Roadside Assistance for the Spiritual Traveler: Children's Questions about God . . . Is My Community a Cult

Our eight-year-old daughter is asking us about God. My husband and I don’t belong to a church or subscribe to a formal religion. What should we say?
Tell her the truth as you see it. Don’t pretend to believe in something you don’t believe in. If you don’t know what you believe, share that with your daughter; make questioning rather than answering the center of your family’s religious life. Study the teachings of the world’s religions to see what speaks to you, and find ways to honor those teachings with family rituals. As she grows older she may well outgrow the answers of her childhood, but you will have taught her how to grow into her questions, and that is far more valuable.

I’ve been reading your column in this magazine and on the Spirituality & Health website, and your blog, and wonder if you have any religion at all. You seem to borrow from all religions. What are you?
Tribally, culturally, I am a Jew. My religion, however, is Truth, as best I can grasp it. My experience with contemplative practice leads me to affirm the nonduality of all things in, with, and as God, and I am drawn to those teachings, from whatever source, that speak to this truth and how to translate it into moral action. I see no value in being loyal to beliefs, no matter how ancient, that I consider false. Truth, not tradition, is my guide.

It seems to me that lots of people are dabbling in religion. Is this a good thing? Should people stick with one religion, rather than skip from one to another?
Religion is like a bucket you drop into a well to draw up water. In this analogy, “water” refers to those transformative experiences that lift you out of your ego and into the One, leaving you more just, kind, and humble. The “bucket” is the means by which you engage those experiences. The bucket is a tool; it is the water, the experience, that matters.

Unfortunately, we forget this and worship our buckets rather than use them. The water in the bucket soon dries and we go in search of another bucket. At first the new bucket, brimming with fresh water, is wonderful, but in time we make the same mistake and again find ourselves spiritually dry. What we have to do is shift our attention from the bucket to the water, and when we do, any bucket can be of service. Every religion has contemplative practices for drawing up water from the well. My advice is this: don’t worry about finding the right religion; find the right practice, the one that works for you. Once you have found it, you will never leave it.

Rabbi, if God is good, how can there be evil?
So maybe God isn’t good. This is what God reveals in Isaiah 45:2: “I create light, I create darkness, I create good, I create evil. . . . ” God includes good and evil and transcends them.

Good and evil go together like front and back, you cannot have one without the other. This is why Jesus says, “Resist not evil” (Matthew 5:39), and the Psalmist says, “Cease from doing evil and do good” (Psalm 34:14). You cannot end evil, but you can stop participating in it. See where you participate in evil — socially, economically, politically, environmentally — and then change your behavior to support justice, compassion, sustainability, and peace instead. This may not solve your theological problem, but it will make a hugely positive difference in the world.

I am troubled by all the talk of hell in my church. What do you think hell is?
I understand hell in two ways. First, there is the this-worldly hell I make for myself and others when I fail to act justly and with compassion. Second, there is the other-worldly hell invented by bullies who delight in sadistic fantasies of endless torture and use these fantasies to frighten others into yielding to their will. I take both hells very seriously.

Regarding the first, I try to be forever mindful of the pain and suffering I cause, and do my best to minimize and correct it. Regarding the second, I work with groups such as Interfaith Alliance to minimize the psychological and political power of theo-sadists to inflict their faith, fears, and fanaticism on others.

Regarding your church, I would encourage you ask two questions: First, What evil does all this talk of hell excuse both in this world and the world to come? And second, Do I wish to be complicit in it?

I am thinking of joining a spiritual community, but my friends say it’s a cult. How can I tell if a community is a good one?
Before joining any religious or spiritual community, ask questions: Does it promote free inquiry? Does it promote universal justice and compassion? Does it promote healthy families and democratic communities? Does it promote compassion toward those with whom it disagrees? Does it promote the ending of fear, hatred, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism? Does it promote the health and well-being of persons and planet? Does it affirm and support your capacity to think and act for yourself?

If you answer yes to these questions, it may be a group worth joining. If, on the other hand, asking these questions reveals this community to be self-focused, isolationist, fear-based, demanding submission of will and the abdication of reason, claiming a monopoly on truth, decrying science and free inquiry, preaching hatred and fear of the other, and eternal damnation of those with whom it disagrees, then you are better off leaving it alone.

I work at a children’s hospital. I feel such depression and sympathy for dying children and their parents. How does one cope?
Feeling sympathy and compassion is natural, but falling into depression is your own drama. The reality that a child is about to die may make you cry; it may break your heart; it may open you to the deepest compassion for all who suffer, but depression is something else. Depression of this sort feeds one’s story about how things should be rather than one’s capacity to face reality as it is. Put drama aside. What is left? Grief? Confusion? Anger? Doubt? So how do you cope? I only know one way: surrender. By surrender I mean simply let things be as they are. Open only to what is. This will leave you without a script or a doctrine to hide behind. It will leave you raw, ragged, and radically open to love.

Rami Shapiro is an author and teacher. His most recent book is The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness. Email questions to rabbirami@SpiritualityHealth.com or see Spirituality-Health.com/rabbirami.