What is Spirituality? Part VI: Illusions

Now that we have looked at our own Heart, we turn to God’s Heart. The movement from Illusion to Prayer is the move to look deeply into the heart of God and what God wants for us and the world. Traditionally, we have called this God’s Will, or the Way of God. 

Scott Haasarud, my Spiritual Director, used to like to say: “You can’t know God’s will ahead of time.” This upset quite a few people, because we Christians like to think we know exactly what God’s wants us to do in any given situation. But, if you take time to stop and think about this, that view is rather presumptuous. Oh, there are times when we can be pretty sure we are doing God’s will--as in feeding the hungry--but so much of life is not that clear, and it can be extremely difficult to put our own needs and wants to the side so that we can be more open to what God wants.

When I was in the parish, I used to ask people if they had ever done what I call “serious” Bible study, and, if so, when they first did that kind of study. By that I meant not devotional Bible study, or even spiritual meditation on Scripture, but the kind of rigorous study where, through the use of critical research and thinking skills, one tried to ascertain what a text meant in its original context, and then what it might mean for us today.

Most people admitted they had never done such study or, if they had, not until they were in their twenties or older. I then asked them if--when they finally did serious Bible study--they had already formed political, ethical and theological positions. And, of course, they admitted they did. In other words, they came to the Bible for the first time already having formed opinions on abortion, capital punishment, homosexuality, capitalism and socialism, what God is like, how sinful humans are, what we need to be saved from or for. Then, I continued, if you really want to know what is in God’s heart through the study of the Bible, you will need to try to suspend all of those previous views if you want to be open to what the Bible actually says.

German mystic Meister Eckhart put it this way: “Perfectly to will what God wills, to want what he wants, is to have joy.”  But before that can happen, we have to try to ascertain as well as we can what God’s Will is.  And before that, we need to honestly confront the illusions that get in the way of a deeper understanding of what God is calling us to do in any given situation. As Nouwen puts it, “It is only in the lasting effort to unmask the illusions of our existence that a real spiritual life is possible.’[Reaching Out, 80]

It is good to dream. The problem, however, as I stated above, is that we have usually created and begun to work towards our dreams long before we consider God’s dreams for us. Nouwen writes: “The idols of our dreams, however, are humbling reminders that we still have a long way to go before we are ready to meet our God, not the God created by our own hands or mind, but the God out of whose loving hands we are born.’” [85]

What, then, are some of our most common illusions?

The first are those things that we have traditionally labeled as “idolatry”, i.e. we worship them before we get around to worshiping God and what God wants. Examples are wealth, material things, success, addictions, comfort, power. Most of us church folk began making these kinds of lists when we were in Sunday School and Confirmation.

But there are many far more subtle illusions. One is the notion that we know what is best for ourselves, those we love, and the world. This is perhaps the most common form of prayer: asking, if not telling, God what needs to be done. I am not saying that we should not lift up our concerns and needs to God. But most of the time we go a step further, and assume that “we know best” what should be done, and this illusion leads to “disillusionment” when things do not go “our way.”

Another subtle illusion is the defining of faith not as trust in God, but as my power to make something true by believing it strongly enough. One might argue that this is a key part of our “original sin.” The story of Adam and Eve at the beginning of the Bible is in essence the story of humans deciding they did not want to do things God’s Way, but would rather make the rules themselves, including deciding what is good and evil. They wanted to usurp the power of God. They wanted to be in charge.

In my book I share the story of a group of people who believed in “faith healing” and wanted to “lay hands” on my wife, Pauline, as she was dying. As I wrote: “Although we regularly prayed for such healing, Pauline was not comfortable with the idea that such healing could only come through a certain person who supposedly had special gifts of healing.”  While the intention of these people was mostly positive, the result was that it made Pauline feel worse. As she wrote in her journal, “Am I being narrow-minded not to want people whose theology I disagree with to come and pray over me? Now I feel guilty. Am I dogmatic, scared, or purely retaining my beliefs and feeling secure in Your arms without people touching me and telling me that?” [164]

I have also experienced other situations when people who believe in this kind of faith healing imply, if not outright state, that if someone dies or is not healed, it is because they did not have a strong enough faith, or enough people--or the “right” people--praying for them.

Another form of this attempt to usurp God’s power with the illusion that we humans have the power, can be seen in a suspicion, if not outright disregard, for medicine, science and reason. An example of this is the way certain religious people are responding to the coronavirus pandemic. Science and reason are gifts from God and give us a way to save and protect life. However, some Christians assert that if you just believe strongly enough the virus will not affect you or those you love, or the stranger whom you are called by God to love. Spirituality sees faith as trust in God’s presence and love while we use science and medicine to try to save life. The second view of faith implies that the Christian should be suspicious of science and medicine and labors under the illusion that if we just believe strongly enough the virus will have no power over us. This is bad enough when it costs one’s own life. It is worse when it risks the life of our neighbor, whom God calls us to love as we love ourselves.

As we recognize and confess these illusions we then can be open to the deepest dynamics of prayer, which we will discuss in the next post.

What is Spirituality? Part V: Solitude

In the spiritual movement from Loneliness to Solitude, we begin, as related in the last post, with confronting the dynamics of our loneliness. For me this was not simply a conceptual exercise. My therapist worked on my feelings of loneliness by giving me assignments to learn how to be comfortable being alone.

This included pushing me to move my work office back out of the parsonage into the church office. This was to give my wife, Mary, the space and solitude she needed, as well as teach me how to be comfortable being alone. This was difficult for me at first, but I learned how to go into the sanctuary and take time for prayer and meditation, and it also helped me get my Doctor of Ministry thesis written.

As for going to the cabin alone, that, also, turned out to be a great gift. I spent time reading in spirituality, I prayed, I started meditating, and I started journaling again. I became more comfortable being alone and I soon was inspired by insights that came to me in my journaling as I made plans for the coming year. This was the beginning of untold blessings, as in future years I would take three sabbaticals, all of them organized around time alone at our cabin. Looking back, I can see clearly now how the movement from loneliness toward solitude began with those first two cabin days alone and evolved into my looking forward to longer periods in which I could focus on reading and writing and experimenting with various spiritual disciplines as a step toward deepening my spiritual insights and sense of being at peace with myself, God and the world.

I said earlier that the spiritual discipline of Confession is a key step in the movement from loneliness to solitude. But this is not so much confession for things we have done wrong or mistakes made, although it will likely include that. Rather, it is finally accepting and celebrating that we walk in grace every moment of life. By grace, I mean acknowledging that God loves and accepts us just as we are, even when we have trouble forgiving and accepting ourselves. Roberta Bondi, in her masterful spiritual book, Memories of God, shares the crucial spiritual insight she received from studying the early Christian desert fathers and mothers:

What I read was an exhortation to those early monks not to criticize or judge one another, but rather, to treat one another with the gentleness of our heavenly Father, who especially loves the ones the world despises, and who is always so much more willing than human beings to make allowances for sin, because God alone understands our circumstances, the depths of our temptations, and the extent of our sufferings. [31]

I still remember the profound effect this passage had on me when I read it for the first time on my first sabbatical in 1999. Most of us were raised to see God as hiding behind every corner, just waiting for us to do something wrong. Here God is just the opposite: God is not the persistent judge, but the relentless lover who is always ready to forgive and accept us because God alone understands how complicated and challenging our lives are.

To put it another way, we move towards a solitude of the heart not by perfecting ourselves, but by learning how to accept and love ourselves not because we never make mistakes, but because we are loved just as we are, by God and by many people around us.

What, then, is this solitude that we seek? St. Paul calls it the “peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,” which helps us make peace with ourselves and with each other. [Philippians 4:7] Richard Foster explains that “we can cultivate an inner solitude and silence that sets us free from loneliness and fear. Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment. Solitude is not first a place, but a state of mind and heart.” [Discipline, 84]

Nouwen explains it this way: “The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit, from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play.” [Reaching Out, 23]

What began to happen for me on that first cabin retreat, and now has continued throughout the years in many different settings, is that I learned how to be alone and face my mistakes and fears, turn them over to God in confession and prayer, and then begin to find a peace within myself, not because I had never done anything wrong, but because God loves me as I am so that I can begin to love myself as I am.

Oh, I still think about mistakes I have made and people I have hurt and stupid things I have said, but those things no longer define me. What does define me is that I walk every moment of life in grace and unconditional love. Beginning there, my heart can then be open to the heart of God and God’s hopes for the world (the movement from illusion to prayer), and also be open to the hearts of others as we move from hostility to hospitality.

And yet, as always in the spiritual life, such solitude is not a state that we achieve, once and for all, but is a journey with many setbacks along the way. Nouwen summarizes this journey well:

So our loneliness can grow into solitude. There are days, weeks and maybe months and years during which we are so overwhelmed by our sense of loneliness that we can hardly believe that the solitude of heart is within our horizon. But when we have once sensed what this solitude can mean we will never stop searching for it. Once we have tasted this solitude a new life becomes possible, in which we can become detached from false ties and attached to God and each other in a surprisingly new way. [33]

What is Spirituality? Part IV: Loneliness

Once we begin to experiment with, and eventually establish, our own, unique method of spiritual disciplines, we then turn to the content on which to focus in whatever discipline we choose, whether it be meditating, walking, journaling, study, prayer, worship, etc.

One way to approach this is the way Henri Nouwen does in his book, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life.  These three movements are from Loneliness to Solitude, Illusion to Prayer, and Hostility to Hospitality. These movements relate, in order, to ourselves, God and other people. In classes I have taught and retreats I have led on spirituality, I title these three approaches: My Heart; The Heart of God; The Hearts of Others.

Earlier I explained that spirituality always begins in humility, as opposed to self-righteousness. From humility it moves to honesty. So, let’s be honest. We spend a good deal of time in life running from the truth, which means running from ourselves, from God, from other people. That’s why when we worship, we traditionally begin with the spiritual discipline of Confession, which calls for us to be brutally honest about all of our relationships, including others, God and yes, ourselves. Confession, in spirituality, is the bridge from loneliness to solitude. 

It has long been argued 

that one of the marks of the present age is loneliness. In fact, psychologists speak of it as one of the most commonly expressed complaint of clients. Nouwen writes: “The roots of loneliness are very deep and cannot be touched by optimistic advertisement, substitute love images or social togetherness. They find their food in the suspicion that there is no one who cares and offers love without conditions and no place where we can be vulnerable without being used.” [Nouwen, Reaching Out, 16]

This means we can be in a crowd and still feel lonely, or even in the midst of a group of friends or with family, and feel lonely. Whatever the source of our discomfort, the attempt to never be alone usually means we fear the opportunity (and it can actually be an opportunity) to explore what is going on inside of us. It may seem kind of strange, but in modern life most of us probably complain that we never have enough time alone, and then, when we are, we don’t really know what to do with ourselves. What I mean by that is that we don’t know what to do with Our Self, Our Soul. Oh, we may enjoy reading a compelling novel, or putting on headphones and listening to music, or watching a movie or tv show, but these can also be more ways to avoid “being alone” and do not automatically make us comfortable with our innermost self.

After our first child was born, Mary and I struggled with the family adjustment, as do many people. In fact, we decided to go to a marriage therapist. She met with us once, and then told us: "I don’t think you have a marital problem. You each have unresolved issues from growing up, and I think if we make progress with those issues your marriage concerns will also be resolved." Thus began months of long drives (200 miles each way) to Grand Forks, North Dakota for therapy. One Monday I would go, and the next Monday Mary would go. We had virtually no money, but our kind therapist kept a bill and told us to pay it when we could, which we did eventually, over a couple of years.

My issues, as I write about in my book, were around anger (at mom for having died, and at the world in general and God for the seeming unfairness of losing both parents and my first wife by the time I was 32), guilt towards dad (having avoided him as he was dying) and other forms of unresolved grief. At the time I was serving a small congregation in rural North Dakota where I could easily spend a whole day in the church office and never see a soul. As a result, extrovert-off-the-scale that I am, I made an office for myself in the parsonage. Meanwhile, when our baby would fall asleep in the nursery upstairs, Mary would go into the next room, where she had created a studio, to do art, enjoying the time alone, introvert that she is. However, when she would come downstairs to get a cup of coffee or a snack, I would run into the kitchen to see her so we could chat, which would interrupt her right-brain, artistic creativity as well as shortcut her sense of solitude. 

One day Gail, my therapist, said to me: “So do you spend much time alone?” “Not if I can help it!” I retorted.  “And why do you think you feel that way?” she replied.  “I don’t know, I guess I just really like to be with other people.” “I know that,” Gail continued. “But what I want to explore is why you are so uncomfortable being alone.”

She then asked me to share one thing I really enjoy doing. I told her I like to golf.” “Ok, then,” she said, “This week I want you to go golfing alone.” “What,” I replied.” “I can’t do that. It is wrong to golf alone.”

“Oh,” she replied. “So for you this is a moral issue. If you see someone golfing alone, you think they are doing something wrong?”

I think you can see where this is going. In short, Gail kept asking me about things I like to do and then giving me the assignment to do them alone. Eventually this culminated in the assignment to go to our cabin in the woods of Minnesota and spend two days alone. You would have thought she had asked me to climb Mt. Everest.

These assignments were not easy for me, especially at first, but they became powerful learning experiences. What I soon discovered is that the reason I did not want to be alone is because it forced me to “think about my life.” And I didn’t want to do that: I didn’t want to think about mistakes I had made over the years. People I had hurt. People I had disappointed. Bad decisions I had made. I didn’t want to face the guilt and anger and grief. I did not want to face the extreme loneliness I felt whenever I   was alone.  And I would learn that the roots of my loneliness were not only psychological but, perhaps more importantly, they were spiritual.

I learned, as Nouwen puts it, “To wait for moments or places where no pain exists, no separation is felt and where all human restlessness has turned into inner peace is waiting for a dreamworld.” [19] And thus the first task in the move toward solitude is having the courage to face whatever is inside of us, and to be willing to live for a while with the questions that soon present themselves. And the way we begin this process is with humility, patience and trusting that we are loved and walk in grace every moment of life. Opened up in this way, we can then hear the instruction of Rainer Maria Rilke, 

I want to beg you as much as you can to be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. [“Letters to a Young Poet”]

The bottom line is that if we are uncomfortable being alone it is because we are not comfortable with ourselves. As long as our pain goes unhealed and our feelings of anger and guilt and shame and fear not dealt with: well, being alone is likely to continue to be a time of loneliness that we avoid at all costs.

I once heard of a pastor who, as he was preparing for worship, received the news that his wife was planning to divorce him. His fellow pastors suggested that he just go home and they would handle worship. At that point he slammed his fist on a table and shouted, “I hope I die before I have to deal with everything inside of me.” Not long after that he had a heart attack.

Our spiritual lives will be much like our psychological lives when we refuse to face what is going on inside of us. As psychotherapist Sheldon Kopp once wrote: 

And so it is astonishing that, though the patient enters therapy insisting that he wants to change, more often than not, what he really wants is to remain the same and to get the therapist to make him feel better. His goal is to become a more effective neurotic, so that he may have what he wants without risking getting into anything new. He prefers the security of known misery to the misery of unfamiliar insecurity.” [If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!]

And so, as we find the courage, strengthened by God and each other, to face the pain inside we begin the long journey to turn our loneliness into solitude. 

What is Spirituality, Part III: Finding the Spiritual Disciplines that Work for You

 

Lighthouse on Long Island, 1/1/19

Spirituality begins with the desire to see our lives from the perspective of God, but it grows and deepens through work: i.e. the work of finding a method or process that “works” for us. I invite you, if you have not done so already, to explore what that process might be for you.

Richard Foster, in his seminal work, The Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, outlines 12 Spiritual Disciplines that religious people have used throughout the ages to grow spiritually. He divides them into 3 main categories: Inward: Meditation, Prayer, Fasting, Study; Outward: Simplicity, Solitude, Submission, Service; Corporate: Confession, Worship, Guidance, Celebration.

In his foreword to this book, the great American theologian, D. Elton Trueblood, writes: “The great problems of our time are not technological . . . . or political or economic, because the difficulties in those areas . . . . are largely derivative. The greatest problems are moral and spiritual and unless we make some progress in those realms, we may not even survive.”  [viii]

Foster then explains that these Disciplines are for everyone: “We must not be led to believe that the Disciplines are for spiritual giants, and hence beyond our reach, or for contemplatives who devote all their time to prayer and meditation. Far from it. God intends the Disciplines of the spiritual life to be for ordinary human beings: people who have jobs, who care for children, who must wash dishes and mow lawns. In fact, the Disciplines are best exercised in the midst of our normal daily activities.”

Growing up in the church, I participated in many of these disciplines, without really thinking of them as Disciplines. The main ones were Confession, Worship, Prayer, Study and Service. As for going deeper into faith, I assumed that things like meditation, fasting, simplicity and solitude, were for Catholic sisters and monks, and “giants of faith” like Mother Teresa and Desmond Tutu.

It took a time of desperation in my own life to finally drive me deeper into these Disciplines when I was 33 years old. As I describe in my book, When the Northern Lights Went Dark: My Journey through Loss and Grief to Healing and Hope, my revelatory experience occurred some 8 months after my first wife, Pauline, died. I had begun to heal and find some hope, but, as I wrote: “I had certainly made a great deal of progress. I had come a long way. Yet something extremely important was still lacking. I felt I was operating too much out of weakness rather than strength.

“One morning I awoke with a sense of a new insight, a dawning revelation. I finally began to realize that the weakness I was operating out of was the trying to control what I could not control. I was allowing everyone and everything around me to determine how I felt and thus needed to control outcomes of events in order to ensure my own happiness. This was my weakness. I had no inner strength. Like a sponge, I was at the mercy of having to absorb whatever flowed my way, whether wine or vinegar. I was lacking a deep spirituality. I was weak in body, weak in spirit, and, therefore, weak psychologically.” [244-245]

That morning I began my own form of Spiritual Discipline. I went for a run (solitude), came home and prayed, then read my Bible and portions of books by two  of last century’s greatest spiritual writers, Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen (study), and then grabbed my guitar and sang (worship.) Eventually I added time for meditation and I began to learn about and try to practice simplicity and submission. (Later I will explain  what each of these disciplines means and entails, as it certainly wasn’t obvious to me in the beginning).

Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen, Whose Writings Helped Me Find My Spiritual Path

This was my first attempt to practice Spiritual Disciplines in a new and deeper way, and it became a crucial turning point in both my healing and my own spiritual journey.

Growing up, if someone had asked me what a Spiritual Discipline might be, I probably would have pointed to my mother beginning her day by reading Scripture, then her morning devotional book, and then praying.  This was such a crucial piece of her devotional life, as it may be for many of you. The problem was, it didn’t work for me. I have had many fits and starts trying to keep that discipline, but it never lasted long.

It wasn’t until I started to work with my first Spiritual Director (Guidance) that I found out why that didn’t work for me and that there wasn’t anything wrong with me: I would just have to find my own spiritual path.

Once supported and guided, it did not take me long to find out what that would be. Rather than sitting and reading and praying, I would walk. Yes, walk. My mom’s process is fine for many introverts, but not for an extreme extrovert like me.

But it was not aimless walking. I first had to develop a route that would be the same every day, so I did not have to think about where I was going. Then, as I walked, I listened to my soul and heart. I tried to open myself up and notice where my mind and spirit would go. Often it would be something I was worried about, or a problem I didn’t know how to handle. As I walked, I thought about this worry: how it started and what were the primary issues involved. Then, after accepting that this worry was a real part of my life, I would try to turn it over to God, not only in terms of “giving” it to God, but also how I might respond to it     in a more spiritual way. Then, when I got home, I would find a quiet place to pray and read from the Bible or from spiritual writers.

That has pretty much been my discipline for the last 25 years (with plenty of lapses from time to time). Now, as a retired person, I have reversed the order. I begin my day with what theologian, Howard Thurman, terms “marinating” (another name for meditating). I get my coffee, ice my back, think about blessings and challenges of the previous day, make a plan for how I will spend the present day, and then pray for family and friends and issues of concern to me. Then, after a period of reading and writing, I go for my walk.

My prayer this morning includes the hope that you will take this unusual time as an opportunity to find your own way of bringing your own worries and fears before God, and then allow God to guide you in terms of how to think and feel and respond to the challenges of your own life.

 

Deming, New Mexico, 2016

What is Spirituality? Part II: Is This All There Is?

Growing up, even in the church, does not automatically lead to one developing spiritual disciplines or practices. Moving in that direction requires a good deal of self-consciousness and awareness that is normally not present when we are young. What, then, is it that leads one to the point where they decide to pursue spirituality as a major part of life.

Sometimes, as mentioned in Part I, it is a traumatic experience, like a pandemic or the death of someone dear or losing one’s job and seeing no clear path as to how one will get back to work again, or when?

Sometimes one begins to pursue spirituality in the midst of fairly ordinary life, when one achieves a goal they have worked towards for a long time, such as a college degree or a certain job or getting married or having children or achieving wealth and success at work. We tend to think that if we can just achieve these kinds of goals that we will automatically feel happy and fulfilled. But, sometimes, maybe most of the time, at the very point of success, we may find ourselves asking, “Is this all there is? Shouldn’t I feel happier, more fulfilled, more motivated to achieve even more?”

There are different ways of talking about this initial stage when we begin the quest for a deeper spirituality. Ron DelBene calls it an awakening that grows out of the sense that we are missing something. We all know the experience of craving food and opening the refrigerator, not sure what it is we really want. We finally settle on something, eat it, and then realize that food did not relieve our craving. So we go back, grab something else, and maybe even a third thing, until we are too full, and yet we still do not feel satisfied. [See DelBene, The Hunger of the Heart, 19]

That is the way it is with physical hunger, and it is similar with spiritual hunger, the hunger of the heart. Suddenly we are awakened to the notion that we are missing something, and we become determined to figure out what that is.

This awakening creates a kind of yearning that is inherent in who we are as human beings:  a yearning to know ourselves better and to feel closer to God and other people. St. Augustine put it this way: “My heart is restless until it rests in thee.” The Psalmist writes:      

             As a deer longs for flowing streams, 

                  so my soul longs for you, O God.

           My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. [Psalm 42:1-2]

This experience of yearning and awakening leads to seeking, as we begin to explore the ways our thinking and feeling are beginning to change as we search for a path that will deepen who we are and begin to satisfy the longing for greater fulfilment in life.

At first this yearning may lead to fear as we face reality and ask ourselves: but can I really change? Can I really grow as a spiritual person? Can I become a person of deeper faith, compassion and love?

This fear is compounded by the cultural, and even at times the churchly, view of spirituality: that it is only for special people of uncharacteristically deep faith, which leaves me out. However, as Richard Foster writes about the classical Spiritual Disciplines (which we will list and discuss in Part III), “We must not be led to believe that the Disciplines are for spiritual giants and hence beyond our reach, or for contemplatives who devote all their time to prayer and meditation. Far from it, God intends the Disciplines for the spiritual life to be for ordinary human beings and are best exercised in the midst of our normal daily activities.” [Celebration of Discipline, 1.]

In fact, a true mark of the spiritual life is humility.  It is “self-righteousness” that gets in the way of spiritual growth, as Jesus pointed out repeatedly, because the self-righteous believe they are better than others and are lacking nothing in and of themselves. The humble, on the other hand, acknowledge their weakness and failings, and their struggle to trust themselves to God and other people. The humble also realize that spirituality is not a destination to which we arrive, but a constant journey. In the words of Thomas Merton, “We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything but beginners all of our life!” [Contemplative Prayer, 37]

In the next post I will share my own personal experience of spiritual awakening when I was age 33. Part of that awakening was from reading the writings of Thomas Merton, and almost immediately I printed the following quotation from Merton and taped it to a wall at home so I would constantly see it and be reminded that the spiritual journey always begins in humility:

Poppies at the foot of the Organ Mountains, Las Cruces, NM, 3/20

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” [Thoughts in Solitude, 83]

What is Spirituality, Part I: A Different Way to See the World

Do you think of yourself as a spiritual person? Probably not. Why?

Because I have met very few people who claim to be spiritual, although they often are.

In a way spirituality is simple, although never easy. And it is not the same as being religious. You can be religious and not be spiritual, and you can be spiritual without many traditional religious elements.

Religion tends towards the intellectual and the institutional. It has to do with belief systems, creeds, rituals and involvement in groups, such as congregations or synagogues or other groups one finds throughout the many religions of the world. Religion has been an essential part of my life, and I still find deep meaning and purpose through my religious faith and church connections.

Spirituality is more individualistic and, in some ways, private, having to do with how one see’s the world, God’s relationship to that world and what one senses God is calling one to do and be in the world. This does not, however, mean always going it alone. Just stop by a Franciscan monastery or a Sisters of Charity convent and you will find spiritual people not only praying together, but also working and serving together. You can find the same, in a different way, in many churches and social movements, such as  Witness for Peace, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, Catholic Charities or Jewish Family Services.

I have been writing this blog,  Meandering Spirituality, with some 65 posts over 8 years, without ever actually reflecting on what, exactly, is spirituality. Over the next several posts I will share what I have learned about spirituality and what my experience has been trying to grow as a spiritual person as a way of helping you reflect on your own spiritual journey.

Let me begin with what we call Spiritual Direction, which is done under the tutelage of a Spiritual Director, who is a person, often a priest or pastor or Catholic sister, who has been trained and certified as a Spiritual Director.

I have had two Spiritual Directors over the years, both Protestant clergy, one Methodist and one Lutheran. The person I worked with the most is the late Pastor Scott Haasarud (you can find my Tribute to him in the list of topics on the right side of this blog.) Scott was a Lutheran pastor who was also trained in Jungian psychology and in Spiritual Direction (including teaching others to be spiritual directors).

I had many profound experiences driving up to Scotts’ house, walking in the door left open for me, climbing the stairs to his office, sitting in a very comfortable chair surrounded by walls of books, with Scott’s dog, Taz, at my feet. And Scott would usually begin with a question, something like: “So, Brian, what is God doing in your life right now?”

And, as is typical in any kind of therapy session, I would begin by sharing a challenge I was facing, something I was worried about, a decision I was trying to make, a problem I just couldn’t get my head around. Yes, Spiritual Direction has a psychological dimension, and Scott, like any good therapist, would often point out that aspect of my issue. But, unlike a traditional psychologist or therapist, the psychological was not the main point: it was a beginning point moving towards the spiritual, which might include questions such as: What do you think God is calling you to do in this situation? What might you learn about God and God’s world through this experience? What do you think Jesus would do with this problem or challenge? Do you have friends or other church members who can support you as you try to find a spiritual path through this experience?

My description of this blog from the beginning has--as you can see on the top of this page—tried to highlight this perspective: “I am a theologian. Everyone is a theologian. If you look at your life, if you look at the world, and you reflect on the relationship of God to your life and the life of the world, you are a theologian. You are a spiritual person.”

This is the sense in which, as I said at the beginning, spirituality is rather simple. It “simply” has to do with looking at what is going on in one’s life and searching for God’s relationship to whatever that experience is. But that is where it can quickly get complicated, right? Figuring out where God might be leading us, or what God might be trying to teach us, or how one might respond spiritually with people with whom one might be in conflict, is not always easy. And, even when one gains insight, carrying that insight into action also may not be simple.

For example, right now our lives have been turned upside down by this once- in-a-hundred-years pandemic. And we likely spend plenty of time thinking about and talking about the scientific, economic, and political dimensions of this crisis. Spirituality simply adds a whole other (and, I would argue, the most important) set of questions. What can I learn about God through this experience? What can I learn about other people? What can I learn about myself? Is my spirituality calling me to a different perspective on what is happening? Is this a time to really do a “values clarification,” and figure out what is most important to me in life (and what I can let go by the wayside). What is God calling me to do (or not do) right now? What does it mean in this context to “love my neighbor?” What does it mean to trust the future to God? For what might I pray? Is this a time to deepen my faith and spirituality? If so, how might I do that?

In future posts I will reflect on some of the perspectives and practices of spirituality. Most of us have probably never been given a time such as this when we have a unique opportunity to reflect on our spirituality and to practice spiritual disciplines that might take us deeper into life and the world.

However, before doing that, in my next post I will discuss one way a spiritual person might reflect on our present trauma, focusing on suffering and love.

Pandemic, Palms and Spirituality

Drawing by Mary Erickson

Suffering never leaves us the same. Even after the pain and struggle and fear subside, we do not return to exactly the same person we were before that suffering.

Powerful experiences, like the present pandemic, force us to re-evaluate who we are and our place in the world. People talk about gaining a “new perspective,” or that events like this “put things into perspective.” In spiritual terms, this is having a mountaintop experience. You find yourself able to “rise above” and look at things from a new vantage point.

Now, we tend to think of mountaintop experiences as being positive. In spirituality they often are, but they can also be difficult and painful experiences. We may feel like we are “falling over the edge,” as fear and uncertainty grip us. Traumatic experiences never leave us the same, and they push us either towards greater suffering or new forms of enlightenment (and often, in the process, some combination of the two). To speak in spiritual terms, suffering either pushes us away from the world, other people and God, or it pushes us toward the world, other people and God. 

Palm Sunday, or Passion Sunday, as it is also called, represents that struggle. Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey, a symbol of coming in peace. The people celebrate with palm branches, ready to enjoy the Passover rituals and the anointing of Jesus as their leader. But the tables are quickly turned, as the palms turn to ash and Jesus, the Suffering Servant, is crucified and yet, in the midst of his horrible passion, reaches out in love to the whole world.

Traumatic experiences and suffering either scare us into our own shells, and dull us to pain and suffering, or they push out into the world and other people’s lives, as we try to feel and understand their pain and fears, and meet that suffering with compassion and love. This can become a new perspective that actually helps us deal with our own suffering as well as becoming people of deeper and greater love for all others and the world.

We may move towards seeing the world as a dangerous, fearful place, other people as competitors for scarce resources and tests and medical procedures, and God as one who has failed to protect us and those we love and thus as One who, in the end, cannot really be trusted.

Or we may see the world as a place in need of healing, other people as fellow journeyers who need our love and are willing to give their love to us, and God as one who is with us in our suffering and trying to work through it to give us a new perspective, greater compassion and a deeper trust that God is always at work with us in the world to bring healing and hope.

Father Richard Rohr, Franciscan Friar, theologian and spiritual writer in Albuquerque, New Mexico, writes about the present pandemic:

"There is no doubt that this period will be referred to for the rest of our lifetimes.  We have a chance to go deep, and to go broad. Globally, we're in this together. Depth is being forced on us by great suffering, which, as I like to say, always leads to great love . . . .Now is no time for an academic solidarity with the world. Real solidarity needs to be felt and suffered. That's the real meaning of the word "suffer": to allow someone else's pain to influence us in a real way. We need to move beyond our own personal feelings and take in the whole. . . .  I hope this experience will force our attention to the suffering of the most vulnerable. Love always means going beyond yourself to otherness. It takes two. There has to be the lover and the beloved. We must be stretched to encounter with otherness, and only then do we know it's love. Love alone overcomes fear and is the true foundation that lasts. (I Corinthian's 13:13) [Richard Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation, March 19, 2020]  

Not only can suffering open our hearts in love to others, but also loving deeply leads to greater suffering. Indeed, the price we pay for love is suffering. This is experienced most deeply in loss and grief, and the deeper our love the greater the sense of loss and grief. The suffering of loss and grief also never leaves us the same, either pushing us away from God and others, or toward them in wonder at the beauty of this complex world and amazement at the richness of the diversity of cultures and peoples.

Spirituality, of course, is the search for a deeper and fuller relationship with God and others. Father Rohr goes on to say that “there are only two major paths by which the human soul comes to God: the path of great love, and the one of great suffering. Both finally come down to great suffering—because if we love anything greatly, we will eventually suffer for it. When we’re young, God hides this from us. We think it won’t have to be true for us. But to love anything in depth and over the long term, we eventually must suffer."  [Richard Rohr, March 20, 2020]

We often live under the illusion that we and those we love can be protected from pain and suffering and death. A pandemic shatters that illusion. We are all in this together and we are all vulnerable. Yes, most of us will not die, but some of us will, and we don’t know which ones of us this disease will take. In that sense this pandemic is the great equalizer, and we each must choose now whether we will move toward or away from each other.

We can try to crawl into psychological and spiritual caves, hoarding what we need to protect ourselves, or, like thousands of retired doctors and nurses in New York and neighboring states, leave those caves and go into the suffering of the world, in many cases without the necessary weapons with which health professionals normally do battle. And, while we try to stay safe at home, every day workers go forth to stock grocery shelves, clerk in those stores and deliver items we need to our doorsteps, at risk to their own health. In a world in which we lament the lack of true heroes, they are all around us every day now. Many of them (perhaps even most) may not think of themselves as spiritual people, but they are choosing life over death, and even risking their own lives when they make that choice.

“Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” [James 1:17, NRSV]