Saturday, November 11, 2006

The Direction of Our Spirituality

Spirituality is largely assumed to be a pretty variable factor. Some are assumed to be more spiritual than others. And while I agree that there is some variation in how spiritual people are, because people are inherently different, the primary difference in spirituality is not how spiritual people are but what they hold as spiritual. I think that all people are searching for spiritual fulfillment but many are searching for it in areas other than those directly related to the divine. While the exact definition for spirituality remains elusive, I tend to think of it as a process of sacralizing (making sacred) our experiences, thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.

With that definition in mind, we look at someone who would be considered less spiritual: the materialist. This person values possessions over relationships and especially over relationship with God. For this person material objects - cars, clothes, etc. - become sacred because they are valued as being more than functional - they imbue meaning into life. So the materialist is spiritual but his spirituality is directed towards material goods. The materialist has sacralized possessions because he believes they give him a better life. Follow so far?

I believe, therefore, that spirituality can be good or bad. The goal is to turn our spirituality on towards better things. What those better things would be a much too long of a discussion to handle here but suffice it to say that it is more than traditional moral values.

Humans look for transcendent meaning everywhere: comparing themselves with others, hedonism, hobbies, intellectualism, etc. The end goal for humans then is to find transcendent meaning in those things that are actually most transcendent: love, compassion, and things that give life and freedom. I believe that these things are from God and thus a good spirituality requires connection with the God of love

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