practices and, most important of all, tostay on the lookout for evidence of theGreat Mystery moving through life.This approach to spiritual practice

is not recommended, I know. Often I have come across sternpronouncements directed at peoplelike me: One cannot dabble, say thepriests and scholars. Spirituality is not a tasting menu. “New Agers” whoborrow a bit of this religion and a bitof that, while discarding the parts theydon’t like, will never have anything buta shallow and delusional relationshipwith the sacred. Respectfully, Idisagree. Seeking itself can be apractice. And what I have discovered,over and over again, is that the moreopen I am to finding the holy in anyplace, time, or circumstance, the more

Yet, here’s a confession: my devotingfollows not one path, but many. I’venever lived in an ashram or consideredentering a convent. I never looked intothe gaze of a teacher and knew I wasbeing called to be that one’s disciple. I have joined in the prayers of manyfaiths and felt them to be moving,genuine, and indisputably aimed righttoward—and quite conceivably heardby—God, yet I have never beentempted to convert. I’ve had nointerest in finding the one spiritualhome I would never have to leave.What I’ve longed for instead is toexperience the divine as it manifests inthe world. And since every faith definesa path to God, and many secularactions crisscross those spiritual paths,I’ve chosen to partake of a variety of

MY FRIEND THE LATE ANAK AGUNG DETRARANGKI, Balinese Hindu, scholar of hisreligion and culture, told me once, when

I had not seen him for a while and asked what he’dbeen doing, that he had been “how would yousay—devoting.” He meant that he had beenspending time with his spiritual devotions. In Balithis means making offerings, praying to the gods,participating in the ceremonies in his village. Theword struck me. My deepest longing, since I was asmall child, had been to be in the presence of thepotent, conscious force that I was convincedanimated the cosmos. Agung’s poetic description ofhis own practice made me realize that I, too, hadbeen “devoting” for many years. And what I havedevoted myself to is the search for the force thatimpels faith. This is my spiritual practice andongoing query.

Devoting:Meetings with the Force That Impels FaithTrebbe Johnson

Traveling many roads to the “Great Mystery”

Tuareg on camels in the Sahara

most of the “devoting”of eclectic mystics likeme is less aboutabsconding with theceremonies of othersthan imbibing vitalwisdom that can guideus in shaping our lives.And of course wheneverI do receive aninvitation into thespiritual heart ofanother tradition, I cannot but say,wholeheartedly, yes.

The medicine man fromthis western tribe and hisassistants are dressed infull ceremonial regalia:buffalo headdress,feathers, beaded deerskinboots. Slowly they turn toface the night in each ofthe four directions, blowon their eagle-bonewhistles, shake theirrattles, and call in the spirits. We, theparticipants, turn too,hushed, anticipating thisceremony that is said tobe more than a thousand years old. And asthose ancient calls go out, I feel presencessweeping in like banners of silk. I feel theircuriosity. I can tell, without quite seeingthem directly, that women are here, andmen, and even several children. They havereturned. Awe puckers the flesh on my arms.The world beyond the world is real, there arethose who know how to open the door andcall it over to the place where we normallylive, and when the beings of that world arecalled, they may just come.

I could say I learned certain lessonsfrom such moments of grace, moments ofwitness, moments of the parting of theveil, but that isn’t quite right. These

experiences were like benignelectrocution; they flashed through me,body and soul, and seared my nerveendings, permanently altering how Iperceived and received the world. Eachexperience remains an image bathed in atruth. As William James points out, one ofthe most significant aspects of the mysticalexperience is its “noetic quality”: Mysticalstates seem to those who experience themto be also states of knowledge. They arestates of insight into depths of truthunplumbed by the discursive intellect.They are illuminations, revelations, full ofsignificance and importance, all

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likely I am to be invited into a briefencounter with it.

Accompanying a dozen African-Americanministers from around the U.S., I take a“toxic tour” of four communities along theMississippi River near New Orleans. Two towns are squeezed up againstpetrochemical industries so gargantuan,noisy, fiercely lit, and foul-smelling thatgarden flowers die and children can’t playoutside. Another has a landfill for its next-door neighbor. The fourth place has thecruelest story of all. After friends andfamilies received land and low-interestmortgages with which to build a newcommunity, they discovered that theirdream village sat on top of a toxic landfill.The people are fighting for justice, but theyoften feel no one is paying attention. Thevisit from the ministers renews their hope.At every stop they tell their stories, and thenthe church women welcome the delegationwith a feast of fried chicken, greens,mashed potatoes, rolls, and pie. Before

eating, we bow our heads as the ministerscall the attention of the Lord to thepredicament at hand. “The gates of Shellare the gates of hell,” bellows one reverend.“Ay-men,” choruses the group. The prayersare powerful, but the true act of grace is theoutpouring of hospitality and generosityoffered by people facing such calamities.

Night has long since fallen over the mosquein this residential section of Istanbul whenthe rustle of settling-in fades and a dozenmen in long robes step into the round,wood-paneled room. One by one they bow tothe sheik, remove their robes, unfurl theirarms like petals, and begin to spin. In theceremony of sema, members of the Order of

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the Whirling Dervishes mirror with theirbodies the movement of the universe, fromthe spinning of planets around the sun toelectrons circling their nucleus. Left armangled down to the earth, right arm uptoward God, each man spins in his owncircle, while all orbit together around thespace. The heavy hems of their white robesundulate like waves. Part human, partdivine, part cosmic force, they spiralstraight to God. Witnessing, yet separatefrom, the vast realms they pass through, Iache to be a passenger on their journey.

And why should we not partake ofthe wisdom of other paths, not just asobservers, but, to the extent that we’reable, as participants? Ever since the latenineteenth century, when spiritualleaders like Japanese Zen Buddhistmonk Soyen Shaku and Hindu SwamiVivekananda of India came to theUnited States to offer their teachings toWesterners, opportunities to learn

spiritual practices from around the worldhave increased. Countless books,articles, and now the internet offer awide, clear, sparkling stream of insightand information for those longing to beschooled in unfamiliar yet alluring pathsto the divine. Of course there arecautions. Some Native Americans haveobjected strenuously to non-Nativesborrowing traditions like the sweatlodge ceremony, especially since suchactions seem a perpetuation of thecenturies-old habit of colonizers helpingthemselves to that which belongs toindigenous people. But I would say that

These experiences were like benign electrocution;they flashed through me, body and soul, and searedmy nerve endings, permanently altering how I

perceived and received the world. Medicine Man, Charles Marion Russell, 1916.Blanton Museum of Art

bird flies on. Stunned, I tell no one,though I wonder over this flight every day.

That which stretches beyond andbeneath the known, that which movesthe world, from consciousness toquarks, that which impelled the universeinto being and drives it still, that GreatMystery that seduces humans to seek itout, though they are permitted to find itonly in the tiniest of glimpses—thatwondrousness goes by many names. Italso possesses many qualities, even whenit is the Tao and its attributes includehaving no attributes at all. It is loving, itis vengeful and demanding, it is billionsof years of nature becoming increasinglyconscious. It is the unified field thatholds the universe together. It wantsyou to be good, so your life after deathwill be paradisal, and it has no interest inyou at all. Even those who don’t believein it occasionally experience it.2 It is theUnknown we yearn to know more of.In an article in PARABOLA’s issue on the

soul (Summer 1996), Eliezer Shore writesthat, according to Hasidic texts, althoughthe soul is focused in the body, it doesn’tend there. It can be found in ourbelongings, in places and even things thathave not yet found their way into ourlives. Thus, “all of life is a gathering up ofsoul.”3My own spiritual practice has beena quest to gather up the parts of my soulin order to gain a closer relationship withthe Great Unknown. I have found piecesof my soul in places where I deliberatelywent looking and in utterly unexpectedplaces. What has drawn many of them

forth, I believe, is simply that I am alwayson the lookout for them.

IN DECEMBER 2009 I attended theParliament of the World’s Religionsin Melbourne, Australia.4 The

theme was “Hearing Each Other,Healing the Earth,” and the focus wasthe imperative for the spiritual traditionsof the world to devote more of theirliturgy, teaching, and outreach toaddressing ecological challenges.Throughout the week, in hundreds ofpanel discussions, talks, workshops, andofferings of music and dance, leaders inmany spiritual traditions created a livingmandala around this theme, as complexand colorful as the sand mandala slowlyblossoming under the tools andattention of Tibetan Buddhist monks.On the last day of the parliament HisHoliness the Dalai Lama was scheduledto speak. That morning everyone had topass through metal detectors to enterthe Convention Center. Then we had alengthy wait in the lobby outside theauditorium, thousands of peopleranging in long messy lines that keptdiverging and merging as conversationsarose. Finally the doors were opened. And we were rushing in. Christians,

Aboriginals, Muslim women in djilbabs,Sikhs in white turbans, Yoruba in colorfulrobes, Tibetan Buddhists in saffron, Jews,Samis, Buddhists, Navajos, Pagans,Hindus, Ainu, Jains: we were all surgingthrough the doors and dashing towardthe front of the auditorium. I had notbeen in such a fervent charge for the

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inarticulate though they remain; and as arule they carry with them a curious senseof authority for after-time.1 I’m not sayingthat experiences like praying before a mealoffered by generous people in dire straitscount as “mystical states.” Still, they areopenings of the way, moments of weightytruth. They are epiphanies, and they oftenarise in times and places outside thebounds of spiritual tradition.

In a subway station in New York City Iwatch as a disheveled, dirty man, who hasbeen leaning against the wall, sinks slowly tothe floor. I notice, but I do not move frommy spot on the platform, where I ampositioned to push quickly into the train.What do I assume about this man? That heis drunk? Homeless? Exhausted? That thecondition he’s now in, while not exactlynormal, could not possibly be a realemergency? One young woman in the crowdof commuters, perhaps on her way to collegeor her first job, walks briskly over to the man.

She bends over him, touches his shoulder, asks if he’s all right and if he needs help.There is nothing—not sickness, fear, filth,embarrassment, or a time schedule—thatshe will permit to separate her from whatshe is called to do right now. Around thesetwo souls radiates the glow of mercy.

For eight years I led a contemplativejourney and camel caravan in the Sahara desert. My Swiss co-guide, ourparticipants, and I are in turn guided bya band of Tuareg, a nomadic, musical,matriarchal culture and the indigenouspeople of the region. For several days weride camels through the desert, stopping atnight to sleep under the stars. We thensettle for a week in one spot, where theparticipants go on a three-day solo. Thisyear we’re camped in a sandy valley, oneither side of which escarpments of black,tumbled rock lead up to a stony plateau.On the third day of the solo my co-guide,our assistant, and I are sitting andtalking on the rocks about a hundred feet

above the valley. Down below, ourTuareg hosts sprawl on matstalking and laughing as the cookstirs a pot on a small fire. Then thecamel master waves his arms up tous to indicate that lunch is ready,and we start heading down, eachpicking our own way among theboulders. Behind me I hear thethwack-thwack of heavy wings andlook up to see a raven. And then—there is no other way to say this—myconsciousness ceases to belong to meand I am seeing the valley from thebird’s perspective. I see my friendsfar below, moving among rocks; theTuareg in their colorful robes likeminiature action figures leftoutside by a child; the camelsaddles, like charms on a bracelet,spread out on the sand. I am flyinghigh over the valley, and then,suddenly, I reach the plateau andland with a jolt back in my ownbody, negotiating the rocks as the

I have found pieces of my soul in places whereI deliberately went looking and in

utterly unexpected places.

Mevlevi Whirling Dervish, Istanbul, 2007

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stage since I saw the Beatles perform live.Here, though, there was no pushing, noshoving, no shouting. However, we all knew we were about to be in thepresence of exceptional enlightenment,and we wanted to snag the best seatpossible. I had the sense that this greattide we were creating together mirroredboth the general impulse for attendanceat the parliament and the course ourindividual lives had taken. For althoughthere are many names for God, manypaths for seeking and practicing unionwith the divine, and, all too often, manyinjurious ways of asserting the supremacy

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of one’s own faith—when it comes rightdown to it, we are all dashing exuberantlytowards the holy.

ENDNOTES

1 William James, THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS

EXPERIENCE (New York: New American Library,1958), 293. 2 See Barbara Ehrenreich, LIVING WITH A WILD GOD: ANONBELIEVER’S SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH ABOUT EVERYTHING

(New York: Twelve, 2014).3 Eliezer Shore, “Through a Dark Passage,”PARABOLA, Vol. 21, No. 2, Summer 1996, 54.4 See Trebbe Johnson, “World Religions GetDown to Earth: A Report from the 2009Parliament of the World’s Religions,” PARABOLA,Vol. 35, No. 2, Summer 2010, 98–105.

Tuareg in the Sahara