In Sync with the Sacred, Out of Step with the World

Book excerpt: What does it mean to live "in sync with the sacred?" For Tom Stella it means living an authentic life. It means stepping to the cadence of the sacred, which requires a specific type of courage: the courage to be different, to stand out, to be odd and perhaps even considered a threat by those who find their identity, comfort, and security in the status quo, the conventional. The good news is that we can do this while conducting our everyday lives. Unlike Thoreau, who felt he had to retreat to Walden Pond "to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach," we don't have to retreat to the woods. According to Stella, authenticity is first and foremost a matter of being attuned and responsive to the sacred within--to an instinct, an intuition, a sixth sense, a deep voiceless voice that can be "heard" even in a crowd. This inner guide may at times call us to live apart from others, but it surely summons us to follow a road less traveled; that is to turn away from the conventional wisdom of society, those ways of thinking, believing, and behaving that go unquestioned--busy is good, more is better, success equals wealth. Welcome to a refreshing version of spirituality.