Over the past few weeks I've heard a number of people quote statistics that say the province I live in, Quebec, is "spiritual" but not religious and been thinking about what it means to be spiritual. I've been reading Eugene Peterson's Subversive Spirituality to prepare for our deep discipleship group's reflection for next month on spirituality, and now, honestly, I still can't define exactly what spirituality, or being spiritual, really is. People in church will say they're not being spiritually fed, or they'll say they're spiritual and don't need to attend the church and I'm never sure exactly what they want or who they're saying they are. Mostly I see people who aren't much different than any of my neighbours who never go to church or even believe in God.
What struck me with Eugene Peterson's book is a comment he made about spirituality, he goes something like this: when we are healthy and good in our relationship with God we don't think a whole lot about spirituality, but if we're off the track in some way with our relationship with God, we blame it on the church's lack of focus on spirituality. It seems to me that spirituality is mostly about living right with God and with others and when we start living in a way that causes us to drift away from God's ways, or we get into dysfunctional or unhealthy relationships with others, all of a sudden we get a desire for "spirituality" and we start looking to find a way to "feel" good about ourselves again, usually meaning we're trying to find a way to justify the way we're doing things, or the way we're living, then we say we're tapping into our "spirituality." I think most times we're just fooling ourselves instead.
Maybe we need to get back to a simpler faith instead, live according to how God calls us to live with him and each other. The problem is this is a lot easier said than done since the way to live God's way is to live with love; healthy love where we are looking out for the best for others, not the artificial love Hollywood would have us believe is real love. A young man blamed me for not warning him how hard it was going to be to live like a follower of Jesus. When I asked him what he meant, he told me he was finding it really hard to live in a way that focuses on helping others to see what living in healthy ways is. He realized that this is what loving your neighbour is all about. But that means caring a lot and being willing to take a chance to confront his friends, co-workers and even family when he would notice something in what they were doing or how they living that was hurting themselves or others. Yet when I pushed him on how he was doing with God, he mentioned that by working so hard at really living out this loving your neighbour thing, that his relationship with God was stronger than he expected. He had thought because his friends and others ignored his advice so often, that he would feel guilty because of his lack of success, instead he believes he understands God's love for us a lot better now since we're so often like his friends, not really listening to God's advice.
Perhaps spirituality is simply nothing more than reading our Bible more faithfully to get to know God better, and than living out the way of living Jesus laid out for us. It's not about "feelings," but about a commitment to a deep caring of the people around us, along with talking with God through prayer, and spending time with God's people who are trying to live the same way so you can encourage each other, help each other and worship God together.
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