Longing for Spiritual Spaces
Tl;dr: Check this one out! Images Instead of Words!
A few weeks back I wrote to invite you to Two Public Conversations on Faith and Religion.
You are invited to join us for the first conversation this Wednesday, July 1 at 3PM East.
The talks are related but not the same. You might want to come to one but be less interested in the other. Read on to learn more about each.
People wander for many reasons, but the hunger for meaning has a way of bending the path back toward shared ritual. What looked like departure may also be the beginning of return.
Here I offer a visual summary of what we are trying to do.
My desire is to continue to entice you to consider participating.
To prepare those of you who have already said yes.
And to provide something that you can share without asking your folk to read too many words!
And this note is about the first conversation.Why are people returning to religion? is about the phenomenon of people going back to organized religion. And how it connects or not to the way you relate to spirituality.
While this is a conversation about people returning to religion, I want to make sure you know you are invited if you are someone who never left. And I would also love to have you in the conversation if you are someone who would never consider experiencing your spirituality through organized religion.
I’m asking you to listen to this episode of The Daily so that we can start our conversation from a shared baseline and the same set of provocations: Why More Americans Are Seeking Religion?
REGISTER HERE and we’ll send you a calendar invite.
Work, wellness, astrology, activism, and spectacle can carry religious energy without fully holding a life. They offer intensity but not always belonging, mercy, or a home.
Many of us live close together and still ache with isolation. What people long for is not just contact but a community that shows up with a meal, with sincere care and compassion when things inevitably fall apart.
Ritual gives shape to time and has something of us in return. It marks seasons, losses, thresholds, and the slow work of becoming.
People gather in many camps, each with its own symbols and containers. The deeper question is whether there is a larger circle roomy enough to hold difference without losing depth?
Secular life became very good at dismantling inherited meaning. Now some are wondering whether, along with the harms that often come with organized religion we also abandon treasures we still need.
Not everyone comes by the same road, and not everyone is looking for the same thing, but many are searching for a place that can nurture our sense of awe before the mystery and the ineffable. A place where meaning, practice, and belonging meet.
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Why are people returning to religion?
Wednesday, July 1, 2026
3PM to 4:30PM East
What about Christianity?
Wednesday, July 8, 2026
3PM to 4:30PM East
REGISTER HERE and we’ll send you a calendar invite.
The second conversation is narrower, What about Christianity? is a conversation for people who have a relationship with Christianity. You don't have to be a churchgoer (though churchgoers are wanted and welcome!) nor do you have to call yourself a Christian.