An ancient ritual in a chaotic time

The Winter Solstice is a potent reminder of our deepest instincts

We know that people in extremis find themselves praying to gods they have never believed in. And so it is that in a time of unprecedented confusion and oppression, ‘spirituality’ and religious discussions are surfacing everywhere. Even Peter Thiel commented on how the Enlightenment had ‘squeezed out’ any and all discussions of spirituality during a Harvard interview. He thought this was because of all the dreadful religious wars that such ‘discussions’ had unleashed in the past. I would never have expected such thoughts to issue from the Guru of Silicon Valley, and it stuck with me. Then there was a fascinating Unherd discussion with Paul Kingsnorth about the role of spirituality in a time like this and why he, Paul, thought that it was time to move the whole discussion about the pandemic and vaccine passports out of the realm of science—where we disagree—into the realm of spiritual values. Where we presumably agree??

Then I found a Netflix series called Messiah, which was rather well done, considering. Finally, I was having conversations about religion, spirituality and what it means in the modern world with a couple of my friends. In other words, with our backs against the cultural walls, we’ve returned to asking the old, fundamental questions: who we are, what do we believe in, and where are we going/what we are doing.

Thiel’s comment struck a nerve with me since The Enlightenment seems to be failing us in this time of extreme angst and cultural chaos. It seems that the old watchwords of Reason, Liberty and Equality no longer suffice. We need more if we are going to survive a time so divisive that even the venerable Munk Debates are calling for ‘a fight against polarization’, which is guaranteed to make us even more polarized. Humanity has always argued and waged bitter wars about ideas, and the current culture wars and deep disagreements about ‘the science’ of the pandemic are signals that we no longer have a unifying story. We, that is The Secular West, have lost the plot, thrown overboard the values we used to take for granted, and returning to what has served us in the past. But is a wholesale rehash of that old religion going to suffice?

You have to look no further than Jordan Peterson, who embodies this reworking of the old, tried and true Christian values. His 10 Rules are updates of the Old and New Testament for the current generation. And just like the original Bible, his books have been selling like hotcakes. As a lapsed Lutheran myself, his maxims sound familiar, and I have never understood why some people find them so threatening. It’s just Christianity in secular clothes.

Paul Kingsnorth is another example. Once a secular environmental warrior, he got disenchanted, turned to Catholicism and moved his family to a homestead in Ireland. From there he talks to the world and writes heavy books on how he can’t even find the language to describe his spiritual state. Here he is explaining how he changed his mind on vaccine passports and why he didn’t think I was going to be living in a time where we have arguments about tyranny, actually…

I for one cannot go back to religion. When Pastor Marx (that was his name!) threw me out of my Lutheran Youth Group because I had dared to suggest we read the German Classics as well as the Bible, he was being silly, but it made me realize that I could no longer pretend to be a believer. I never had been; for me, the Lutheran Church was a place where I could socialize and sing, and both were important to me. I wasn’t sure about God though Jesus made sense in some essential way. So, I could not pretend to be an agnostic, either. For me, neither Religion nor Science a la Dawkins were paths I could follow.

I had to go way back, 10,000 years, to be precise. During the annual Winter Solstice, I join thousands of people around the world who mark this day. This celebration is something archaic, something that predates the artificial division between Science and Religion that the Enlightenment gave us. It goes back 10,000 years, when prehistoric man searched the heavens for illumination and guidance in places like Stonehenge, Newgrange, Maeshowe, Mexico, Germany and Iran. They built enormous stone edifices so precisely calibrated that they were flooded with the light of the sun at the exact moment of sunset or sunrise. We believe that there were ceremonies, sacrifices and huge bonfires. And while all this is somewhat speculative, we know that these global festivals were about greeting with joy the return of the light.

On the longest night, our ancestors united in a ritual that recognized humanity’s place in the natural order of things. Which to them, was sacred as well as practical. The Light, that is the sun, was essential for their survival, and they studied the seasons because they realized how dependent they were on these natural cycles. But the rituals were spiritual as well. Light has always been both essential and symbolic, as the poet/prophet Leonard Cohen said: there is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.

The ancients were thus neither scientists nor religious practitioners; they were a bit of both as they followed the deepest instinct of our species. Which is to ask questions. To seek both practical and spiritual truths. The answers are ever changing, and therefore cannot define us. It is far more important to recognize that we are the only animal on earth whose deepest urge is to ask questions, to go beyond the purely material world we find ourselves in. We are, all of us, seekers, each in our individual way.

You could call that a religious instinct. I prefer to call it simply the human need to know. Science and Religion are both rooted in that self-same quest. Perhaps it’s time to honour both these strands of being in the world and to discover a new synthesis. This isn’t going to be simple. But I believe it is essential if the Western World with its enormous cultural achievements as well as its deep dysfunctions is going to find a path out of the current malaise. And there is one more thing: Jesus’ advice to Love your neighbour as thyself, is alas, impossible. But acting as if you did can be done. Give your Trumpian neighbour some slack. Stop judging everyone. Have some humility. None of us knows much. It is the only way out of the endless arguments that bedevil us, pace Munk Debates.

I am now going to get ready for today’s celebration of The Winter Solstice 2021. It is likely the precursor of what we now call Christmas, so I wish you all peace and hope for the New Year, no matter your denomination. Thank you for coming along for the ride and I hope to see you again in 2022.