FROM THE EDITOR: Here’s to 10 More Years

Launching a magazine requires great faith and foolishness. I remember about 12 years ago standing in a mall asking people if they would prefer a magazine called God Today or Spiritas or Health & Spirituality. I polled about 50 potential subscribers before security escorted me to my rental car, and Health & Spirituality was the clear winner. The problem was this: we didn’t want to do another health magazine. A health magazine (or a Christian magazine or a Buddhist magazine) implies that you know what you’re talking about. As Evan Handler points out on page 38, we don’t even know our own address in this vast universe. We dreamed of creating a community of unknowing. But what would that look like?

Well, here we are! Here you are! Here is our 10th Anniversary Issue! I’m proud to say that our community continues to attract amazing people. Not just Thomas Moore and Rabbi Rami Shapiro and Kathleen Norris and Jill Neimark and Paul Sutherland, but wonderful folks like you who graciously share their paths into unknowing. Read the practices on page 58, and I am confident you will find several that prove helpful.

Of course, this path of unknowing is not always blissful. A few years ago, I stumbled upon an unmarked grave in Israel that may contain the remains of Jesus. I couldn’t tell that story (page 42) until now because it hurt too much to shred that part of my Catholic identity. Fortunately, we are never really alone in our seeking. Scholars like Bart Ehrman and James Tabor helped me reconnect with one of the greatest men who ever lived.
As we stumble forward, inspiration comes from surprising places — like Harvard Business School (page 50). Managing editor, Betsy Robinson, found Gerald Zaltman’s new book, Marketing Metaphoria: What Deep Metaphors Reveal about the Minds of Consumers, and realized deep metaphors are much more than a way to sell beer. They could be the beginning of a world language — bridging our unknowing and exposing our common beliefs.

A great way to open to the smorgasbord of belief systems is by sharing food, (page 54). But neither food nor the practices we sample should ever be stolen. To the question, “Should Non-Natives Practice Indigenous Religions?” (page 46), the answer is a complex and sometimes mysterious “yes,” requiring knowledge and sensitivity. Here’s to 10 more years of enjoying the mystery, to being part of the community of unknowing.

Stephen Kiesling
editor-in-chief