Slow Beauty

by Sylvie Shaw

Which would you rather be - techno-addicted or nature connected?

Recent research from the US shows two significant changes for children - the first is that they are spending less time in the outdoors and more time inside and online. The second is more surreptious, children's books are depicting less and less animals and nature-related stories.

Why is this relevant to media, culture and religion?

Techno-philia, or online-philia is replacing outdoors experiences for many young people. Children's stories are now mainly set in the built environment and, according to Williams et al. (2012), accompanying this shift indoors are fewer books containing images of nature or animals, especially wild animals, and fewer images and stories than in the past about people interacting with the natural envrionment or with animals.

Perhaps more concerning are not the direct implications of this research study, but the indirect social and political perspectives surrounding the study.. In the US (and perhaps Australia), support for the environment movement dropped during the 2000s decade, while environmental issues also ranked low in the American public's mind. Importantly however, note the authors, research on the significance of nature connection shows a relationship between 'experience in natural environments, and understanding, concern, and action with respect to environmental problems.' (Williams et al. 2012). So the more time you spend in nature, the more aware of the natural world you become, the more meaningful nature experiences are. The more understanding you have about nature, especially through the frequent and meaningful encounters in the outdoors, the more concern you're likely to show towards nature - and the ecological crisis.

In 2006, when Al Gore produced his Inconvenient Truth, he stated that climate change was a 'moral issue'. 'Make no mistake, this is not just a political issue, not just a market issue, not just a national security issue, not just a jobs issue. It is a moral issue.'

Since then (and before then too), a great many books have been written in the field of religion and ecology and environment issues have been at the forefront of much recent religion and spiritual discourse and practice. For  instance, the Vatican has installed solar power across its ancient rooftops; Muslim associations like the environmental IFEES in the UK produced a 'green guide' for Muslim living; Buddhists in the US have worked with local people in Mongolia to establish an inspirational ecology centre and program to protect local fish habitats and species; Muslims at the Al Ghazzali Centre in Sydney's south have revegetated river banks; the Jewish Ecological Coalition in Melbourne have published a sustainability guide; while Brisbane's multi-faith community have held prayer meetings and other interfaith-based services. Religious organisations are installing green energy, developing ecological programs and policies, reviewing scripture, writing nature-inspired liturgies and even a Green Bible has been produced.

Last week I watched the trailer for a documentary called Play Again, where techno-focused children and teens were taken into wild nature to 'play again'. It shows their transformation from techno-connected to enjoying adventures in the outdoors. Life slows, observation grows, passion for nature (hopefully) is ignited because -  if we don't know nature, how can we learn to love it, and if we don't love nature or know nature, why would we know it needs protecting?

Nature teaches us to watch, slowly and see the beauty emerge in its stillness. It encourages us to play. And act.

Questions:
- Can films about nature and religion replace engagement with God's creation or creation care?
- Why are religious organisations so concerned about environmental issues?
- How important is the outdoors in your life - and your spirirtual life?

Reference
Williams Jr, A., C. Podeschi, N. Palmer, P. Schwadel, and D. Meyler.2012. The Human-Environment Dialog in Award-winning Children’s Picture Books. Sociological Inquiry 82(1):145-159.

Slow or Fast Religion

`

by Sylvie Shaw

It's time for religion. Life slows down. I breathe. Deeply. And walk to the River. On the way I pass cars roaring, cyclists running, runners panting, as the trees breathe, slowly, deeply, watching.

There's pleasure in ambling. Walking to one's special place. Past sights that become so familiar. The wonderful native garden exploding with small chirping birds, so tiny they are hard to spot in the green leaves and even greener spider flowers of the Grevillea shiressii. Not far away, behind a high wire fence, stand three Acacia podalyriifolia trees, their blue-green leafy branches poking through the holes in the wire. They are one of my favourite trees and when in bloom, their bright yellow fluffy blossoms have an evocative slightly sweet earthy and musty aroma.

I wondered why not more of these lovely trees are planted in Brisbane, that is until I read an online message from the 'Save Our Waterways Now' which says that it's a popular plant and widely cultivated but it '[s]eeds freely and is invasive in natural bushland areas not in its range. It should not be planted in gardens in the vicinity of such areas. It has beecome [sic] an invasive pest in southern States.'

Feeling slightly chastened that the native tree I love goes wild outside of its own territory, I realise that the seeds I so carefully collected a few weeks ago can never be planted in this river-centred suburb lest the seeds escape.

My goal is the River. But there are things I have to deal with first. Roadkill. Today it's a Black Duck. I pick it up, tenderly, and carry it to the bushy roadside where I lay it down, cover it with leaves and say a small prayer. If I have a feather I plant it in the ground.

I reach the waterside and stop and breathe. The trees watch.

This is my special place. There's beauty here but something else too. Life is slower. In tune with nature's rhythms. Kingfishers sit in the high branches. Sea Eagles sometimes soar from their nest overlooking the River. Firetail finches and other small birds dance in the morning sunlight. Magpies graze.

Not long ago when I was weeding the embankment with the local bushcare group, we heard the church bells ringing in the distance. With her hands in the dirt, one of the women weeders exclaimed that tending the weeds and replanting the riverbank were more her kind of church.

Weeding and planting in community, this earthy work becomes sacred. It's slow work. Mindful work. Communal work. Work that's full of grace.

In her article in Religion, Media and Culture: A Reader, Monica Emerich (2012) writes about this process of going slow. She uses not the River and the beauty of walking, but what she terms is an ever-expanding religious and spiritual marketplace known as LOHAS or Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability. It's all about living slow, eating slow, and particularly 'savouring time' - taking time out for constructing 'an artful way of living' (2012:40).

Emerich describes the evolution of LOHAS, a term coined by an ecoliving entrepreneur in the 1990s. Although the expression was new to me, the slowing down concept was not. The Slow Food movement has gained wide acceptance and adherence. Tired of living in the fast lane, people are relishing slowing down over a shared and deliciously slow cooked meal, prepared with love.

To LOHAS practitioners, slow means 'being present', 'living mindfully', 'yearning for something more' (Emerich 2012:42-44). These comments emerged from Emerich's research interviewing people involved in the slow movement. They spoke about their commitment to living sustainability and practising social responsibility. What stood out in her interviews was their deep desire to 'infuse each moment with meaning' (45).

But LOHAS is not only a spiritual movement for enjoyable eating, there is a political message that underlines it - one that is critical of a fast-paced life with little time for reflection and sharing. It's a marketplace for slow consuming, conscious (eco)buying and spiritually engaged action, but action undertaken with beauty and mindfulness.

Walking to one's special place, taking time, breathing in the sights and sounds of the River in the early morning - this is my kind of slow religion.

Questions:- What is your kind of slow religion?
- Do you see a difference between styles of religious worship - from Buddhist mediation to fast moving evangelical services? Explain and describe.
- Is LOHAS a kind of secular spirituality - where people engage in a type of communal or ritual sharing around themes and issues that are meaningful to them? Explain your view.

Reference:
Emerich, M.M. 2012. The spirit of living slowly in the LOHAS marketplace. In G. Lynch, J. Mitchell & A. Strhan, Eds., Religion, Media and Culture: A Reader. London & New York: Routledge.

Interluding...

by Sylvie Shaw
What music grabs you, draws you into its lyrics and sounds so you unconsciously hum and sing along with it all day as it accompanies your own conscious thoughts?Music has a way of doing that - from a single voice and bilma (clapsticks) or the sound of the heartbeat drum, to the moving symphonies of Mahler or the delicious whine of Kurt Cobain.

I was brought up on a diet of classical music (parents), musical comedy (neighbours) and rock (radio). Some songs stand out in my memory as turning points in my music listening as I shifted from rockn'roll to cool jazz through the high school years.

These were the sixties when the Beatles and Rolling Stones were high on the pop agenda. But alongside the pop scene, and for some artists within it, came the protest songs and the folk genre through anti(Vietnam) war and peace movement messages from Bob Dylan and a range of (largely) American songsters. Their songs posed questions, challenged one's thinking, and did not wallow in teen angst and romantic illusion.

Pop evoloved and changed in the margins but mainline radio and TV continued (and continues) to play what Adorno and Horkheimer (2002), in their Dialectic of Enlightenment, would refer to as repetitive, standardized, culture products designed to provide a soporific to the working masses. Their view was that:

'Entertainment ... is sought by those who want to escape the mechanized labor process so that they can cope with it again. At the same time, however, mechanization has such power over leisure and its happiness, determines so thoroughly the fabrication of entertainment commodities, that the off-duty worker can experience nothing but after-images of the work process itself.' (109)

Referring to 'the culture industry', Adorno and Horkheimer developed a hard-hitting critique of the way entertainment acts to sap the autonomy of indidivuals providing instead a model of 'freedom to be the same.' (136). While genres and artists evolve over time, their products remain a testament to capitalist society's desire for profit and accumulation of cultural (and thus ideological) goods.

Have things changed since Adorno and Horkheimer's 1940s critique? Perhaps the answer is yes and no. Perhaps the spread of globalization, communications, and self-published music via social media, allows the promotion of myriad styles of music to effect prominence in certain circles and subcultures - but dominance at the mainstream?

When I first heard Coldplay's Yellow and watched Chris Martin's rain-swept beach walk, I was touched by its simplicity and beauty. When I saw The Killers' Human, and caught Brandon Flowers' religion in the lyrics, I was moved by the message that ressonated with thoughts of Adorno and Horkheimer, 'Are we human or are we dancer?'

But two songs leap out as part of my musical evolution - the Sex Pistols' Anarchy in the UK, and Grand Master Flash's Don't push me ...cos I'm close to the edge.

Such songs don't come out of a vaccuum. They are enveloped within a socio-political and psycho-spiritual zeitgeist which aimed to change the direction of the culture industry - but became absorbed in it. How both music genres came into being have very different trajectories but they allowed a chink in the culture industry until it drew these styles into its profiteering bosom.

There are still patches of political challenge and environmental messaging within the contemporary pop scene, where the margins are embraced at the centre and songs rocket to the top of the charts - but this seems rare. A good example is Coldplay's whimsical yet poignant Paradise which address environmental devastation and the horrors of war, while the accompanying music clip depicts Martin, dressed as a disconsolate elephant, escaping the zoo's clutches and journeying to Africa where, riding a unicycle, he finally locates his elephant clan and leaps with joy at his homecoming.

When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach
And the bullets catch in her teeth

Life goes on, it gets so heavy
The wheel breaks the butterfly
Every tear a waterfall, in the night the stormy night
She closed her eyes
In the night the stormy night, away she'd fly...
(Berryman, Martin, Champion & Buckland 2011)

Where the change is taking place, though, is in religious and spiritual rituals and services. While the music styles remain pop, rock, hiphop and even heavy metal, the genres overflow with religious symbolism and the love of God. Sacred music is transformed by and in the culture industry's mantle. The profane of the past (when rockn'roll was criticized as the work of the devil) is now a major driver for meaning making.

Sylvie Shaw, 2012

Questions
- Do you agree with the critique of Adorno and Horkheimer about popular music?
- Is the audience passive or active - watching shows like Pop Asia or MTV or viewing/listening via social media?
- How re yout tastes in music defined?
- How have perspectives to sacred music changed,  from what to what, and what is your definition of a new genre of sacred music? 

References
Adorno, T.W. and M. Horkheimer. 2002. Dialectic of enlightenment: philosophical fragments. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Berryman, G. C. Martin, W. Champion, J. Buckland. 2011. Paradise. EMI Records Ltda

Image Source: http://pixabay.com/en/elephant-plasticine-model-animal-20071/

Rapping the Gap

An innovative Aboriginal mentoring program in Queensland in combination with Desert Pea Media has produced a couple of great vids. from Year 11 and 12 students at St. Teresas College in Abergowrie. The music and clips demonstrate issues around pride, love of place and home, connection to country, We Belong! and The Brotherhood!

 
Questions
- What is the role of rapping and media here?
- What do the lyrics and clip say about the connection to place and position?
- How significant are programs like mentoring and using the media to disseminate Traditional Owner values and perspectives more widely, and to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth?

Reference
Desert Pea Media. 2011. The Gowrie Boys Back with another track....
http://desertpeamedia.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/the-gowrie-boys-back-with-another-track/

Spirituality as Business; Spirituality as Heart

by Sylvie Shaw

Carrette and King (2012), in their article, Spirituality and the rebranding of religion, question the distinctions in the contemporary world between religion and spirituality. In particular, they scrutinise the effect on ethics and morality of a privatised spirituality as distinct from the ethics and morality of organised mainstream religion.

They point out that, for some people, communalised religious faith has been transformed through individualised practices - in what they term as a 'silent takeover of the religious' by spirituality (59). But rather than spirituality replacing religion per se, the authors look to western society's underlying economic (capitalist) rationale for the shift from mainline traditions to personalised beliefs and practices.

The authors explore Western historical thought from the Enlightenment, encompassing the the rise of secularism and more recently, the subsequent dilution of religious adherence and the parallel shift towards subjective rather than collective spiritual understandings and worldviews. Certainly, there still is a collective spirit but its collective practice has changed to online chatrooms, the purchase of self-help books en masse, and participation in a variety of workshops, rituals, and other personal development, mystical and magical seminars and courses.

Carrette and King argue that spirituality's emphasis on the individual is not isolated from its wider socio-economic and political positioning. Indeed, it is embedded in contemporary 'wordly' economics and 'socio-political consequences' (61). With this embeddedness in mind, they wonder if and how a 'capitalist spirituality' is operationalised through 'ideologies of consumerism and business enterprise' (61). They note how spiritual questions are normalised through this process.

In this somewhat simplified framework, the authors wonder why spirituality compared to mainline faith does not challenge the status quo, or to use their words, why spirituality is not 'troubling'? ( 62). They desire, or seem to be searching for, a spirituality that is not embedded within or accepting of a neoliberal raiment, but one that is socially engaged and responsible - involved in movements around equity and justice - in other words - a mindful spirituality rather than a market spirituality.

The problem they see is that religion has been affected and influenced by a post-secular religious and spiritual change. To some extent, relgions' collective spirit has been diluted through the observation (by Grace Davie) of believing not belonging / belonging not believing. But more directly, Carrette and King are critical of those theorists of religion who have noted the shift towards personalised spirituality but have not grounded this subjective shift into a broader context of political economy analysis.

Carrette and King worry that the trend to self-styled spirituality will loosen mainline religions' understandings of, and undertakings in, compassion and communal experience. But rather than a one sided critique, the authors redeem themselves through a realisation that religion too is incorporated within the world of economics, business and consumerism, i.e. it also invites these perspectives into their understanding of contemporary shifts in religious traditions. Religion is business and economics - as well as compassion and community.

In this way, it is not a question of religion versus spirituality or religion embracing spirituality, but religion and spirituality both playing in the world of capital, branding their material and non-material goods through commodification, media and consumerism, for the benefit of all who delve and devote. But in this 'economically-driven' globalised world, what happens the authors ask, to meaning, to community, to tradition and to care of the other? (65).

Questions
 Is there a distinction between divine religion and worldly spirituality?
- How is religion diluted in a world of capitalist spirituality?
- Why are the authors concerned about the effect on community and compassion in an economically-driven globalised faith?

Reference
Carrette J. and R. King. 2012.Spirituality and the re-branding of religion. In G. Lynch & J. Mitchell, Eds., Religion, Media, Culture. A Reader. 58-69. London: Routledge.

Image Source
http://pixabay.com/en/abstract-blue-bright-christmas-19801/

The Beauty in Diversity

by Sylvie Shaw

Working in the twin fields of media and religion I often wonder about how and when they converge or diverge. The more I think about the issue, the media creates the opportunity for different expressions of religion. But as technology expands the mind, and the mind grabs the new technology, does it make the world any more peaceful? Environmentally responsible? More respectful of difference and diversity?

Similar questions are being asked by theorists who hitherto have steered clear of religious discourse. Moved by the advent of increasing religiously-based conflict, as well as shifts in religious expression to subjective and self-styled spirituality on one hand, and collective fundamentalisms on the other, the sharp observers of changing societies have turned their attention to religion. Ulrich Beck and Jurgen Habermas are just two of the theorists who I love to learn from.

in his thought-provoking paper, Religion in the Public Sphere, Habermas (2005) asks: 'How does the constitutional separation of state and church influence the role which religious traditions, communities and organizations are allowed to play in the political public sphere and in the state in general, but above all in the political opinion and will formation of citizens themselves?'

In a secular country like Australia, with freedom of religion enshrined in the nation's legal framework, it is relevant then to consider the role of the media in affecting or even influencing political opinions or social attitudes, especially those held about people considered 'other'.

Recent research conducted by Griffith University's Mohammad Abdalla and Halim Rane titled 'The impact of media representations on the understanding of Islam and attitudes towards Muslims in Queensland', has shown how important the media is in affecting, in some way, people's attitudes and values about another person's religion and ethnicity.

Now the media is known for its narrowly-framed reporting of Islam and Muslims (Said 1997), but alongside Edward Said's insightful scrutiny of the media's (negative) coverage of Islam, and Jack Shaheen's breathtaking critique of the place of Arabs in Hollywood since B&W movies, Reel Bad Arabs (2001), there also appears to be a limited level of knowledge and lack of religious literacy of Islam and Muslims among people living in S.E. Queensland (SEQ).

The study by Abdulla and Rane found that of the 500 people they interviewed in SEQ, 19% had no knowledge of Islam; 80% were unfamiliar with the Five Pillars of Islam; 30% had never met a Muslim while 37% rarely, and 33% occasionally, interact with Muslims. Despite this limited knowledge of Muslims and Islam, 78% of those interviewed were 'comfortable' with Muslims being part of Australian society', and 67% did not regard Muslims as a threat to Australia (although 23% did).

More worrying in this context was the finding that 79% of people interviewed rely on the media for their information including knowledge of Islam and Muslims, although the media has been known to stereotype and marginalise Muslims. But in saying that, 63% regard the media's reporting and representation of Islam and Muslims as 'negative (unfair, biased, inaccurate, stereotypical, misrepresentative, sensationalist)'.

The report concludes that overall, people in SE Queensland are mainly supportive of Muslims being part of Australian society... but only 14% agreed that 'accepting Muslims was in-keeping with the free, democratic, and multicultural nature of Australian society.' So what does it mean if people are comfortable with Muslims being part of Australia's community but are less interested or less willing to be accepting of this group?

At a time when there is a real need for building positive communication and creating understanding with Muslims and others, a lack of religious literacy can be a hindrance to social cohesion. In light of this, perhaps one could turn to expressions of civic duty and/or civil religion as a way of encouraging a shift in attitude towards Islam. Habermas (2005) reflects on the relationship between civic duty and religious conviction and, with justice in mind, he refers to the work of Robert Audi and Nicholas Wolterstorff (1997:105) who, in their book Religion in the Public Sphere: The Place of Political Conviction in Political Debate, state:

'It belongs to the religious convictions of a good many religious people in our society that they ought to base their decisions concerning fundamental issues of justice on their religious convictions. They do not view it as an option whether or not to do it.'

One hopes that in a secular and multifaithed country as Australia, that issues of justice and communal responsibility would not only arise from those motivated by religious convictions but also from convictions arising from one's civic duty and human acceptance towards people referred to as other.

Questions
- How could a sense of civic duty or community responsibility generated in relation to Muslims and Islam so people are more accepting of the religion and the people, given that 40% of Muslims in Australia are born here.
- Can religion education about Islam, or programs like Little Mosque on the Prairie, help reduce the lack of knowledge and understanding of Islam?
- How should journalists and media producers be 'taught' about the specific dimensions of Islam - so that their reporting can be better contextualised and informed?

References
Abdalla M. and H. Rane. The Impact of media representations on the understanding of Islam and attitudes toward Muslims in Queensland. Griffith University.
http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/58315/Rane.pdf Audi R. and N. Wolterstorff. 1997. Religion in the Public Sphere. The Place of Political Conviction in Political Debate. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Habermas J. 2005. Religion in the public sphere. Lecture presented at the University of San Diego, March 4,    http://www.sandiego.edu/pdf/pdf_library/habermaslecture031105_c939cceb2ab087bdfc6df291ec0fc3fa.pdf
Said E. 1997 (1981) Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World. London: Vintage Books.
Shaheen J. 2001. Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. Olive Branch Press.

Image source: http://pixabay.com/en/citadel-hill-amman-jordan-holiday-2969/

Writing for Spirituality and Self

by Sylvie Shaw

Several years ago, when I was contemplating going back to university after 25 years, I was fearful of university expectations and the way one was supposed to think and write. I questioned my own background in media and journalism where I often felt I knew a little about many different things - but the depth of information about issues, and their historical, political, philosophical and social foundations and significances were lost in deadlines, organisation and ratings.

When I arrived back at university (no, not at UQ), I struck a lecturer who insisted that one had to follow his way of thinking and approaching research. Students undertaking postgraduate studies were required to agree to the position: 'Reality is something out there'. By that he meant that issues of spirituality, feelings, religion, or things 'in here', were not valued in the academic (or at least his academic) sphere.

Then I met other lecturers who supported heartfelt, creative and spiritual approaches to study, and I am indeed indebted to Prof Gary Bouma and Dr Peter Cock. While studies in religion and spirituality, and ecopsychology were etic, students were encouraged to explore their own ideas of spirituality and ecospirituality. One way we did this was through weekend fieldwork camps where we spent time alone in nature, planted trees as a class, built sculptures on the beach, shared meals and music, and held seasonal rituals.

Before embarking on a return to uni journey, I wanted to learn from people whose books I had read and loved. So I wrote to a handful of lecturers and researchers who engage with Indigenous people, shamanism, ecophilosophy, spirituality and religion. I was seeking advice about coping with different and patriarchal ways of thinking and working. I was deeply grateful when I received supportive replies including a most marvellous letter. It was this hand-written note from Deborah Bird Rose, now professor of Social Inclusion at Macquarie University, that affirmed my decision to go back to school. Not long before I also had met a group of inspirational Aboriginal women from N.E. Arnhem Land who somehow steered me towards spirituality and to learning new ways of seeing and being. The decision was sealed.

In Rose's reply she suggested I read something from one of my favourite writers at the time (and still), the science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin. But it wasn't science fiction she directed me to, it was the Commencement Address at the Bryn Mawr College in 1986. The address is located in Le Guin's essay collection, Dancing at the edge of the world: thoughts on words, women, places (1989) and also online. The talk she gave to the students inspired me to step into a new world and 'learn the language of power - to be empowered.'

Perhaps things have changed somewhat since Le Guin spoke of the differing languages one uses and one needs to use to be in the world - at least I hope so.

References
Le Guin U. 2003 (1986). Bryn Mawr Commencement Address. Serendip. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/leguin/

The images are taken from two issues of the Gatherings ecopsychology zine, The land down under (2000-2001), and The Monash University issue (2003), http://www.ecopsychology.org/journal/ezine/gatherings.html

Lizard by the Lake

by Sylvie Shaw
The lizard came to visit. It was inquisitive, beautiful, brave, even a little brazen. It showed no fear of humans - but humans showed their fear of something other. In places of beauty, one comes quietly, with respect and humility. To experience the beauty of the wind's breath, to spend time with the glory of nature, and to be peaceful - these are moments to treasure. To become less mind-fogged and more in touch with the body of nature.

We sit, at the edge of the lake, under tall paperbarks. Cradled within this micro-forest, the thud of the ever-present building and traffic noise dulls to silence. All I hear is the shrill calling of waterbirds and the swishing of swirling wind. In this place of calm stillness, thoughts turn inward, reflections appear, time slows.

The American writer, farmer and environmentalist, Wendell Berry, writes so poignantly about this reflective inner sense of place and peace. It's a place to  connect with 'the grace of the world' and engage, deeply, with the earth's splendour. His poem is called 'The Peace of Wild Things'.

When despair for the world grows in me
And I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's life may be
I go and lie down where the wood drake
Rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
Who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

A Spiritual Landscape

by Sylvie Shaw

In a special edition of the journal Social and Cultural Geography (2009, 6), the authors Dewsbury and Cloke (2009) provide a fascinating insight into a discourse one least expects dealing with issues of religion and spirituality. Why geography? What is the relationship between geography and religion?

They begin by acknowedging the resurgence of religion which has brought studies of religion into a variety of scientifically-focused, rationality-based, interdisciplinary research perspectives  - including geography. In fact, it seems as if the global and local changes in religious practices are so compelling, that religion is now applicable to, and being examined by many different academic discourses (from ecology to neuroscience). In fact, the first article in the journal Social & Cultural Geography which raised connections between geography and religion was written over 40 years ago (Yorgason & Della Dora 2009). It was seen then as 'frontier territory' (630).

As editors of this special edition of the journal, Yorgason and Della Dora do not simply add religious studies' frames to geography, instead they question the fundamental problems that arise when trying to merge or link two different academic styles. They argue that:

'Religion blurs geographical scales and conceptual boundaries: those between the self and the world, life and death, the local and the universal, the private and the public, the introvert and the political, the fixed and the mobile, or, in [Lily] Kong’s words, between politics and poetics (2001).' (Yorgason and Della Dora 2009:631).

A religious or spiritual geography looks to territory and spatiality, to sacred places and sacred spaces which inspire deep connections with the transcendent, where individuals seek insight, clarity, transformation and reverence. Dewsbury and Cloke (2009) explain that a shifting religio-geography can take a the macro (global) stance and also focus on local (micro) positionings, reducing the local still further to the self - where the intensity of religious and ritual performance is observed to be (and is being) written on the body. This new enspirted territory is sacralised in the way individuals experience religous and spiritual connections with a transcendent or immanent other - and how this experience is transmitted in and through embodied performance, individually and collectively in rituals and services.

This commentary reminds me of Birgit Meyer's (2006) significant paper on sensations and aesthetics. The body engages sensually with the elements and symbolism embedded in text, ritual and collective worship. According to Meyer, religion 'refers to the ways in which people link up with, or even feel touched by, a meta-empirical sphere that may be glossed as supernatural, sacred, divine, or transcendental.'  Underlining this definition of religion is the beauty of relationship with the sacred other, however one defines that sacred other - as place, space or body.

Meyer, like the geographers seeking to embed a spiritual geography within their scholarly discourse, seeks to promote a binding movement towards the re-enchantment of religious faith and practice. Max Weber's observation of the disenchantment of religion has been transformed (or has transformed itself) into an enticing reformulation, one that blends privatised-subjective belief and practice systems with collective worship, and where the personal-individual relationship with the sacred other is celebrated alongside and within the communal outpourings of effervescence in ritual, worship, and performance.

These changes are increasingly apparent, Meyer (2006) explains, in forms of religions that embrace popular culture and contemporary music and art forms. But, in reflecting on the use of pop culture and contemporary (and fashionable) mediated genres, including online approaches, Meyer seems to be reaching out to the geographers with her statement that:

In order to account for the richness and complexity of religious experience, we need theoretical approaches that can account for its material, bodily, sensational and sensory dimension. The problem with, for example, interpretative approaches in the study of religion is that they tend to neglect the experiencing body at the expense of a focus on religious representations that are submitted to a symbolic
analysis.' (Meyer 2006:19, my italics).

These illuminating shifting territories, religion with geography, sacred with profane, transcendence with immanence, space with feeling - are bound up with shifts in the mediated expressions of religion and spiritualities. As Hollywood lifts its (and our) spirits with forays into witchcraft and vampirism, and religion is mediated in online celebratory practices, and a host of commodified and symbolic objects and processes, Weber's disenchanted spaces of religion disperse from fixed places of worship to more mediatized conduits, languages, and territories (Hjarvard 2008). These, indeed, can be re-enchanting and uplifting places.

Questions:
Why do other discourses outside of religion and spirituality wish to engage with religion?
In what ways is the media responsible, in part, for the shifts in pop cultural religion? Of course, these shifts do not come out of a vacuum but relate to the social, historical and political changes in modernity to multiple modernities, or what Zygmunt Bauman might call ' liquid modernities'.

Refences 

Bauman Z. 2000. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Dewsbury JD and P Cloke. 2009. Spiritual Landscapes: Existence, Performance and Immanence. Social & Cultural Geography 10(6):695-711.

Hjarvard S. 2008. The Mediatization of Religion. Northern Lights, 6 (1): 9-26.

Meyer B. 2006. Religious Sensations. Why Media, Aesthetics and Power Matter in the Study of Contemporary Religion. Inaugural Address, Vrije University. http://dare.ubvu.vu.nl/handle/1871/10311.

Yorgason E. and V. Della Dora. 2009. Geography, Religion, and Emerging Paradigms: Problematizing the Dialogue. Social & Cultural Geography 10(6): 629-637.

Image source: http://pixabay.com/en/nature-animals-life-13752/

The Beauty (and the Power) of the Media

by Sylvie Shaw

When I watch the news, I find that much of the reporting is framed with back-imagery without any reference to when or where the images were taken. People commenting in news programs seem to have less and less to say, or are allowed less and less time to speak. And the effect? A kind of knowledge illiteracy, perhaps?

On the other hand, there are wonderful journalistic pieces, often tucked away in the mid-pages of a newspaper or in an online mainstream or alternative news site. Here is where to seek background, in-depth, fascinating information - to be informed.

My favourite journalist for informative reporting and in-depth analysis is Robert Fisk from the UK's The Independent newspaper. Fisk, this week, reports on the situation in Syria and, as someone who covered the Balkans war in the 1990s, he reflects on the parallels between the two conflicts.

'No entry to the International Red Cross. Not yet. Maybe in a few days, when the area has been secured. Men and boys separated from the women and children. Streams of refugees. Women, children, the old, few males. Stories of men being loaded on to trucks and taken away. Destination unknown. Devastation. No journalists, no freedom of movement for the UN. The place was called Srebrenica.' (Fisk 2012).

But then, just when we are swept back into the memory of the massacre of Bosnian Muslim men in Srebrenica, Fisk pulls us back into reality with a warning: 'Parallels are seductive, dangerous, frightening, often inaccurate.' But then he goes on to explain why the scenes, then in Bosnia and now in Syria, have similar trajectories.

When we take time to read a story from a well-respected journalist like Robert Fisk who has spent much of his life reporting on the Middle East, we become informed, but more than that, we recognise the compassion that one journalist brings to the understanding of conflict and the plight of peoples.

Questions
-What is the relationship between reporting and religion?
- When a journalist reports on a religious conflict like the Balkans in the 1990s, or the religious excesses of other conficts from Afghanistan to the Sudan, do they need to be specialist reporters such as Fisk?
- Why is it important to have specialist journalists who can engage with indepth religio-political questions and backgrounders, compared to the superficial, 2-5 second grab about issues at the heart of the globalised world?

Reference

Fisk R. 2012. Robert Fisk: Is Homs an echo of what happened in Srebrenica? The Independent, March 7. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/

Image source: http://pixabay.com/en/alphabet-antique-character-15461/

The Idea of the Holy

by Sylvie Shaw

Rudolf Otto, back in the 1920s, wrote a beautiful book called The Idea of the Holy. In it he talked about the experience of the holy or sacred, describing it as a relationship with the numinous, the unexplainable, the unknowable mysterious 'other', that is fascinating and enticing but also fearsome and fearful at the same time.


The expressions he used come from the Latin. The numinous and mysterious, he said, are both fascinans (fascinating) and tremendum (terrifying). They relate to the 'ineffable core of religion' (Durham 2011), that is the mysterium or the wholly other, that is beyond,  the more than and eternal; it eludes understanding.

Otto (1936: 13) states the mysterium tremendum 'may burst in a sudden eruption up from the depths of the soul with spasms and convulsions, or lead to the strangest excitements, to intoxicated frenzy...It has its wild and demonic forms... [or] ... it may be developed into something beautiful and pure and glorious.' Among the dimensions of this 'extraordinary' and 'unfamiliar' feeling are: Awe or 'religious dread' (14), where the mysterious 'touches the feelings' (15) and the individual trembles in its sight. From there emerges a sense of 'Overpoweringness', an experience of the majesty and power of the holy other, where the self is encompassed within the transcendent and oneness with God (20). The third element of the tremendum is an 'urgency' enacted as vitality, passion, force and excitement and felt two fold - within the wrath of God or the blazing fire of God's love (23).

Wonder and bliss are the participants'  reward. These sensations or religious experiences are felt in wilderness places, spiritual places, places of splendour and grace, where rituals guide participants towards the transcendental (beyond) and the internal (within or self-transcendence). Felt experiences - internal and external - are constantly in movement revealed as two intertwining and unravelling cords. These encounters with the numinous are edgy, captivating, enticing, but there's a sense of danger or the unexpected too. At such times, the virtues of graciousness and gratitude, beauty and aesthetics are apparent, says Otto, in the experience of solemn 'private devotion' (36) and in 'bliss or beatitude' (32).

In the outdoors, in a beautiful space - at sea, deep in a lush forest or high on a mountain top or in a religious building of grandeur - in places where the veil between worlds is thin, or where the portal to other realms is open, perhaps these places of such aesthetic sacredness, participants may be overawed, or overwhelmed by the combination of atmosphere, surroundings, and sensually-alluring beauty of place and space. Here participants can be overpowered through (or wedded within) their experience of the transcendent, where the self is subsumed, and the individual is enlivened by a connection with the mysterious, fearsome and attractive other. In these spaces of insight and wonder, participants may celebrate their deeply flowing interconnection with the holy or sacred other.

Questions:
Why are such experiences so captivating? Have you ever had that experience of oneness with all things? A kind of peak or sacred experience which could be felt in the outdoors, in a religious establishment, or in aspects of your life in connection with the transcendent? What as it about your experience that shifted your awareness or deepened your feelings of spirit or change?

References:
Durham J.C. Rudolf Otto's The Idea of the Holy 1: Summary,
http://www.bytrentsacred.co.uk/index.php/rudolf-otto/the-idea-of-the-holy-1-summary
Otto R. 1936. The idea of the Holy: an inquiry into the non rational factor in the idea of the Divine. London: Oxford University Press, http://www.archive.org/stream/theideaoftheholy00ottouoft#page/12/mode/2up
Image source:
http://pixabay.com/en/nepal-himalayas-bird-wilderness-412/

Update on Wellbeing and Religion

by Sylvie Shaw

A US study in December 2010 showed that people who are religious lead healthier lives. The study conducted by Gallup Poll showed that people who are 'very religious' are healthier than people who are less religious, or have no religion. 

The Gallup study by Newton et al. (2012) indicated that the scale used to determine what makes someone more or less religious (and thus more or less healthy?) is based on attendance at church or a self-reported assessment of religion. 

But Grace Davie (1990) in the U.K. has shown that not all believers actually attend church (believers not belongers), and that people may attend church for reasons other than belief such as social relationships (belongers not believers). Despite Davie's cogent observation, the Gallup research found that very religious people are healthier, do more exercise, eat better and smoke less than less religious or non religious individuals. 

But this may be the American situation with its stronger emphasis on religious adherence. The authors also suggest there may be other explanations for the results. 'It may also be possible that certain types of individuals are more likely to make healthy lifestyle choices and more likely to choose to be highly religious...Those who capitalize on the social and moral outcomes of religious norms and acts are more likely to lead lives filled with healthier choices' (Newton et al. 2012).

Perhaps there is a scholarly moral to this story. Take care to not assume that the American religion-scape is similar or comparable to Australia's diverse multifaithed society.

For information on the make-up of the American religio-scape, see the PEW website listing the religious affiliations of Americans, e.g. 23.9% Catholic; 26.3% Evangelical; Mainline Protestant 18.1%; Unaffiliated 16.1%. It also includes: 1.7% Mormon, 1.7% Jewish, 0.7% Buddhist, 0.6% Muslim and 0.4% Hindu.

References 

Davie G. 1990. Believing without belonging: Is this the future of religion in Britain? Social Compass 37(4): 455-469. 

Newton F., S. Agrawal, and D. Witters. 2012. Very religious Americans lead healthier lives. Relationship holds when controlling for key demographics. Gallup Wellbeing. Gallup, Inc. http://www.gallup.com/poll/145379/religious-americans-lead-healthier-lives.aspx
PEW. 2010. US religious landscape survey. The PEW Forum on Religion and Public Life. http://religions.pewforum.org/affiliations

Image source

http://pixabay.com/en/web-forest-church-pier-bridge-1677

Spirituality, Wellbeing and Youth

by Sylvie Shaw

Do young people with faith have a sense of wellbeing?  In an article in the International Journal of Children's Spirituality, one of the articles on the whole issue on wellbeing addresses the relationship between spirituality and wellbeing.

The author, John Fisher (2009) suggests that spirituality can be a woolly concept to define. And the whole area of youth, spirituality and wellbeing is a little researched field. In particular, he cites Houskamp, Fisher and Stuber (2004: 223) who claim: '...the research in spirituality in children and adolescents is still at an early stage and is highly dependent on interviewing and other qualitative research techniques to generate hypotheses, with no established body of research to develop reliable and valid quantitative measures.' 

Another article in the same journal by Hodder (2009:198), Spirituality and well-being: 'New Age' and 'evangelical' spiritual expressions among young people and their implications for well-being, starts off by acknowledging, importantly: 'Young people today seem to be at the nexus of a changing society'.  

What was significant in Hodder's research was that spirituality was regarded by both new agers and evangelicals as relational' rather than 'individualistic'. She found thatHow  young people, regardless of either religious perspective, valued autonomy and independence in their spiritual and religious views and practices. They recognised an autonomy over doctrine compared with autonomy within a 'collective communal orientation' (205).

She concludes with this plea: 'In order for society to function well, it could be argued, it is necessary for its individuals to be well. Relationships are at the heart of this understanding and provide the framework for understanding spirituality and its links to well-being.' (209). 

Reflection

How do you respond to Hodder's concern? In a secular nation, how would or should the government respond to these themes? Would you like to take up more research in this field?

References

Fisher J. 2009. Getting the balance: assessing spirituality and wellbeing among children and youth. International Journal of Children's Spirituality 14(3): 273-288.

Hodder J. 2009. Spirituality and well-being: 'New Age' and 'evangelical' spiritual expressions among young people and their implications for well-being. International Journal of Children's Spirituality 14(3): 197-212.

Image source:

http://pixabay.com/en/monarch-butterfly-butterflies-18383/

Low Key Religion

by Sylvie Shaw

Journalist Barney Zwartz (2011), on the website The Media Project, has stated that 'Australians are much more low-key about their religion' than the U.S. In America, he says, 40% of people are church attendees, whereas in Australia it is around 9%. He makes this comment in consideration of the limited number of journalists in Australia who are responsible for reporting religious issues.

However, the ABC, especially Radio National, covers religion in multiple ways: through its online site - Religion and Ethics as well as several radio programs including Sunday Nights with John Cleary (on 612 in Brisbane), and Encounter and The Spirit of Things on Radio National, and Sunday Night Safran on JJJ.

Coupled with the mainstream media's approach to religion reporting, is the attitude towards teaching religion education in schools. At the moment in Queensland, the subject, which covers religions of the world, is taught in private schools with, as far as I know, only one state school having a similar world religions' approach to religion teaching.

In early March this year, ABC News (Bennett 2012) reported on a case before Victoria's Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) which focused on the right of school students not to have to attend religious education classes. The case brought by parents, questions the policy of the State Education Department towards RE (broadly defined). As they do not want their children involved in RE classes, the students can opt out, but, the parents claim, there is no provision for effective secular education alternatives for that period. The parents argue this approach is discriminatory.

Reflections
What do you think is the problem here?
- Should there be a more informed media about religion issues in Australia?
- Do you think that a course covering the diversity of world religions, including contemporary spiritualities, is important?
- Do you think there could be a relationship between knowledge and experience of an other's religion and a level of acceptance and understanding of other religious beliefs and practice?

References
Bennett J. 2012. Religious education 'discriminatory' tribunal told. ABC News, March 1. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-01/religious-education-27discriminatory27-tribunal-told/3862594
Zwartz B. 2011. Ignorance, Intolerance & Religion News, The Media Project, Sept 19. http://themediaproject.org/article/religion-media-view-australia?page=0,0

Image Source
Pixabay: http://pixabay.com/en/old-book-bible-religion-ornament-15487/