Spiritual growth is something I have thought about and tried to cultivate for decades now. I think one of the important things I realized early on is spiritual growth is not automatic, like physical growth. Of course, it takes some cultivation of physical growth. But given some time, some food and a modicum of care, babies grow and turn into little people. Our cells divide and other physiological things happen without our thinking about it. At some point we become adults!
Emotional growth is not as simple. Any of us can realize we came to be physically adults, but emotionally it is easy to remain childish and immature. It is not unusual to find adults throwing temper tantrums! Airports and shopping malls are two good places to witness this phenomenon. Emotional growth takes time and some intentionality. It normally takes some help. Usually we need the help of others to help us monitor and reflect on our actions and to learn and grow from them.
One of the areas I received some help in emotionally growing was my defensiveness. I am confident my defensiveness stemmed from a self-image issue. I had certain images of who I was. When someone confronted this---even unintentionally---I quickly jumped in to defend myself. Actually what I was defending was the threatened self-image I had constructed. Of course, the real “me” needed no defending. Part of my emotional growth was to become aware of this and then begin to choose an alternative way of acting. I am grateful to the key person or two who aided this process.
Spiritual growth is much like emotional growth. It does not happen automatically. It also takes time and quite a bit of intentionality. Usually it cannot be forced---by God or by others. We need to choose it. It is easy to get stuck in the early stages of spirituality. This is especially true for those who see spirituality much like they understand religion---a matter of belief. If one has the right belief---the right theology---then that’s it. Hold on and don’t change. Defend this perspective and you even prove you are worthy of the fight. I think this is the earliest way I viewed religion. Soon I realized it would not work for me.
That would be my earliest lesson that spirituality for me, at least, was not the same thing as religion---if religion were mostly about belief. I am thankful that Quakers always want to start with an experience. Their first question has always to do with your experience of the living God. This is a much different starting ground than your belief---your ideas---about God. Ideas may live in my mind, but the idea of God is not the same as God. And so my spiritual quest was the search for the living God, Who, it turns out, was also searching for me. At some point, we found each other---enough to begin a journey. My part of the journey was to grow spiritually.
I like how Gerald May, the late psychiatrist and writer on spirituality, describes spiritual growth in his book, Will and Spirit. He says it is “the growth of appreciation of meaning, purpose, belonging, and loving in life.” I have used this book in classes over many years and continue to be grateful for his insights. For example, I know he focuses on the trifecta of identity, meaning and belonging as the “basic questions” all humans have about life. We all work to resolve these basic questions in our own way. In some way how we do this is how we create our own spirituality. If God and the Spirit are part of the equation---as is the case for me---then there is a correlation between spirituality and religion.
Spiritual growth, as May suggests, has to do with a growing appreciation with respect to these basic questions. I like this suggestion. It means that growth is a process. Let’s look briefly at each of the areas May identifies as aspects of our spiritual growth. First is the area of meaning. Spiritual growth in meaning hints at the fact that meaning can become deeper and broader as we grow in the Spirit. We make room in our understanding for all kinds of people.
The second area is purpose. There are many possible purposes in religion---to be saved or to serve, etc. Growth in appreciation of purpose for me means to become more and more loving like the God Who loves me. Again, spiritual maturity will develop an incredibly inclusive loving. The third area is belonging. Clearly, at the basic level the belonging has to do with God and me. But growth in this area extends and deepens the belonging. I come to understand I belong to community. And finally, it turns out to be a global community.
Finally, he talks about loving life. This is paradoxical since we are all headed toward an eventual death. But the spiritual task along the way is to learn to love life. To do this loving in the most profound way possible means a willingness not to be selfish, but compassionately give my life for all the others whom God dearly loves. Spiritual growth finally leads me to understand that a willingness to lose myself in love means that I find it in amazingly spiritual ways.
Emotional growth is not as simple. Any of us can realize we came to be physically adults, but emotionally it is easy to remain childish and immature. It is not unusual to find adults throwing temper tantrums! Airports and shopping malls are two good places to witness this phenomenon. Emotional growth takes time and some intentionality. It normally takes some help. Usually we need the help of others to help us monitor and reflect on our actions and to learn and grow from them.
One of the areas I received some help in emotionally growing was my defensiveness. I am confident my defensiveness stemmed from a self-image issue. I had certain images of who I was. When someone confronted this---even unintentionally---I quickly jumped in to defend myself. Actually what I was defending was the threatened self-image I had constructed. Of course, the real “me” needed no defending. Part of my emotional growth was to become aware of this and then begin to choose an alternative way of acting. I am grateful to the key person or two who aided this process.
Spiritual growth is much like emotional growth. It does not happen automatically. It also takes time and quite a bit of intentionality. Usually it cannot be forced---by God or by others. We need to choose it. It is easy to get stuck in the early stages of spirituality. This is especially true for those who see spirituality much like they understand religion---a matter of belief. If one has the right belief---the right theology---then that’s it. Hold on and don’t change. Defend this perspective and you even prove you are worthy of the fight. I think this is the earliest way I viewed religion. Soon I realized it would not work for me.
That would be my earliest lesson that spirituality for me, at least, was not the same thing as religion---if religion were mostly about belief. I am thankful that Quakers always want to start with an experience. Their first question has always to do with your experience of the living God. This is a much different starting ground than your belief---your ideas---about God. Ideas may live in my mind, but the idea of God is not the same as God. And so my spiritual quest was the search for the living God, Who, it turns out, was also searching for me. At some point, we found each other---enough to begin a journey. My part of the journey was to grow spiritually.
I like how Gerald May, the late psychiatrist and writer on spirituality, describes spiritual growth in his book, Will and Spirit. He says it is “the growth of appreciation of meaning, purpose, belonging, and loving in life.” I have used this book in classes over many years and continue to be grateful for his insights. For example, I know he focuses on the trifecta of identity, meaning and belonging as the “basic questions” all humans have about life. We all work to resolve these basic questions in our own way. In some way how we do this is how we create our own spirituality. If God and the Spirit are part of the equation---as is the case for me---then there is a correlation between spirituality and religion.
Spiritual growth, as May suggests, has to do with a growing appreciation with respect to these basic questions. I like this suggestion. It means that growth is a process. Let’s look briefly at each of the areas May identifies as aspects of our spiritual growth. First is the area of meaning. Spiritual growth in meaning hints at the fact that meaning can become deeper and broader as we grow in the Spirit. We make room in our understanding for all kinds of people.
The second area is purpose. There are many possible purposes in religion---to be saved or to serve, etc. Growth in appreciation of purpose for me means to become more and more loving like the God Who loves me. Again, spiritual maturity will develop an incredibly inclusive loving. The third area is belonging. Clearly, at the basic level the belonging has to do with God and me. But growth in this area extends and deepens the belonging. I come to understand I belong to community. And finally, it turns out to be a global community.
Finally, he talks about loving life. This is paradoxical since we are all headed toward an eventual death. But the spiritual task along the way is to learn to love life. To do this loving in the most profound way possible means a willingness not to be selfish, but compassionately give my life for all the others whom God dearly loves. Spiritual growth finally leads me to understand that a willingness to lose myself in love means that I find it in amazingly spiritual ways.
Comments
Post a Comment