A religion of something?

Most religious and spiritual traditions seem to talk in terms of absolutes and of “all or nothing”. Christian and Islamic fundamentalists are particularly inclined to this, but so are mystics of all stripes, and Zen Buddhism is also inclined in that direction when discussing satori, or enlightenment. Me, however–I seek a religion of “something”.

I think all-or-nothing thinking gets a lot of people in a lot of trouble. It leaves the center, the core, empty, and it leaves us with untenable options. For instance: since we can’t be perfect, why–we must be worthless, total sinners, nothing. Nonsense. We should resist this kind of thinking wherever and whenever possible.

I understand the reach for the infinite, but I don’t believe a) that we can attain it, or b) that without it, we are nothing. The 0 or the 1, the alpha or the omega, are the unattainable limits. Life, meaning, the universe, all lie in the middle, neither nothing nor everything.

If I believe in an absolute, it’s that–we aren’t nothing, we aren’t everything–we are something. We, humans, don’t have zero value, we don’t have all value, we have some value. It is not the case that we know nothing, it is not and never will be the case that we know everything, but we do know something (some things). I can’t have it all, but I can have something. I can’t understand it all, but I can understand something. And the something can grow–just not to infinity.

So I seek a “religion of something”. I want a religion that helps me grow, and always has room for me to grow further, but doesn’t push me to extremes. I’m just not sure where to find it, so I’m makin’ it up as I go along.

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