Looking outside of oneself and within are dual components of living a life of wholeness --what some would call living a religious life, others would call spirituality.

I am frequently asked to define religious and spiritual. I am not certain how much the dictionary guides us in our post-modern conversations about these two. I would want to bring to the former the meaning of interiority because belonging to others (as in a religious community) means to deal with the personal as well as the intra-personal. To the latter, I would want to bring certain meanings of accountability and responsibility, aspects of living with others in community.

You and I continue to hear folks who say they are or want to be spiritual but not religious. I think in many instances, when they dismiss the idea of the religious, they have dismissed aspects of the holy and the numinous that they did not intend to dismiss. Being religious or being spiritual necessarily involves other persons, relationships, social responsibility and interiority.