c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Eugene Kennedy, a longtime observer of the Roman Catholic Church, is professor emeritus of psychology at Loyola University in Chicago and author most recently of “My Brother Joseph,” published by St. Martin Press.)

UNDATED _ Seeking spirituality is in vogue in our pop culture. That, in itself, is reason enough to be suspicious of it.

But why be skeptical of something that sounds so appealing, so right, one might say, in contrast to the unappetizing car wreck of our thoroughly secularized environment?

Good questions, these, as they prompt us to listen carefully to this cultural trend so that we may understand it properly. Is this evidence of a return to true spirituality?

It may be more the kind of enchantment with the idea of spirituality whose ethos was captured in a cover illustration for a long-defunct Catholic magazine. It depicted contemporary man lying on a foam-rubber cross.

In a June 21 article in the The New York Times, the distinguished pop culture critic Jon Pareles explores this development under the heading”Music Moved by The Spirit Thrives.” Laproscopic surgery is not for him as, with a bold incision, he lays open the protoplasmic heart of what many term a yearning for the sacred:”Spirituality is a loose and open-ended term, it has been applied to Trappist monks and to people who meditate for a few moments between cutthroat negotiating sessions.” Writing from Morocco’s Fourth Fez Festival of World Sacred Music, he examines the traditions that spoke musically there in a variety of tongues, from Tibetan Buddhist chanting to West African drumming.”Such ancient ways,”Pareles notes,”may … teach, or at least spur creative misinterpretation.” That is roughly the equivalent of valuing the assassination of President John F. Kennedy because, well, yes, it may teach us something but its real gift to the nation is a blood-red harvest of demented conspiracy theories.

Music or historical events that spawn”creative misinterpretation”lead to the Oliver Stone school of spirituality. That does not deliver better insight into the soul but a more chaotic view of the universe.

Such”sacred”music, Pareles tells us,”provides an especially appealing gateway to spiritual feelings, if not necessarily spiritual ideas.” Enjoying”spiritual feelings”without”spiritual ideas,”of course, is what tacks the foam rubber onto the cross. Spirituality, under the modern template, does not brace one for suffering that leads to inner growth. Instead, it obliterates suffering by providing the musical equivalent of an injection from Dr. Feelgood.

The New Age movement survives by ignoring or distracting us from the staples of any profound spirituality: A sense of sin, an acceptance of the tragic, and of love conquering suffering and death to lead us to resurrection, or life, as St. John wrote,”to the full.” The famous Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote of the”shadow self,”that”other”or”lesser”self, of whose existence the truly spiritual are keenly aware. The”soft spirituality”of the New Age is the shadow self, the lesser, weaker, and immature version of the spirituality found in the scriptures.

We may distinguish between these phenomena very easily. Genuine spirituality makes demands on us, challenges us to overcome selfishness by putting the”old man”in us to death to make room for the new; to love from the depths of ourselves so that we may establish community with others despite our sinful human condition. Such spirituality gets us through the inevitable crises of life and leaves us unafraid of death.

Its shadow,”soft spirituality,”urges passivity and escape, a denial of limitations and death, and an uncertain refuge in the music-drenched self where one may ignore the surrounding community. The soft ticket looks nice but is invalid for the journey through a major life crisis, such as the loss of a loved one.”Soft spirituality”is now commercializing everything from plain chant to rock anthems to Jesus. This sign of the times is more about shadow than substance.

For the spiritual seeker,”soft spirituality”is a mirage, not an oasis. The springs may run with Evian water but there is no real nourishment here, just the illusion of refreshment.

That such a movement has co-opted the name of spirituality in our pop culture tells us just how hungry we are for the real thing and how unfed we remain.

DEA END KENNEDY