Religion vs. Spirituality

Our class discussion on whether the Wallace Stevens poetry was religious or not made me deeply consider the difference between religion and spirituality. I do not think that the poetry is religious. It does have strong religious undertones, but the words themselves suggest a more spiritual influence. Someone in class (I think Ted?) brought up the fact that since the poetry is individualistic, the group cohesion and identity aspect of religion is lost. This is excellent proof that the poetry is more spiritual than anything else because spirituality is a very personal thing that each individual has within themselves. The main difference between religion and spiritualism is that organized religion has more specifics. Spiritualism could have the same belief in an all-knowing higher being, but there are no set guidelines in which to follow. In the poem “Sunday Morning”, which we analyzed in class, Stevens describes a woman who is not using religion, but personal spiritualism as her overall frame. The woman is looking for something beyond herself, but instead of turning to religion, she creates her own “religious” themes to add to her spirituality, such as fraternity, worship of reality, a vision of paradise, etc. In addition, the abstract art that we looked at last week has these same semi-religious undertones. As we discussed in class, the art is not outright religious; however, many people agreed that there were some religious undertones throughout the paintings. Abstract art is very debatable, and there are many different ways of interpretation, but in my opinion, the Jackson Pollock art can also be interpreted as a representation of one’s individual spirituality. There are some definite differences between religion and spirituality; however, the driving forces between them remain the same. This is why they can act as replacements for one another and be the overall frame for a number of people.