God may not be dead, but God does appear to be starting to fade, at least in the United States. And, it’s not just religiousness; for the first time, there is evidence that spirituality also may be starting to decline.

The latest report was released this week by Jean Twenge and colleagues. These scholars scrutinized data from the General Social Survey (GSS), a nationally representative sampling of over 58,000 American adults that can be used to examine social trends going back to 1974.

Consistent with other recent analyses, results showed that, by 2014, American adults were less likely to be religiously affiliated and to believe in God than they were previously. This study also breaks new ground in showing that Americans were less likely to attend religious services, pray, and report being spiritual. Millennials (aged 18-29) were especially likely to display these trends, with one out of every five reporting that they are “not spiritual at all.” The only exception to recent trends was an increased belief in the afterlife.

What explains this overall pattern of decline?

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“Do I believe in God?”

This is a question many people will ask themselves this week – even if only to themselves – as they go to church to commemorate Easter.

Religious beliefs and behaviors are changing. According to the most recent Pew Research Center Religious Landscape Study, the number of Americans who aren’t affiliated with any religion has grown substantially over the past 7 years, rising from 16% to nearly 23% of the population. Some of these individuals are disconnected from organized religion, while others are atheistic or agnostic.

It often is assumed that belief in God, or lack thereof, is based upon intellectual reasoning. For instance, some atheists argue that God is unlikely to exist because of Occam’s razor, a logical principle basically stating that, all things being equal, the view most likely to be true is the one with the least assumptions. Only in the past couple of years have psychological scientists turned their attention to non-intellectual factors that may influence unbelief.

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We are in a season of mass media consumption. Super Bowl 50 occurs this Sunday, and is coming off the heels of the most watched Super Bowl (and television event) in American history. The most recent Star Wars release (The Force Awakens) grossed over $1 billion in a record 12 days, and is on pace to become the highest grossing film of all-time.

What explains why so many individuals are drawn to major productions such as these? Surely, there are many factors, which vary across events and people. One often overlooked explanation is the emotion of awe.

Psychologists refer to awe as an intense emotional experience that overwhelms individuals with a sense of vastness or greatness. It often transforms individuals’ sense of what is possible.

Although they can be laced with fear, and thus may evoke an avoidance reaction, experiences of awe invariably also fascinate. People often seek awe experiences, and remember them vividly and powerfully. In fact, an emerging body of psychological research reveals that awe encourages a sense of personal well-being and promotes various prosocial acts.

Historically, the most significant sources of awe have come from religion and nature. However, other people also have the potential to inspire us with their skill in various domains. Furthermore, as technology has become more powerful, new sources of awe have become available, blending virtual reality with human ingenuity.

It is potentially enlightening to recognize how much the emotion of awe is involved with mass media sensations.

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Sometimes, we forget how much our world has changed.

In a famous 2005 commencement address – later adapted for a video that went viral on the internet – David Foster Wallace details the emptiness that many people experience as a part of an ordinary adult day. As examples, he chronicles the routines of waking up, going to work, having to go to the supermarket, wait in line, and drive home in traffic. As Wallace notes, perhaps worse than anything, these activities recur, day after day, month after month, and year after year.

Often times, routines such as this can “crowd out” other possibilities. Other times, life can wear us down, and we simply don’t feel the energy to pursue anything greater. Yet, we still may wonder, “is this all there is?”

This has not always been the case.

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This is my last in a series of daily posts in which I share writings of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke that connect most clearly with mystery and awe.

This is the briefest.

My only advice for you is this. Go within yourself and probe the depths from which your life springs.

~Rainer Maria Rilke, February 17, 1903, Letters to a Young Poet

I can’t think of anything much more mysterious than this.

Close your eyes, temporarily let go of other concerns, and really listen to this deep place in you, from which your life springs. What does this teach you?

God, every night is hard.
Always there are some awake,
who turn, turn, and do not find you.
Don’t you hear them crying out
as they go farther and farther down?
Surely you hear them weep; for they are weeping.

I seek you, because they are passing
right by my door. Whom should I turn to,
if not the one whose darkness
is darker than night, the only one
who keeps vigil with no candle,
and is not afraid –
the deep one, whose being I trust,
for it breaks through the earth into the trees,
and rises,
when I bow my head,
faint as a fragrance
from the soil.

~Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours II, 3

To me, this poem reads like a prayer. As theologian Miroslav Volf would put it, though, this is not a “thin” prayer; rather, it is “thick” in complexity, insight, and meaning.

I resonate with the struggle of the poet, as well as with the ironic reference to God being dark (as opposed to light). This reminds me of many of the Christian mystics, such as John of the Cross, who famously writes about the “dark night of the soul,” as well as Barbara Brown Taylor’s reframing of the benefits of darkness. Maybe I’m not the only one who finds God mysterious? As stated by Gerhard Tersteegen, “A God comprehended is no God.”

Alternatively to this, I love the idea of a God who is so comfortable with darkness that It can “keep vigil with no candle” and not be afraid.

In the midst of uncertainty, Rilke notes that he ultimately can trust “the being” of the deep one, as It manifests itself in faint and beautiful ways around him.

Oh, not to be separated,
shut off from the starry dimensions
by so thin a wall.

What is within us
if not intensified sky
traversed with birds

and deep
with winds of homecoming?

~Rainer Maria Rilke, Uncollected Poems

This poem of Rilke’s beautifully speaks to the mystery and awe of humanity, a source often overlooked in many individuals’ quests. Indeed, by writing about “intensified sky,” Rilke suggests that there is something even more awe-inspiring within us than the cosmos itself. This reminds me of a passage from Augustine.

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I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

~Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours I, 2

Maybe I’m the only one who doesn’t understand the word “primordial.” According to Merriam-Webster, “primordial” means “existing from the beginning of time, very ancient.” I wonder how many of us feel like we have been circling around God, “the primordial tower,” something ancient that has existed from the beginning of time? The reference to “circling” suggests to me a quest and a longing that remains unfulfilled even as the poet engages It.

In the midst of this “circling,” Rilke suggests self-mystery. Who are we as we circle the “primordial tower?” What are the implications for the “circling” and for living?

And, yet, even in uncertainty, the poet “give[s] myself to it.” Surrendering in mystery is what I often need to do as well.

In perhaps Rilke’s most famous lines, he writes:

I want to ask you, as clearly as I can, to bear with patience all that is unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves, as if they were rooms yet to enter or books written in a foreign language. Don’t dig for answers that can’t be given you yet; you cannot live them now. For everything must be lived. Live the questions now, perhaps then, someday, you will gradually, without noticing, live into the answer.

~Rainer Maria Rilke, July 16, 1903, Letters to a Young Poet

In my mind, this is Rilke’s response to the inevitable mysteries of life.

Rather than being closed, he encourages us to “love the questions,” with anticipation, as if they were adventures yet to be experienced.

The advice Rilke gives to “live the questions now” is the best I know for addressing uncertainty in my life. Many times, when I have been unsure what I believed or unclear what to do, I have remembered this advice, with profit. I try to “sit” with the questions, with the hope that they will teach me something significant, while I wait expectantly for acceptance or resolution in an unknown future.

Happy New Year!

During 2015, I started a new habit: Once a day (give or take), I read a poem from famed German poet Rainer Maria Rilke. There were times when this practice really uplifted me and caused me to pause and wonder.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1900, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

As we begin 2016, I’m going to share my six favorite Rilke writings that relate to mystery and awe. The first is below, followed by a few of my thoughts.

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