Bob Schwartz

Religious traditions tend to grow into specialness or spectacle. It is a combination of leaders wanting it that way, believing that it helps expand the following, and followers who want and appreciate it. If it is special then they too are special. Every tradition is susceptible to going and growing this way.

Religion at its heart is ordinary. Every tradition has had those who question and reject the extraordinary and the special. It is simple, they say, though years, decades, centuries of add-ons have embellished and sometimes hidden that. It’s like a spring of refreshing and clean water around which a huge and complex and even polluting bottling plant has been built.

If you are a leader or follower, consider the original simplicity of your tradition. You may find that the ordinary is at its heart. “We are special” or “We are spectacular” or “We are better and above others” is not what the originators knew and had in mind.

Believe in the ordinary. Believe in nothing special.