28. Alternative Meditation

For some, the idea of emptying one’s mind might seem too daunting a task.  I understand, it is a difficult practice to master.  And for some of us, we are not in a place to easily empty our minds of what is going on around us.  We need to remember that the Spirit does not demand the same spiritual practice of everyone, and there is a path to the Spirit for each person.  We will be exploring many different spiritual practices, and we must choose the ones that make sense for us.

Another option of emptying one’s mind, is to narrow one’s focus to one phrase.  For instance, I  might repeat the phrase in song, 

Speak to me Lord, for your child is here, listening
Speak to me Lord, for your child is here, waiting

On the first phrase, I will breathe out, and on the second, I will breathe in, allowing my body rhythm to be wrapped around the prayer.  This one works for me for my usual gift of the Spirit is him speaking to my spirit.  

But other phrases can also be used, such as “Jesus, son of God, Savior, have mercy on me.”  Or make up a phrase of your own, “Cleanse me, heal me”, for example.

Just repeat the phrase, even under your breath, and whenever your mind wishes to explore the everyday troubles and concerns, just go back to the phrase, focusing on it alone. 

27. Your Meditation Gift

In that space of meditation, you may receive a gift from the Spirit.  It is not a special state of grace, nor is it your reward for reaching a spiritual plateau.  Rather, it is simply the Spirit meeting you so that he might meet your needs and the needs of those whom you know.

Some, in that place, might speak in tongues.  This is known by some as glossolalia, a form of speech that might sound like babbling or an unknown language.  It seems strange at first, but one gets used to it after a while.  It is the Spirit making a request of the Divine through you.  It is especially granted those who do not know how to pray, or what to say.  The Spirit then gives the gift of praying without conscious thinking activity, allowing the Divine to act, despite our ignorance.

Some might hear the voice of the Spirit.  In the deafening silence of the mind, the Spirit is free to speak and to direct.  To some, the Spirit might send a vision or dream (if asleep in the Spirit).  To others the Spirit might give a direct word. 

Whatever the case, the exercise is to keep listening, to not allow your concerns to overwhelm what the Spirit is accomplishing in you. 

26. Meditation

To meditate is to intently pay attention to something with all of one’s mind.  The spiritual practice of meditation is to intently listen to that which one cannot physically hear.

There are two spiritual practices commonly called “mediation.”  We will speak of the meditation of Scripture later.  Here, we wish to focus on meditation without an object.

This form of meditation is stereotypically considered to be in a “lotus” position, legs crossed. The most important thing is to remain comfortable and stable but still alert.  Sitting on a chair would work, or on the floor.  Laying down encourages one to sleep, which isn’t the goal of the practice.

The next step is to empty one’s mind, which sounds like one must take a broom, and sweep the cobwebs out.  But really, it is a waiting game.  You sit, and allow thoughts and worries and tasks to appear in your mind, but do not engage them.  Just let them go by the wayside, and do that with all the thoughts that appear.  Until you are left with nothing.

And in that nothingness is where the Spirit may dwell.  This meditation is obtaining the silence, not just of sound, but of the mind and soul. It is an inner peace where one might find that which no ear may hear, and no eye may see. 

25. Rest

“Humanity was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for humanity.”-Jesus

Perpetual fatigue destroys.  Should the stress of our everyday lives not kill us, the turmoil and chaos left in the wake of overwork and constant pressure leaves nothing but an empty quivering shell of resentment and pain.  This is not to say that there are not seasons which we must work past our limit—after childbirth, to support our families in poverty, to save the lives of those near death, for example.  But we must follow those seasons with deep, unqualified rest.

It is a misconception that some advertise that the Spirit is in opposition to the body.  The Spirit made the body, and loves the well-working flesh.  The Spirit created the body to be in balance, and that balance is peace, which the Spirit covets.  Part of that balance is labor, and part of that balance is rest.  The Spirit demands for us to rest, as much as he demands us to labor, for in that balance is health.

Health is not the most important aspect to peace on the earth—that would be love.  But the body that is unbalanced cannot love, for deep stress creates a body that is desperately trying to preserve itself, even at the cost of others. Generosity comes from well-being.

There have been times when the Spirit so desired for me to rest that I was led to a quiet room, in a comfortable chair, my eyes were drawn closed and, in the presence of the Spirit, I slept.  A deep sleep, that when I awoke I knew that the Spirit had never left me.  He was not offended by my rest, but created it for my sake.

There are times when we go to the Spirit and he asks us to just rest.  May we listen to that call. 

24. Sabbath

“Keep the seventh day holy.  On that day, you shall do no labor.” –Ten Commandments

One of the earliest spiritual disciplines is to stop working.  We are never told, in those early texts, what we are to do, only that we must stop the toil of everyday life.  That toil is essential, it is the warp and woof of the molecular structure of who we are.  But it must never become all of our being. 

As human beings, we must create.  And our everyday work, even when we work for another, allows us to do that.  Even if our labor is security through the hours nothing dramatic happens, in our pay we create a living space, the means to purchase food, the bulk of our lives.  We must make something beyond ourselves, for this is the Creation impulse of the Spirit in us.

The Spirit, who created our form, recognizes that we must rest, even as he himself does.  He created us to be complex beings, both physical and spiritual omnivores.  Our souls are made to swallow and ingest all that we come across.  If our spiritual and mental diet consists of only one kind of action, then our souls become congested, sick, unable to create.  If our lives are centered around toil, then our spiritual diet is unbalanced, and it breaks our souls.

We must cease our labor, for a time, on a regular basis.  Traditionally, this is measured as six periods of labor, one period of ceasing toil.  This is not supposed to be a strict necessity, this time frame.  But it is a fair measure of health.  We work to create with our labor for six days and then we rest to create balance and ingenuity with a day. 

23. Silence

“Come to the quiet. Come and fill your soul like a child at rest on her mother’s breast.”

We live in a world of terrible noise.  I drove down a highway today, and along the sides of the road were thousands of signs all screaming to me, “Pay attention to me!”  This is to such a degree that I find it difficult to find the signs I should really pay attention to, warning me to be careful, or to stop for others. Eventually, I arrived at my destination—a Trappist monastery.  And as I entered the building, there is a single sign which says, “Silence is deep as eternity.”

To seek the Spirit is to seek silence. The world shouts at us, clamors for our attentions, demands and cajoles and shakes us.  The Divine, however, is quiet, whispers in our ear, lulls us.  It is through the quiet that the Divine changes the world. While it might not seem like much of a strategy, we need to remember that the Spirit understands our souls better than we.  Our souls prefer to find (rather than to be given), and then they adopt what they have discovered.  Our souls wish to reveal secrets that most have not heard.  Our souls find no nourishment in the push-and-pull of merchandising, but in the silence that feeds.

The Spirit waits in the place of silence, waits for our silence so that we might meet him.  The Spirit does not want us distracted by the Many Things, but focused on the One.  Of course, our lives are full of the Many: the children, the internet, the busy street.  This is the place in which we live.  But the Spirit calls us, constantly, to silence so that we might find the One.  And the One is that which directs us through the Many so we can accomplish what is most significant. Until we spend regular time in silence, we will not find the important. 

Drink in silence as one might drink a huge mug of a hearty mead.  Become drunk on the joys of her pleasure.

22. Exercises: Private and Public

I am dividing the exercises we discuss into two categories: private and public.  According to Jesus, there are two commands, reflections of each other, we should follow to have a spiritual life.  The first is to love the Divine.  The second is to love those around us.  These loves are not the same, but to enact one love has an immediate effect on the other love.

The love of the Divine is primarily private.  Jesus spoke of praying in a closet, of giving to the poor in secret.  This is not because there is any value in secrecy, except that we are not doing these actions for anyone else but the Divine.  We are not trying to impress anyone, we are not trying to get people to tell us how spiritual we are.  Even so, there are some actions that are best done without anyone else observing.

In a sense, the core of our spiritual life is private.  We may rest in the Spirit and be completely open and relaxed, knowing that the Spirit loves us and has complete mercy on us. It is in that place that the Spirit builds up our core, and makes us a transformed, renewed person.

However, if we do not spend time with others, then we cannot love them and so we are not fulfilled spiritually.  The life in the Spirit is taking time to spend meditation in him, in solitude, and taking time to allow others to lead us to the Spirit through their graces and irritations, through their glories and their horrors.   We must take care to choose some exercises which gets us alone with the Divine and to choose others which cause us to be among others, seeking opportunities to love. 

21. Choosing Exercises

Below, (beginning with number 23) I will begin listing exercises of a wide variety.  Our task, at this point, is to find a beginning path to the Spirit.  This path will consistent of a set of exercises that we practice regularly.  As mentioned above, the path you choose may not be the same as another seeking the Spirit.  It probably won’t.  The Spirit knows you intimately, and you and the Spirit will choose a set of exercises, and the level of practice between the two of you.

If you like, look over the list below and pick two or three exercises that resonate with you.  Then use the tips in each section, making an attempt to practice them.  There may be an exercise that immediately doesn’t feel right to you.  That is fine, set it aside and next time choose another.  There may be some exercises that you gain some benefit from, but over time you realize that it is not for you.  Again, that is fine, just set it aside and pursue another one.

Then there may be an exercise that you reject.  It is too difficult, too outside the scope of your experience.  That’s fine.  But don’t be surprised if the Spirit later leads you back to the unthinkable practice.  Again, the Spirit knows us better than we know ourselves.  What may not work for us now might be the very thing we need later in our lives.

Whatever path you choose or attempt, don’t fail to do it.  If you aren’t in the mood, practice it anyway. If you get distracted and forget, pick it up and do it at the next possible opportunity.  The important thing is to act it out, regularly, until it becomes second nature.  That will take a long time.  Well, be patient.  The spiritual life isn’t an instant breakfast.  It’s a long term project, just like growing up.

You will fail.  You might even set your spirituality aside for a time.  But always come back.  The Spirit will be there, ready for you when you come. 

20. Examination

It is a fair task to examine ourselves.  The Spirit already knows where and how we are broken.  Perhaps we know some of our brokenness, and perhaps we do not.  For certain, when we begin with the Spirit, we cannot possibly understand how deep our brokenness extends.  Nor does the Spirit want us to know.  To understand how deep of a task we have before us to be healed is overwhelming at best, and a cause for us to give up any future work at repair at worst.

It is good to take time to examine ourselves, to give ourselves an evaluation.  The method I often use to examine myself is to ask two questions of my life and to create lists beneath both.  Below, I give you a list of question pairs that you can use to examine yourself.  Do not use all of them at one time.  For now, just answer one pair, or perhaps two, and you can leave the others for another time.  Some of the pairs of questions may not open up your life at all—that’s fine.  Just skip them and work on a pair of questions that reveals something about who you are.

• What do I need in my life? / What needs of others do I meet?
• Where is the Divine in my life?/ What parts of my life need the Divine?
• What is separating me from God?/ Where does God meet me?
• How do I act like Jesus?/ How should I act like Jesus?
• What habits separate me from the Spirit?/What disciplines might renew me to the Spirit?
• What relationships are breaking me and how?/ Where is God in the people I have broken relationships with?
• What about myself needs forgiveness?/ How do I display forgiveness?
• Who are the people I view negatively?/ What is the good in those people?
• Why am I overwhelmed? / How does God want me to have balance?
• What things in my life harm me?/ What aspects of my life are healing?
• What discipline do I need to add to my life?/ What am I willing to give up to make the discipline happen?
• What things in my life cause uncontrollable anger?/ What things grant me peace in my life?
• What things in my life do I worry about? / What can be changed through love?
• What do I expect from others? / Am I fair in my expectations? 
• How is God great? / What do I wish God to do for me that he hasn’t done yet?

Take the questions you chose and the answers you discovered and give them to the Spirit, allowing him to work with you on these areas. 

19. Brokenness

There are some common words that are used for the work of the Spirit—salvation, deliverance, grace, mercy, forgiveness.  They all have a common basis, that the one receiving the work of the Spirit has a desperate need.  They are in crisis, they are imprisoned, they are beyond their own help, they are desperate, they are separated from their good. 

In our society we are trained to tell people that we are “fine”.  No matter what is going on in our hearts, or relationships, no matter how self-destructive our souls are, no matter what oppression we live with, we are to put on a good face, to display strength.

The Spirit requires three things if we are to receive His work.  One is complete honesty.  The Spirit wants us to be open about our weaknesses, about our failings, about our hurts.  We cannot attempt to hide our true selves from the Divine, because he already knows who we are, to our deepest core, better than we know ourselves.

The Spirit also requires that we take our very selves, our core, and recognize our weakness, our brokenness. We need to look our inadequacies in the face, and admit—if only to ourselves and the Spirit—our brokenness. We are the child who accidentally broke the precious item of the parent.  The child has the choice to hide the broken item, or to admit and bring it to the parent.  It is the admission that leads to the deepening of the relationship.

Finally, the Spirit requires that we come to him with our broken selves and ask for repair.  Just as the child might request, “Can you fix it?” so we come to the Divine and ask for our renewal.  Both the parent and the Spirit looks down on the child and says, “Of course.”  And that is the grace of the Spirit.  He repairs within us what we cannot fix ourselves.

18. Spiritual Exercises

The heart of a spiritual life are the continuous actions we take to connect to the Spirit, also known as exercises.  Intellectual activity (such as prayer, Scripture reading or meditation) by itself, whether belief or analysis does not impress the Divine.  The human race is known to say one thing, but to be committed to another.  The human heart reveals itself in what it commits to through continuous actions.

The thief is not one who associates with thieves, or who talks like a thief, or who talks about doing the actions of a thief.  The saint is not the one who talks like a saint, or who lauds the saints, but is one who does the actions of the Divine on earth.  The Spirit is not interested in the superficial, but in the inner character of a person.  And that can only be revealed through actions.

A single action isn’t enough to declare character, as well (although a single action, like someone dying for another, might dramatically represent a person’s character).  Human are not born evil, but they are born weak and inexperienced.  Activity makes us strong and teaches us life lessons.  Even so, a single action may confirm a life in the spirit world, a connection to the Divine, but it is ongoing action over time that transforms us and conforms us to the nature of the Divine.

For these reasons and more, spiritual exercises are the heart of the spiritual life.  Through repeated action, we receive strength through discipline and become new people, people of the Spirit.

17. Union with God

The final goal of spirituality we’ll be talking about is the big mystic center of spirituality—Divine unity.  Some might think of this as unity with the universe, or achieving Nirvana or, as Pascal succinctly put it, “Fire.”

It’s the goal of many monastics, the calm, blissful joy of complete submission to the Divine.

Just to let you know, I’ve never achieved this goal and I personally know of no one who has.  I’ve read about people who have, and some keep working toward that goal.

That’s great.  It’s quite a goal.  Big stuff.  But it’s not for everyone.  This goal requires a lot of attention and time and discipline.  You don’t have to starve yourself to get it, nor do you need to spend 23 hours a day in prayer.  But it helps if you can focus pretty much your whole life toward this goal.

I don’t want to discourage anyone from striving toward union, but most of us just don’t have time.  And I don’t think the Divine would be very happy if we all sought union and nobody cooked dinner.  It’s a good goal, but it’s for those who have made some pretty good strides in spirituality before that take on that one.

16. Divine Power

The Divine has amazing power, especially for transformation.  The best way to achieve positive world change is through Divine intervention. Only the Spirit has the power to change our negative headlines into positive ones.  World peace, feeding all the hungry, deliverance of the oppressed—these are spiritual goals because only the Divine has such power to achieve these goals.

Not only that, but it seems that only the Divine has made promises like that.  Even the most ambitious politician isn’t interested in making such outlandish promises that he couldn’t keep.  Somehow the Divine doesn’t shrink back from the biggest goals.  As if he really meant to do it.

But the Divine needs a push start, it seems.  So some people want to connect with the Spirit so that the Divine could be encouraged to accomplish what he promised.

Nothing wrong with that.  The Divine encourages it.  Get involved in spirituality to change the world.  There’s just that meddling factor again- the Spirit wants to start with you. Your life.  Your inner self.  

15, Community

Perhaps we are attracted to the people who seem spiritually connected.  We don’t really know anything about the Divine, but there’s a group of people who are really into Him and they seem really cool.  Or nice.  Or they serve a great meal after worship.  Whatever.  So you want to be a part of that group.

Let me tell you, there are plenty of others in that group who are there for the same reasons.  Maybe one guy was after a girl in the group, and he got caught going even after he found out that she already had a boyfriend. Worship feels good.  It can be habit forming.

The Spirit just wants to let you know that he is interested in having a personal connection with you, not just have you join a social club.  Because a church or temple or meditation center is just a social club on the surface.  A group of people with similar interests and lifestyles that enjoy being together.  But that is not a spiritual life.  A spiritual life is a relationship with the Spirit that results in inner transformation.

The Spirit isn’t chintzy, though.  Hang out, enjoy yourself.  Just don’t try to change things to make it a better social club.  That’s not the point. 

14. Strength

For some of us, we are not the people we want to be. We are simply too weak.  We want to be more loving, less angry.  We want to do less evil, to be more pure.  We want to give up our addictions, to accomplish more with our lives.  We are just so weak, we can’t seem to do it ourselves.

So we look to the Spirit for strength.  Not strength around us or supporting us—strength within us to be who we know we should be.  And the Spirit is there for us.  He wants us to be better people, to live like we should.  He will be our strength, our support.

I have to let you know, though, that the Divine is a meddler.  He’s like a visitor who’s a busybody.  Once he moves in, he starts moving things around that you never wanted moved.  Perhaps you just wanted help or strength in this one area—but the Spirit keeps messing with other parts of your life.  Be careful about that. 

13. Spiritual Experience

Some people come to the Divine just for the experience of it.  They are curious, they want to know what the spiritual life is like.  Some are thrill seekers, wanting a jolt to jar them out of their dull, everyday lives.  Some just want to see what this whole God thing is.

The Spirit is open to that.  No problem. Taste and see that the Lord is good, he says.  Try it on for size.

However, the Spirit isn’t about a good feeling.  Yes, the Spirit can give joy, but the real joy, what the Spirit really offers isn’t to be found by the thrill seekers.  They will get a taste and then move on.  The real experience, the true life of the Spirit is found over time and work.

The spiritual life is like exercise.  You might feel really good after a run (if you aren’t like me), and you think you might want to keep it up for a while.  But we don’t get the true benefits of it after a day, but after months and years of performing the same activity.  The real benefits are in endurance training. 

12. Health

Perhaps we are sick, and we just need some help.  Maybe we are sick in our

spirit, or maybe sick in our body. Maybe we suffer with pain, or maybe we suffer with mental anguish.  And we just need healing.

One of the names of the Divine is Doctor or Healer.  He invites any who need healing to come and receive from him.  He promises to deliver.

Just to give fair warning, sometimes when we don’t feel good we go to the doctor and the doctor says, “Well you need to lose some weight and cut out sugar from your diet.  Then, eventually, you’ll get better.  But it’ll take some time and discipline.”  That’s not what we want to hear.  Usually, we want to hear an instant remedy, especially if it takes us no effort.  Doctors don’t always work that way.

That’s the same with Divine healing sometimes. Sometimes the Doctor heals us immediately, and we are free from our ailment.  Sometimes the healing requires a long time and discipline.

11. Hope

For many of us, life is simply pointless.  We’ve tried and we’ve failed and we’ve tried again and we just can’t make it work.  Sometimes we fail because of our own fault, and sometimes it’s the fault of others, but whatever the case, no matter what we do, how we work, what changes we make—we’ve got nothing.

Maybe our inner life is in chaos, or maybe we are having a hard time making ends meet.  But we don’t just need a better present, we need a better future, because it seems that the future we are looking at now isn’t worth the trouble.

The Spirit is there to give us a new future, a new goal for our lives.  And he wants to give us the strength and direction we need to meet that future head on, ready for what’s to come. 

10. Inner Peace

Many of us are in turmoil.  Honestly, it is hard not to be in turmoil in the urban environment that most of us live in.  It seems like every day has its own major crisis and over time we find that we are unequal to the task of living our own lives.  We need peace.

The Spirit wants to assist us in achieving peace.  “Peace” is just another word for “salvation” in the Bible and it’s the self-appointed job of the Divine to save.  The Divine wants more for us than to simply make us feel good about our lives.  He wants to transform our lives.   To give us such peace that is glows within us and radiates out to all those around us.

If you are seeking the Divine for peace, you’re on the right track.

9. Direction

Sometimes we all need a little advice.  Let’s face it, if we go at life on our own, without anyone’s help, then we are likely to screw up.  We want to know that we are doing the right thing.  We want to get some counsel to make sure we are on the right track.  Maybe we just want someone to tell us what to do, because we’re just not smart enough.

The Spirit is up for that.  The Spirit wants to help give anyone wisdom who asks.   He may not let you know where that item was you lost, but you never know.  It could happen.

There’s something you need to know about the Divine, though:  He looks at things all weird.  We may ask something of the Divine, and he gives us a weird answer, or just the opposite of what we were looking for.   The Spirit won’t be mad if we don’t take his advice.  But if we keep ignoring him, then eventually he’ll stop giving us wisdom.  So the Spirit warns us that if we don’t want to listen to his wisdom, then perhaps we’d better stop asking.

8. Truth

There are many who pursue truth with all of their heart, deeply desiring to know more and better the world that is around them.  More importantly, they will seek what is not yet known, the secret reality of life, the hidden message behind our lives.  To seek the Spirit seems like a good route to go.

This is a good thing.  Getting to know more is great, and the Spirit lets us know significant truths. But first, a caution.

Religion is a poor path to finding the reality of physical existence.  If you want to know the origins of earth, the nature of plants or the secrets of the physical universe, you want to go to science.  They have the methods and skills developed over centuries to discover that kind of truth.

The Spirit, honestly, isn’t interested in revealing everything.  The Spirit understands human weakness, and how we get overwhelmed by too much truth and distracted by focusing on the insignificant.  For example, Darwin expresses a lot of good truth in his volumes.  However, his books were misinterpreted to express a terrible lie, Social Darwinism.  That’s what humans like to do with truth, sometimes. So the Spirit doesn’t reveal at least as much as he reveals. 

This doesn’t mean that the Spirit doesn’t lead us to Truth.  The Spirit can open up the whole world to us, showing us powerful, transforming revelations.  But these revelations usually mean more to us than to anyone else.  The Spirit is interested in us, individually, and seeing us be the whole people we were meant to be.  He will work toward that goal.  So he will tell us and not tell us and interpret and reveal and hide what we need to be whole.   We just need to remember that.

And if we want to know what Sarah should do?  Forget it.  The Spirit will have that discussion with Sarah, not with us.  The Spirit isn’t a soothsayer.  He seeks to be our companion, our lover.

7. Honoring the Divine

Probably the most common Christian reason for seeking the Divine is simple gratitude.  We deservedly remember our mothers on certain days of the year because she gave us life and a good start on living.  Even so, most Christians will give gratitude, praise and time to the Divine because he created them, loves them and has died for them. 

Gratitude and honoring those who deserve it is wonderful.  It is healthy and brings happiness to us. It makes us more connected to others.  And it is a great way to begin connecting to the Divine.  We just want to make sure that we don’t end there.

If we go into our father’s study, pop our head in and say, “I just want to say thanks, dad, for all you did for me and my siblings,” and then pop out, it’s cute.  If we do it every day or once a month, it wears on our poor father.  He might say, “Hey, I wanted to hang for a minute,” or “I want to tell you something,” then we have some kind of Cat’s Cradle situation going on here.

Let’s be sure to show gratitude.  And then hang around and spend some time with the old man.

6. Overcoming Fear

Fear has been the most common motivating factor to connect to the Spirit world.  Worshipers of Marduk and Kali have only fear of their god which motivates them to be nice to that god.  Appease the god and the god won’t kill your children, unless, of course, they want your children to appease them. 

Many poor preachers and teachers, representing “god”, tell us that unless we connect to the Divine in the prescribed manner that death, tortures and horrors await us.  We are so sinful, so naturally evil that God just can’t wait to dangle us like a spider over a flame, because we deserve it.  (That’s a quote from Jonathan Edwards, by the way, not original to me.)

If we are afraid of God, then we might be more likely to do what he says, it is true.  Every slave will work a little harder if you whip him when he’s too slow.    But you know what a slave doesn’t have?  An open relationship with his master.

It is interesting that Jesus talked about hell and torture quite a bit, but he never used it to people needed to begin a relationship with the Divine.  Rather, he spoke about hell to people who thought they were already connected with the Divine and were harming others in the name of God.  Hell is reserved for the hypocrites, not the seekers.  We don’t need to really be afraid until we use the name of Love and Mercy for the sake of punishment and hatred.

If you want to connect to the Spirit because you are afraid of what would happen to you if you don’t, that’s fine.  The Spirit will use that and teach you what a real relationship looks like.  The Divine will guide you on the path of overcoming your fear.  But he much prefers to meet you because you desire him.

5. What is Your Goal?

People who have been connected with the Spirit world for many years often assume that everyone has the same goal for relating to the Divine.  Conveniently, that goal is usually in line with what their goal is.  However, there are as many different reasons for connecting to the Spirit world as there are ways to connect to the Spirit world.  We will be talking about a few of them here, to try to give some direction.

Why do we need to determine the reason we want to connect to the Divine?  Isn’t it enough for us to desire the Spirit?  I suppose, but almost all of us have a reason for desiring the Spirit, a hidden agenda, so to speak.  If we know what our inner agenda is, we will be more likely to find the paths we need to meet that desire, and so we are more likely to achieve our goal, whether known or not. 

In other words, the one who aims at nothing usually hits it.  And this is frustrating both for us and for the Spirit.

It is frustrating to us, because if we take the wrong approach, our inner need and desire will not be met.  We have a hidden agenda and then we do not meet it and we give up, because we didn’t know what we were after in the first place.  Then we think “Spirituality is not for me”, and consider the whole thing hogwash.

It is also frustrating to the Spirit.  Remember, the Spirit is a person and has many of the same emotions we do, even though the Spirit deals with them differently.  And the Spirit would get frustrated if we give up too soon, because the Spirit wants to give us something.  The Spirit’s goals are not our own, and He is sneaky about hiding his goals from us until He is ready.  But if we give up too soon, before we receive the Spirit’s gift, then we undermine the Spirit’s desire for us.

So us knowing our goals for our relationship with the Spirit helps us meet those goals and helps the Spirit meet his own hidden agenda.

But supposing we don’t know what our goals are? We have a desire for the Spirit, but we really don’t know why? 

The posts following this present some common goals of seeking spirituality.

4. Isn’t Ritual Bad?

Ritual has gotten a bad rap over the years, along with the word “religion”.  They have been accused of being a false spirituality, a fake which real spirituality replaces.  But the fact is, the very people who yell loudest against religion and ritual are deeply entrenched in these practices.

Religion is seeking the Divine.  Anyone who connects with God at some point pursues him*, if only to pray and to give the Spirit one’s intention.  Some who deny religion deny the Divine, but they still seek Truth with the same passion that others pursue God.  Religion is simply a part of us.

Ritual is a meaningful act that we repeat.  We sing the same songs that are important to us, we read the same stories to all of our children, we have the same worn arguments on Facebook.  And these acts make our lives meaningful, we know who we are because we have done them.  Everyone enacts ritual.

So what’s the big deal?  Because some people have claimed more for ritual and religion than they actually can do. 

Some claim that ritual is sufficient to connect to the Spirit.  That isn’t true.  Ritual is a door for our inner life to change, to become something different.   But if all we do is spin a prayer wheel without our inner life being transformed by the act, then the ritual is meaningless.  Empty actions do not change us.  But acts with intention make transformation possible.

Some have claimed that ritual purifies us.  This is not true.  We are purged from guilt or uncleanness by our transformation from evil to good.  But a ritual can lead us to being contrite or repentant, which will purify us.  Ritual is positive if it leads us to an inner transformation. If it just leads to complacency, then it is a negative force in our lives. 

A ritual is like a smile.  A smile communicates happiness.  However, an unhappy person can smile, which makes others think they are happy.  People can get angry at the smile, because it feels like a lie.  However, studies have shown that a smile can often create happiness.  The act often changes the inner position.  Yes, the inner life is shown in our bodies.  But our bodies can also help create the inner life.  It isn’t a one way street.

Even so, ritual can help create an inner life which is what draws the Spirit.  Ritual is nothing without a transformed inner life, but it is an essential tool for achieving it.  So the Spiritual Life is a life of ritual, or discipline, leading to a transformed inner life. 

*The Divine is neither male nor female, or, more likely, both male and female are drawn out of the wholeness that is the Spirit. I use the masculine pronoun for the Spirit as a convenience.  However, there is a really good discussion about how all of humanity is the feminine to the Spirit’s masculine by C.S. Lewis.  Still, I’m just trying to express something without getting tripped up over grammar.  If you feel more comfortable, replace my masculine pronouns with feminine ones.  I’m not using “it”.   For grammatical reasons I am not capitalizing pronouns referring to the Divine, even though I capitalize Spirit and other words I use to represent him.  When you have a Divine who became human, by some who recognize the Divine and others who don’t it gets tricky.  In reality, I just don’t want to have to remember to capitalize every “His” or “Himself” or “Herself.”  It just gets silly.  I’m pretty sure the Divine doesn’t mind that the text isn’t so filled with capital “h”s anyway.

3. What is a Spiritual Life?

As human beings, we all struggle with three moral realms.  These three moral standards occupy portions of our lives, of our thinking, of our actions, of our opinions.   And they all take up permanent residence, resisting any change.

The first moral realm is karma, or justice.  This is the sense that everyone gets what they deserve, and that everyone should get what they deserve.  We work for pay, the good is praised, the criminal goes to jail.  What we do has a direct correlation to what we receive.  We know that life doesn’t always work out this way, but in some sense we think that it should always be this way.

The second moral realm is mercy.  This is the necessary putting aside of karma, to give what isn’t deserved.  Whether children are good or bad, we give them presents at Christmas.  We do nice things for our family, whether they deserve them or not.  We see someone in trouble, and we give them help, even if they can do nothing for us.

Most spiritualities claim that the realm of mercy is superior to that of karma.

But there is a third moral realm which is older than either karma or mercy—the moral realm of Ritual.  Ritual is based on the idea that you are, and you become, what you do.  We learn to cook and we make a lot of mistakes at first, we might even burn some pans to oblivion.  As we keep at it, though, especially under guidance of an experience cook, we get better and then we become a cook.  We didn’t become a cook because we were naturally talented at it, but because we kept at it until people wanted to eat our food.

The Spiritual life is the regular practice of seeking the Spirit, a set of rituals we use to meet the Divine.  At first, our spiritual practice is like a toddler taking her first steps—wobbly and without much hope for the future.  But as we persist, the spiritual life becomes easier and we become a spiritual person.   Not by ignoring the other two moralities, but by having all three moral realms—karma, mercy and ritual be woven together into our lives, giving us a spiritual whole. 

2. Choose Your Own Spirituality

What most people don’t understand is that spirituality is a relationship with the Divine, and like any relationship, it is unique to the two people who are involved in the relationship.  Couples do things together that they would not do separately.   And different couples do different activities to connect to each other.  Each relationship is completely unique, which is part of what makes the relationship significant. 

Your spiritual life, your connection to the Divine, will be unique to you.  You will determine the time, the activities, the place, and the goals.  No one else can tell you how to live your spiritual life.   Well, no one should tell you.  Just because something works for one person, or for millions of people, it doesn’t mean that it will work for you.

In this volume, I will be taking a mostly Christian perspective, with some clues from other spiritual paths.  I am taking this approach, because it is what I know, what I have lived out.  Perhaps that seems limited to you.  But Christian spirituality has been around for 2000 years, and billions of people have taken a Christian approach to connecting to the Spirit realm.  This means that there are billions of different paths, billions of ways to connect to the Spirit. At least. 

This volume is only going to take a handful of the ways to connect to the Divine and give some basic explanations, as well as give some principles that work for most people.  What you do with the tiny insights you might find here is up to you.  Because ultimately, you have to relate to the Divine in your way.  It’s your relationship.  

1. Touching the Unseen

There is a realm we cannot see, but we can sense.  Many talk about it in mystical terms, but we cannot reach out and touch it. Not exactly. Some seem to connect with it so naturally, but for others it is a terrible struggle. Some spend hours in joyful meditation or prayer, but others have a difficulty seeing or sensing anything beyond what is absolutely tangible.

We all know that there is an intangible world.  We are made up of elements and atoms, and beyond our solar system is a realm of beauty and order that few have actually seen.  But we know the tools to reach those worlds—microscopes, telescopes, labs and observatories.  Yet even more people have claimed to have an intimate touch with the Divine, with beings that almost none have seen with their eyes, heard with their ears.  They derive peace and meaning from this connection.  But how does one actually accomplish this?

This blog isn’t going to give a definitive answer.  Rather, it is going to give many answers, many potential paths to live a life connected to the spirit world.  It is up to you to discover what you want out of it, and the path that is right for you.