Listening to Goddess-God-the Divine
6.1 Listening to the Divine Song in the Classroom
In this section, I give readers a sense of what it means to be in the classroom with the students listening to the Divine song. I reconstruct student voices in the class by paraphrasing their words based on my class notes and memories of conversations with students in and outside of class. These student recreations are necessarily biased because they represent only one viewpoint (my view as the professor) in the classroom. That viewpoint is embodied in my personal and professional values as the course instructor.[1] While my attempts to recreate student voices may not accurately represent all the students’ viewpoints in the class, I hope they convey a sense of what it means to be in the classroom listening to the Divine song with the students.
I want to inspire teachers to incorporate some of these ideas in their own listening course, and to encourage instructors and students to cultivate a greater capacity to listen to the Divine song in their academic and personal lives.[2] To accomplish these goals, I organize each section as follows. First, I introduce a class activity with a personal story. Next, I describe the class activity from the viewpoint of students in the classroom (an amalgam of several students’ views). I provide additional information about the activity for instructors considering adapting it into their listening course. Finally, I conclude with reflection questions about how the activity deepens our understanding of listening to the Divine song of life.
Meditation
As a nineteen-year-old college student living with my parents in San Jose, California, in the late 1970s, I withdrew my savings of five hundred dollars to travel across the country in a Toyota with a Dominican Sister to a Benedictine monastery in Wisconsin. We ate dried figs and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and slept in the open air at campsites (or in the car when it rained) to save money on the trek. We arrived for this one-week national gathering of young adult ministers to learn how to better serve our respective young adult communities. The monastery was an ancient structure surrounded by woodlands teeming with various flora and fauna in the summertime. On the second day, after our evening session ended, I wandered the monastery halls and discovered a private library. I felt a strong Divine presence walking among the authors who had written these spiritual books. Perusing the shelves, I discovered one book that profoundly influenced my ideas about meditation called The Open Way.[3] The book lit the lamp of meditation within me, leading to a lifelong interest and practice in meditation. I used parts of the book to develop a method to teach meditation in the classroom.[4] Before learning the open way of meditation, my ideas of the Divine were strongly influenced by my images of the Divine Father, Mother, and Son.
Divine Father, Mother, and Son
Every Sunday morning as a young child, I kneeled in church and gazed at the life-size crucifix above the center of the altar with statues of Saint Joseph and Mother Mary in alcoves on either side of the main altar. Below the crucifix, centered and at the heart level with the priest standing behind the altar, is a golden-colored tabernacle that houses the holy hosts. These images of the Divine are etched in my memory. The images of the Divine Son suffering, the Divine Father providing, the Divine Mother giving life, and the Divine intermingling with humans through the consummation of the holy hosts.
As I grew up, I came to know and experience the Divine in other ways. I feel a Divine connection through ancestors and saints, and through the poor, homeless, and sick I feel Divine compassion. Through family interactions, I experience Divine love. I also experience the Divine through the natural world of climbing trees, petting animals, feeling sunshine, breathing fresh air, smelling the sea, and gazing at stars. What experiences shape your understanding of the Divine?
In the following sections, I describe, how I facilitate reflecting on the many faces of the Divine in the major world religions. I assist students in naming the Divine based on their life experiences. I also describe how to connect with and listen to the Divine using the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale developed by Lynn Underwood.[5]
The instructions for the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale ask individuals to rate how often they have different kinds of spiritual experiences each day on a scale of “1” (never) through “6” (many times a day). Examples of some of the items for the scale are:
I am spiritually touched by the beauty of creation . . . I experience a connection to all life . . . I feel God’s love for me directly . . . [the instructions make it clear that if the term “God” is uncomfortable for some individuals, then they can, “substitute another word that calls to mind the Divine or holy for you.”], [and] I feel thankful for my blessings.[6]
The Many Faces of the Divine
In class, I notice that a few students seem a bit nervous about this part of the course. Perhaps they aren’t sure if they believe in God or any other form of organized religion. My hope is that, by the time we finish this section on listening to the Divine, most of them will have started (reaffirmed or changed) to formulate their own unique understanding of the Divine that connects them with meaning, value, and purpose. Our mediation word for today is Divine.
After the meditation, some students share their ideas about the Divine, and then I suggest, “Let’s take some time to consider what other religions and spiritualities name as Divine.” Students suggest various names that I record on the whiteboard: God, Goddess, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Allah, Shakti, Creator, Spirit, Adoni, Jehovah, and Yahweh. I continue. “So we see that different religions have many ways to name the Divine.
What about people who do not affiliate with organized religion but still consider themselves spiritual? What names might they have for the Divine?” The class identifies other associations with the word “Divine,” like Divine Light, the Force, Energy, Higher Self, and Mother Nature.
These names seem closer to what some students identify as Divine, but other students are still having difficulty identifying with any of these labels for the Divine. So I add: “Some of you may not consider yourselves religious or spiritual. Yet, even agnostics and atheists have ideals in life, values, ethics, and/or a philosophy that they live by. One of these ideals might be sacred, holy, or what I’m calling Divine. For example, the ultimate values of Love, Truth, Beauty, and Harmony might be other ways to name the Divine.[7]” This provides more options for students who were uncertain about the Divine.
I remind students that the name they choose for the Divine serves as a symbol, a placeholder, reminding us of the highest possible ideal(s) we can imagine. The reality behind the name is what we are attempting to listen to and connect with. At this point, I suggest we consider a few questions about our idea of the Divine based on Underwood’s Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale.
After students complete Underwood’s scale and have an opportunity to discuss it collectively, they conclude that the Divine can be experienced in themselves, in others, and nature. The Divine is experienced through the SONG of life!
Religious, Spiritual, Both or Neither
Scholars attempt to differentiate between “religious” and “spiritual” by defining religion in terms of formality, structure, institutional theology and rituals, whereas spirituality is defined as individual beliefs and practices that give meaning and purpose to life.[8] These definitions are supported by research on folk definitions for religion and spirituality, with over 1500 participants concluding, “. . . religion can best be defined as specific organized beliefs whereas spirituality can be defined as relating to personal world and life.”[9]
Some research includes an evaluative component in defining religion and spirituality. For instance, religion has “. . . become a narrowband institutional construct that restricts and inhibits human potential . . .” while spirituality is “. . . differentiated from religion as an individual expression that speaks to the greatest of human capacities.”[10] The consensus in current scholarship is to integrate the two perspectives of religion and spirituality by logically deriving four possibilities. An individual may self-identify as “religious but not spiritual,” “spiritual but not religious,” “both religious and spiritual,” or “neither religious or spiritual.” As of 2017, forty-eight percent of Americans view themselves as “religious and spiritual,” and twenty-seven percent as “spiritual but not religious.”[11] In teaching about listening to the Divine, I use the nomenclature “religious-spiritual” to be inclusive and embrace both religious and spiritual perspectives.
Connecting with the Divine Name
By introducing the term Divine as the highest ideal an individual can conceive of, a sense of diversity and inclusiveness pervades the class. I want to respect and embrace those who self-identify as religious, spiritual, agnostic, atheist, and other. As each student begins to name their idea of the Divine, I remind them that it is okay to keep their naming of the Divine confidential. They can share their name for the Divine or not, as they see fit. I do not ask students to share their Divine name in class, although some choose to do so in our discussions. In over a decade of teaching the listening course, I have yet to meet a student who could not name at least one thing that they value in life, something that is sacred or holy for them–their Divine.
For Reflection
- Travel back in time to your childhood and teenage years: what kinds of images and names for the Divine did you experience?
- Consider what you inherited about the Divine from parents, caregivers, relatives, teachers, friends, books, television, radio, movies, social media, art, music, dance, concerts, and religious-spiritual services. How have these experiences of the Divine influenced your present ideas about the Divine?
- How do you currently name the Divine as the highest ideal that you can conceive of?
- What methods do you use daily, weekly, or otherwise to listen to and connect with your idea of the Divine?
- What other methods might assist you in developing your ability to connect with and listen to the Divine?
- For additional information on my personal and professional values see E. James Baesler, "Prayer Life of a Professor," New Directions for Teaching and Learning 120 (Winter 2009): 9-16, and E. James Baesler, "Journeying Into the Well: An Autoethnography of 35 Retreats Across Two Decades," The Qualitative Report 25, no. 6, (2020): 1579-1598. ↵
- These intentions also apply to other individuals outside of the academic context. Many of the ideas and activities about listening to the Divine can be applied in business organizations, religious-spiritual communities, health care and therapeutic settings, and the home environment. ↵
- Gerald G. May, The Open Way: A Meditation Handbook (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1977). ↵
- E. James Baesler, "Meditation in the Classroom: Cultivating Attention and Insight," Listening Education 6, no. 1, (2015a): 8-15. I discuss this meditation process in-depth in Chapter Three on "Listening to Self." I begin every listening class with this type of listening meditation. ↵
- Lynn G. Underwood, "The Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale: Overview and Results," Religion 2, no. 1, (2011): 29-50. ↵
- Lynn G. Underwood, Spiritual Connection in Daily Life: Sixteen Little Questions that Can Make a Big Difference (Conshohocken: Templeton Press, 2013), 218-219. ↵
- Other examples of naming the Divine are Goddess, God, the Sacred, Ultimate Reality, Divine Light, Higher Self, Ground of Being, Nature, or any of the names of Goddess or God associated with world religions-spiritualities, or humanistic-philosophical values of the highest sense like Truth, Love, and Beauty. Several of these ideas are from Thomas Keating "An Experience of Interreligious Dialogue," in A Sourcebook for the Community of Religions, ed. Joel Beversluis (Novato: New World Library, 1993), 106-108. ↵
- Brian J. Zinnbauer, Kenneth I. Pargament, Brenda S. Cole, Mark S. Rye, Eric M. Bulfer, Timothy G. Belavich, Kathleen M. Hipp, Allie B. Scott, and Jill L. Kadar, "Religion and Spirituality: Unfuzzying the Fuzzy," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 36, (1997): 549-564. ↵
- Zhuo Job Chen, Anika Steppacher, and Heinz Streib. "Religious or Spiritual? Text Analysis of the Free Entries in Defining Religiosity and Spirituality," (April 2022): 1. OSF Preprints. ↵
- Kenneth I. Pargament, "The Psychology of Religion and Spirituality? Yes and No," The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 9, no. 1 (November 1999): 3. ↵
- Michael Lipka and Claire Gecewicz, "More Americans Now Say They're Spiritual but not Religious," Pew Research Center (website) (September 2017). https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/06/more-americans-now-say-theyre-spiritual-but-not-religious/. The remaining percentages for American views on religion and spirituality are eighteen percent "neither religious nor spiritual," and six percent "religious but not spiritual." For the class, I emphasize that not everyone is "religious," but everyone can be spiritual by having ideals and values that provide meaning and purpose for their life. The name for this spirituality (or religion) I call Divine in the context of listening to the SONG of life. ↵