunders help us appreciate our new situation, which is that we are each responsible for making sense of our life and our place in the world. For those accustomed to following a religion or a guru to take care of that, this may sound like an enormous burden. In fact, it is an opportunity for freedom and for coming alive. This takes the courage which comes with grace, the belief that in truly living we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. It is the gospel, for as Paul tells the Galatians, “For freedom Christ has set us free.”

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