Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Spirituality and cohousing

[David L. Mandel (75407.2361]

It's with mixed feelings that I just now read and am joining the discussion that
has sprung from the closing ceremony in Boulder. My hesitation to air my gripes
about it here stemmed from the same reasons I decided not to walk out of the
ceremony itself or say something negative when we all had the opportunity to
speak at the very end: I so much treasured the superb work done by the
organizers of the conference that despite my reaction I preferred to honor their
intent and avoid making a scene. I did resolve to communicate my feelings
afterward, however, and I did so in an evaluation form mailed in last week. 

I also couldn't stifle myself and so expressed myself to others who drove with
us to the airport or flew on our plane ... and my venting then has already found
its way into this discussion by way of Stuart and Rob, who were among those
unlucky enough to have heard me. So here, directly, is why I found the closing
distasteful:

Yes, of course, any cohousing group, or any other group, has the right and even
obligation to define its spiritual path or lack thereof. I also think it's great
if a cohousing community forms around a particular spiritual trip, and I
definitely believe that within a community that has no single defined religious
identity, individuals must feel free to practice what they wish and even welcome
to share it an appropriate ways with others who are interested in learning about
it. 

But I think it's pretty well known that most cohousing groups in North America
are not spiritually oriented, not even loosely. And given that, I think it was
highly inappropriate to impose a closing ceremony that involved religion. For
those of you who were not there, this was not just singing and dancing and a
group hug, things that while pretty foreign to my cohousing community would have
been fine with me in such a setting. The words and some of the gestures were
taken from explicit religious traditions. The word "god" was prominent, for
instance, and we were instructed to bow and do other things that connote
religiousity.

This was problematic for me on two levels: 

First, I find distasteful rituals that take little bits from various authentic
cultural traditions, add a new age assumption of universality ("the core
spiritual value of all religions") and expect everyone to like it. I've often
wondered how Native Americans, if raised with a deep knowledge and appreciation
of their people's culture, feel when seeing a bunch of white people embracing,
among other tidbits, what is likely a watered-down, pseudo-version of one of
their dances or mouthing some of their spiritual references. Ripped off and
cheapened is how I always assumed they felt. ... Now after last weekend, I
actually had a small taste of how it is. Raised as I was in even a mostly
secular Jewish tradition, I felt uncomfortable hearing the words of an
admittedly beautiful passage from the Bible sung to an unfamiliar melody,
mistranslated and with an added verse about god that isn't even part of the
original! Maybe a religious Jew would have liked that extra verse, but I'm quite
sure that he or she would also have been far more offended than I was by the
incorporation of this snippet of Jewish tradition into a hodge-podge of
religious pluralism called Sufi dancing. (Quick digression: I was actually
looking forward with some curiosity to learning what Sufi dances were like, but
it turned out that there weren't any in the program. ... Or did I miss
something?)

Second, and actually most important to me: The very incorporation of religion of
any type into a cohousing conference is necessarily based on the assumption that
everyone has one. To quote Zev Paiss' contribution to this discussion: "The
Dances of Universal Peace which were done as the closing to the conference were
chosen because they promote the coming together of ALL ways
of believing in a desire to create a more unified world."  

These dances and songs attempted to promote all SPIRITUAL ways of believing in
this desire. They excluded and alienated those of us whose desires to create a
more unified world come from non-religious roots. Please don't try to impose any
version of god on people who don't believe in supernatural things and don't want
them to play a role in our lives.

Thanks for listening, and once again: I absolutely recognize and honor the
intent of the planners of the event. The problems I've raised here are very
common in lots of contexts among good people who are trying to find common
ground and common purpose among diverse groups. Generic spirituality can be a
very tempting way to seek this commonality. But please be careful ....

Finally, for a related discussion in a different context, check the archives for
the debate about Christmas trees in the common house that took place here around
last February. It touches on the same issues, plus an added dimension: the
oppressiveness of the majority culture.

David Mandel (speaking for myself, of course), Southside Park Cohousing,
Sacramento