Ever since my book The Spirituality of Pets came out last fall, people have asked a recurring question: "What's the difference between religion and spirituality?"
        Sociological studies by Reg Bibby and others suggest that people have lost interest in religion – at least, in organized religion – while their interest in spirituality increases.
        I remember asking a friend about some personal trials she had gone through.
        "It was tough," she agreed. "But my spirituality has grown enormously."
        "Which church do you go to?" I asked, innocently.
        "Oh, I don't go to any church," she replied. "Spirituality has nothing to do with church."
        Personally, my spirituality would falter and probably fail without the constant reinforcement of congregational worship. I need a regular reminder to search for – to be aware of – the divine presence in my life, in my relationships, in the world around me.
        So I don't think of religion and spirituality as two separate things. But I recognize that many people do.
        Religion often becomes duty; spirituality should be inspiration.
        Religion turns into routine and ritual; spirituality is always spontaneous.
        Religion can easily become a set of affirmations, stories, and unquestioned metaphors; spirituality recognizes that beyond anything we can express in words, there is always more, an unexpected amazement and awe.
        Religion is not necessarily wrong – and spirituality is not always right. Experiences of the holy can be misleading, even mistaken. Sometimes we need tradition and orthodoxy to distinguish weeds from flowers.

A sense of awe
        Early in the last century, German theologian Rudolf Otto coined the word "numinous" for spiritual experience. He defined it as a mysterious blend of fear and fascination – I prefer the term "awe"– that results from an encounter with a holiness, a divinity, a beauty, that transcends our comprehension.
        It's the kind of experience takes our breath away, that erases the barriers between creature and creation, between man and woman, between known and unknown. Momentarily, time ceases to exist. We no longer experience our relationship as "I-it," or even "I-you," (in the words of another German theologian, Martin Buber) but just as "us."
        Otto considered this "numinous" experience the foundation of all religions.
        All religions, as I see it, want their adherents to share the numinous experience. But numinous cannot be called forth on demand, like popping coins into a jukebox. It can't be imposed. So institutional religions try to recreate, through rituals and sacraments, as much as they can of the original experience.
        Sometimes the attempt works. A baptism, a Eucharist, a blessing, unexpectedly moves us to tears. Or joy.
        More often, unfortunately, it settles into routine. Ho-hum, here we go again.
        That's why pets have often been my spiritual mentors, I suppose. Because pets are institutionally challenged. They don't know how to turn an experience into a doctrine, a dogma. So each experience, divine or not, comes to them -- and thus to me -- as new, as fresh, as transitory as morning dew on grass.
        That's how spirituality should be.