The Meeting of Science and Spirit (Pt II)

"Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred."

If you were paying attention many months ago, you may have learned a little-known fact about me. It's not something I generally talk about, or really do much with. It's not something that I ever would have done on my own initiative; it was really the result of Really Persistent Friend's cajoling.

I mention this now for two reasons. First, the topics of spirituality, religion, and the sacred seem to be popping up a lot lately in scientifically-oriented blogs. Second, in about two weeks I will be officiating my third wedding. [Pause for the appropriate disclaimers... So far I have only done this for people I know, like, think should be married to each other, and can't say no to. I don't do it for money. I probably could have gotten out of this coming wedding request, but these two people have waited long enough to be married to each other and I'm happy to help them get it done.]

It boggled my mind when Really Persistent Friend was exceedingly persistent with the idea that I should become ordained in order to perform her wedding. I know it's 'just the internet', but it is a legally-recognized ordination, which means you have power. I got my ordination in the mail a couple of months after I defended my dissertation, and the ordination was the scarier of the two. Seriously. A Ph.D. (sadly) comes with no perception or obligation of service to others, whereas an ordination exists solely for the purpose of permitting one to serve others in a specific capacity.

You may think that I'm referring only to service in the capacity that is confined to and defined by the legal code. But then you probably have never seen a roomful of people looking at you through the only definition they have of 'minister'. You've probably never felt the weight of the expectations of the bride and groom (and their parents) to conduct a ceremony that conveys the appropriate sense of sacredness. (Best Friend's in-laws were in tears because we incorporated a unity candle into her ceremony. They saw respect for their Catholic tradition, even though the ceremony had no overt religious references.) If you view ordination as an obligation of service, rather than just a chance to make money, then you are well-advised to ask yourself - What is the nature of the service I am providing? What is required of me to perform this service effectively? Do I possess the necessary education, experience and skills to render this service?

I required Really Persistent Friend to articulate in great detail why she wasn't willing to get married in a church or by a justice of the peace before I agreed to become ordained. The essence of those conversations can be summed up in the phrase 'spiritual, but not religious'. Most people who identify as 'spiritual, but not religious' were religious (or exposed to religion) at some point. Like it or not, the concepts that we generally think of as 'spiritual' are concepts we derive from religion. Even concepts like 'love' and 'compassion' don't find a lot of support in hard science. Scientists can give a convoluted explanation for altruistic behavior that invokes genetic survival, but the explanation utterly fails to capture the experience.

Both Best Friend and Really Persistent Friend also recognized that the people who attended the wedding would have strong associations of marriage as a sacrament involving God. As a wedding exists to announce one's union to a community of friends and family, they wanted to acknowledge the perceptions of their family with respect to the sacredness of marriage. They felt that marriage was something more than a simple legal pronouncement, but that it was not created solely by the depth or blessing of traditional religious ritual. The task of culling a sense of 'sacred' from the trappings of so many rituals fell to me.

Perhaps it's a task for which a psychologist is ideally suited. The ability to understand the subjective importance of experience and the need for explanation and order in one's perceptions, as well as the function of a 'greater force' in one's belief system, are essential if we are ever going to succeed in divorcing the good aspects of spirituality from the dogma and harmfulness of religion. This is perhaps easiest for a scientist who has been trained to ask penetrating questions and shed light on relationships between ideas/behaviors/elements. And that is why thoughtful dialogue between science and spirit is worth encouraging. Not because one side seeks to win the other over, but because both want the best possible information about what it means to be human.