The other day a friend of mine a decided to enlighten me on Shamanism and animal spirit guides.
With my interest in politics the conversation inevitably spiralled down to guessing the animal spirit guides of particular Canadian politicians. (Preston Manning’s was the magpie)
I thought it might be interesting to blog on the possible spirit guides of each but then reality gripped my brain and I thought better of it.
In truth my friend had more or less bought into some popular new age first nations Christian mix of philosophies.
So I listened smiled and ignored the whole thing as nonsense dreamed up by some poor soul in search of a personal spirituality.
In truth we are all in search of a personal spirituality to a degree Some choose Buddah some Alalah some (like me) Jesus. So it was probably unjust of me to disregard her beliefs out of hand.
But my question is at what point are we making the search for spiritual truth into a popular game.
Can the search for an animal spirit guide be boiled down to a parlour game? Can the question what would Jesus do be made into a computer program? When does popularising aspects of faith, and making faith entertainment become degrading to that faith?
What Was I Trying To Say ? 
Hey Bill,
Faith has necessarily already been trivialized when it was relegated to the personal sphere. Now we are just left beating a dead horse.
Anonymous – I wasn’t saying as you seem to imply that spirituality is a personal creation, but a personal choice and practiced personally.
Yes this implies that religion is subjective. Unless you can offer concrete proof of your religion it can never be objective, and sorry to say, no one really can. All we can go by is our personal experience. This may sound esoteric but I have to go by the way my religion effects me inside because I can’t prove beyond a doubt it to myself or anyone else from external sources.
Christianity calls us to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Buddism is the search for Personal enlighhtenment.
I would say unless you take religion as a personal choice your faith is closer to that dead horse you were discussing.
I had a First Nation friend tell me that muskrats are my spirit guide. It’s because I often seek out water when I’m working stuff out. Muskrats have often been swimming nearby as I came to some difficult decisions.
I don’t know about spirit guides, but I take great comfort from the sight of a muskrat going about its business in springtime. I even posted on it once.
Good but tough questions. One thing that springs to mind is that some may feel a void and a need for spiritual truth but are unprepared to do the self-reflection that all religions require of us. In that case, spiritual parlour games become a substitute for reflecting over the Gospels, for example, and thinking deeply how they apply to our decisions and behaviour (and even thoughts).
Making faith entertainment may be more degrading to the person than to the faith as it exposes the person’s inability to grapple with the tough questions and truly understand that all quests for the truth are complex, painful, and not easy.
I gotta add your blog to my list of Links!
Parlour games may spur us to thought on a given topic, Maybe I underrate the idea of entertainment leading to serious thought on spirituality?
I Just find that Religion is often treated as another form of intelectual entertainment, that does not impact our lives. With the new upswing in Spiritual entertainment, like “the Passion of Christ” and the “Da Vinci Code”, are we making spirituality / religion of lesser value?
Do we think about God when it pleases us?