Spirituality & Health

On the Virtue of Knowing Nothing

The very title of this blog, “Spiritual Search,” puts doubt and open-mindedness at the center of our endeavor. Think about it. If we already know the answer, why even begin the sea…

Spirituality & Health

Confessions of a Born-Again Agnostic

How many times during the day—if ever—do the following three words pass your lips? “I don’t know.” My answer to that question is “Not enough.” Our culture—at lea…

Spirituality & Health

What Makes Scripture Holy?

What makes scripture “holy?” Ask that question to a fundamentalist Christian, and the answer is simple. “The Bible is the literally the word of God,” some Christians will tell yo…

Spirituality & Health

When Less is More

There’s an underground spiritual movement in the United States that has grown so quietly over the last few decades that you may not even know you’re part of it. To find out if yo…

Spirituality & Health

Put Yourself At the Center and You Can’t Go Wrong

I live in a country where we drive on the right (not the correct, but literally the right) side of the road, and our cars have steering wheels located on the left side of our cars.…

Spirituality & Health

Buddhism and the Twelve Steps

For some addicts, hitting bottom and having a spiritual awakening are the first steps along the path of recovery. That's why Alcoholics Anonymous, the oldest and largest of the twe…

Spirituality & Health

Defining the Indefinable

“Spiritual” starts to lose its meaning when you turn on the TV and hear a middle-aged guy in a car commercial use the “S” word to describe the feeling he gets when he climbs beh…

Spirituality & Health

Deep Offline: The Next Wave of Community Organizing

In today’s social movements, there is typically online organizing (“Click here to do this good thing”) and there is offline organizing (“Excuse me, ma’am, would you sign this petit…

Spirituality & Health

Enter the Nones

Editor’s Note: Welcome Don Lattin, a veteran journalist and the author of five books on religion and spirituality in America. His most recent, Distilled Spirits—Getting High,…

Spirituality & Health

"Life of Pi": A Journey of Spirit and Survival

Like Pi Patel, the brave young protagonist of Yann Martel’s Booker prize-winning novel Life of Pi, Ang Lee attempted what was thought to be impossible when he decided to bring this…

Spirituality & Health

Lacking Self-Love? Adopt These 7 Habits

As the chocolate buzz of Valentine’s Day fades, I find myself thinking about radical acts of self-love. Over the last week I’ve polled my friends, asking them for their take on the…

Spirituality & Health

5 Minutes of Marvel: How to Practice Extreme Awe

We’re still in that time of year when we challenge ourselves to create new and healthier habits. The newspapers are full of specials for gym memberships and packages of yoga classe…