Don't slam the windows on the Holy Spirit.

What's at stake when people say they're "spiritual, not religious"?

ABOUT TWELVE YEARS AGO I WENT ON RETREAT WITH a bunch of drunks, drug addicts, bikers, and ex-cons. A friend of mine was giving the retreat and he asked me to join him. I learned more about God that weekend than I had in the six and a half years I spent in the seminary.

The retreat was organized by a group of 12-step members. Most of the participants were in recovery. Even counting my brief stays at monasteries, I've never spent time with a more spiritually hungry group of people than I did that weekend. Listening to their heartfelt sharing, I got the clear sense that for many their desire for God was like the aching for air of someone held underwater for way too long. It was during that weekend I first heard the statement, "Religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell; spirituality is for people who have been there."

I arrived at that retreat with many preconceived notions about how the Spirit of God operates in this world. Those notions were soon shattered. I realized that I had put God in a box--a very small and uncomfortable box. I had succumbed to the temptation of believing that God worked only through the "one, true, holy, Catholic, and apostolic church." That, in effect, God was on the payroll of the Catholic Church.

Most of the people on the retreat that weekend had been raised religious, most of them Catholic. But when they finally found the power that would redeem them, if it happened in church, it wasn't upstairs in the main congregation. It was downstairs in a smoke-filled room--sitting around tables with fellow sufferers--that the hand of God stilled their anxious hearts and quenched their deepest thirst.

When I contrast my memories of that weekend with what I see at church most Sundays, I'm not surprised that I hear more and more people proclaim proudly that they are "spiritual, not religious." I may have missed that item in the tabloids, but when exactly did spirituality and religion get divorced? And what can we do about getting them to reconcile?

When I hear people say, "I'm spiritual, not religious," I am tempted to try to impress upon them the true and varied benefits of living within a religious tradition. There are clearly dangers to "going it alone." But I fear the greater danger is if the church--all of us from the pope on outward to all the parishes--fails to heed the important warning messages wrapped up in the mantra "I'm spiritual, not religious."

The first warning I pick up in that statement is that popular culture perceives religion as an empty shell, and the practice of religion as constricted and devoid of meaning. People see religion as hypocritical, juridical, and exclusive. They see religion stressing outward form and adherence separate from one's experience or conscience. Wherever this is true, we need to ask God's help to change it.

Another message I sense wrapped in this claim of being spiritual and not religious is that religion is only for those who live neat and tidy lives, that there's no room at the altar for the messiness people find within themselves. A friend of mine was down on his luck. He held a low-paying job and had suffered a number of medical setbacks. He found some solace in the church and asked to become a eucharistic minister. One Sunday he wore his best, clean blue jeans to Mass, the finest pair of pants he owned. Afterwards a number of self-appointed dress-code police scolded him for disrespecting Jesus. He was deeply hurt and shamed. I don't see him at Mass anymore, and my inquiries about his return get no response. I wonder how many people listen elsewhere for the fluttering of the Spirit's wings after run-ins with quality-control officers operating in our churches.

The next warning is also a blessing, and yet it may be the most difficult for church people to accept. The message is: Religion may indeed be a detriment to the experience of the Spirit. We religious people don't have exclusive and proprietary claim on the Holy Spirit's time and energies. Believing so, even subtly, lures Us into a spirit-stifling stance of grasping at mastery rather than opening up to mystery.

It's time to admit, not intellectually but with deference and respect, that there is far more truth about God in the world than we've managed to capture in our limited minds and hearts.

And rather than seeing only threats when we witness the blessings received by unorthodox seekers, we should fall on our knees in awe and gratitude that the Spirit so longs to connect with us that she will seek us out in whatever dark alley we might have strayed.

TOM MCGRATH, executive editor of U.S. CATHOLIC magazine.