I grew up in a small rural area in North East Arkansas where the only things that seemed to grow were cotton and churches. Some seasons it seemed that no matter how hard you worked, (and there is nothing about cotton that is not work), Mother Nature just refused to smile on you and all your efforts would be rewarded with little more than a boll pulling crop.

The churches “full of that good ole time religion” on the other hand always seemed to prosper. And best I can remember even in the worst of cotton times, the poorest members of the church would dig down deep in the pockets of their worn out pants and find at least some change to put in the offering plate when it was passed around. What’s more, sometimes the preacher, after spending over an hour yelling at the congregation, would look down into the offering plate and if he didn’t see what he liked, he’d pass it around again! And yell some more about how you were supposed to give at least a tenth of what you earned.

Even at that young age I knew that 1/10 of nothing is still nothing. But maybe our preacher didn’t have Miss Dixon for math so he didn’t know about this “new math”. I don’t know. But to this day I am sure some of the “better off people” of that little community would add more money to the plate just so we could all go home. All in all I figured Mother Nature had made a choice between cotton and church and the church got the better end of the deal.

So what does cotton and church have to do with spirituality. And just what is spirituality anyway?

Well the way I see it, spirituality was born out of the cotton fields. Even as a kid I noticed that people would go to church more during times when cotton was having a bad year. I think they prayed for better times.( I was praying for apples, but that’s a different story). I think in some way, people felt that a bad cotton crop was God’s way of punishing them for not going to church more often. Yup, I figure that was the beginning of Spirituality as we know it today. People needed a way to accept the bad things that happen in life without accepting any of the responsibility, and also without having to pay the money associated with a yelling preacher.

See, spirituality is defined in many ways depending on who you talk to. Here are a couple of the quickies:

1) Religion is man made, Spirituality is God given.

2) Spirituality is an adventure to self.

3) Spirituality is an individual relationship with Creator while religion is a group of individuals trying to live by what the preacher is yelling about.

4) With spirituality if none of the above definitions fit, you can make up your own. WIth religion if you don’t get it, you go to Hell. Pretty simple I guess.

Now while I am no expert in cotton, religion or spirituality I know that just like that preacher used people’s fears to extort more money from them on Sundays, people today use spirituality as a way to do whatever they damn well please while accepting no responsibility for the consequences of their actions. I have seen men and women cheat on their spouses following their spiritual path. Ask how something like this could be justified in any sort of sacred ideology and they quickly reply, “I don’t have the power to hurt anyone. If they get hurt it is because they choose to”.

Spirituality also is great in that it lets each person do whatever they want whenever they want. So in spirituality you can wear many hats at the same time and not be a hypocrite. For instance you can be a preacher, simply by saying you are. You can be a saint no matter your actions or the harm they may cause simply because you are on your spiritual journey and any harmful results are mere “life lessons” to the greater understanding.

Spirituality and religion have their good points I am sure. And I am sure that the majority of people do not abuse either. However I think for us laypeople separating those with good intentions and who are honestly led by God, from those who read a couple chapters of “Conversations with God” but did not complete the book, is impossible.

So I reckon this new wave of spirituality is really some of those people who was in church back then on them Sundays when the cotton season was a bad one, when the preacher was yelling, and they noticed everyone was paying for both when they passed the plate around.

But now about that apple……….