"I'm Spiritual, but not Religious!"

While walking tonight to escape the noise of my apartment building and clear my mind, I listened to a Mennonite minister speak on my iPod - a CBC program called "Tapestry." What struck me in his reflections was a question posed by the host: "While walking the Camino de Santiago [in northern Spain] did you come across many pilgrims who claimed to be 'spiritual' but not 'religious'?" I was not as much impressed by his response as by her question since it was obviously rooted in a somewhat common experience among "religious" types. I could relate, because in my own life I've encountered several discussions and even debates when that line seemed to trigger a kind of gutteral response - a sense of uneasiness. I've always tried to understand or interpret this 'feeling' as something that said more about my own inadequacies and fears than about the person who said the words. It struck me that as much as the people who have said this to me are far too easily written off as flaky, undisciplined, and unintelligent, these words need to be taken seriously. These words essentially articulate a real yearning in our times for something more transcendent than everyday reality, and yet they're too often written off by "more serious types" as the excuses of the lazy, those people who want all the benefits without the work!

So where to begin this dialogue? How to understand this yearning in our times and how to respond - not from some sort of theological or philosophical perspective necessarily, but from the most common sources - human experiences, connections, relationships, feelings, and reflections. I'm not interested in ideologically-motivated, robot-like dialogue as much as honest, grounded, intelligent conversation.

How do we articulate the yearning of the spiritual as opposed to the religious? Why is this articulation perhaps one of the most important activities mainstream spiritual systems ought to be pursuing?

More importantly: what is OUR deepest yearning? How can we live more fully and seek out the words and stories of fellow pilgrims on the journey? What can we share in this space to enlighten and enrich one another? Help one another along the way? Encourage as well as challenge? Comfort as well as push?