The religious itch

"And the people sat down to eat, and rose up to play" Exodus 32:6.

Anthropology (in some cases) defines religion as things which 'establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations by providing a frame of reference for existence'.

How does that work, then, when you're tied to a particular lifestyle - secularism perhaps, or slavery?

If you're soaked in the secular, you might at times feel you're chained to certain constant demands (is it any wonder that social media has brought a rise in suicide?). If you're a bonded slave, you might well be yearning for a little of that secular lifestyle, but either scenario probably makes you more 'religious' than your recognize, because it tethers you in exactly the way that the anthropologist would note.

When the Israelites lost sight of Moses (and thereby, God) at Mount Sinai, they went all out for the secular option. They'd spent years in servitude amidst a culture that seemed to invent a new god whenever the need arose, so they thought it was as good a time as any to become guilty of the 's' word... shopping for their own new god.

It's readily clear what they wanted here - having a ruling principal personified that allowed for plenty of rest and play, in other words, any image or idol shouldn't do or need anything more than to validate their own wants and desires.

There it is.
We think religion is about something 'other worldly' - venerating what's unseen (and therefore, almost certainly unknowable), but that wasn't the religion seen in this incident, and numerous others. Religion, it turns out, is the most down to earth part of what you and I do in the hum-drum, everyday stuff of life - our yearning for more in the mundane, which is why sex, drugs and escapism are always so major - we profoundly want more than for it just to be mundane.

Some, of course, tell us that there isn't anything more... and go on to make a religion out of that telling (see, even they cannot get past the need to scratch that itch), but we all know that behind the monotony we are buried in, there are stars (markers within and without) which occasionally glimmer and shock us, reminding us of something deeply true.

Beyond the slavery of the secular, beyond our burying ourselves in the moment, the deeper reality calls and longs for us to be more... than just.... religious.