Spirit
"The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of
where you are always, and what you are forever.
It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed."
At the very center of my life is my spirituality. It colors the way I see the entire world, other people, and myself. It is the lense through which I view and appreciate everything. And there is no part of my life that it does not permeate.
"Look into my eyes and hear what I'm not saying,
for my eyes speak louder than my voice ever will."
People ask me to describe what God is to me. But God is an experience more than an idea or a theory – and experience cannot be reproduced with words. That’s like asking me to describe the color blue, the smell of lilacs, or the sound of a piano. I could go into lengthy scientific details about light reflection on surfaces, about complex inner nose structures that process tiny invisible particles, or about the nature of sound waves in relation to the structure of the ear. I could talk about blue being calm, like water, or lilacs smelling fresh, like spring, or a piano sounding somehow strong and delicate all at once. But no matter how much I tried to explain these things, you would never be able to truly understand what I meant unless you had seen, smelled, and heard them yourself. No matter what I said, nor how elegantly, my words (or music, paintings, poetry, etc.) could not
show
you what these things are. Anthony de Mello, a Jesuit priest known for his spiritual writings, expressed this through a parable in his book “One Minute Wisdom”:
The disciples were absorbed in a
discussion of Lao-tzu’s dictum:
Those who know do not say;
Those who say do not know.”
When the Master entered, the asked him
exactly what the words meant.
Said the Master,
“Which of you knows the fragrance of a rose?”
All of them knew.
Then he said, “Put it into words.”
All of them were silent.
That is exactly how I feel when asked to describe what God is for me and, by extension, my spirituality. I can try to point to some of the specifics of my beliefs, quoting from and linking to a variety of texts whenever possible. But please remember and do not forget that these words will only scratch the surface of the reality of the Experience from which they stem. They will only provide you with a loose shadow –dark, blurry, undefined -- of my true beliefs, those that I cannot express. I ask you to read the rest of this page in light of this, remembering that words are only words and point the way to, but do not convey, my experience and my truth.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a
cage of words may indeed unfold its wings
but cannot fly.
-Kahlil Gibran
GOD
I told a friend recently that if I really wanted to show you how God felt to me, then better than any lecture or conversation or quotation or scripture, would be to simply hold you in my arms and love you with unending gentleness and strength. That is infinitely true. But even that would only just barely hint at the greater Love that is God, the way the tiniest stream, while lovely, only hints at the magnificence of the vast ocean to which it leads. Thomas Merton once wrote:
There have been moments in your life
when you had an experience that you know you will
have to carry with you to your grave because you
are quite unable to find words with which to
communicate the experience to anyone. As a matter of fact
there simply are no words in any human language
to communicate exactly what you experienced . . .
You may try to communicate the experience
in music or poetry or painting. But in your heart
you know that no one will ever comprehend what it
was you saw and sensed. This is something you
are quite powerless to express, much less teach,
to another human being.
God is that kind of experience. You know you can't explain it, so you don't try. At best, you can show and embody it.
RELIGION
"A Universal Theology is Impossible . . .
But a Universal Experience is not only Possible, but Necessary."
So what is my religion, in the traditional sense? Ultimately, I would choose not to label myself as anything. For me, spirituality is utterly nameless and cannot be confined under any term. Furthermore, any name I give it will come loaded with historically and culturally based preconceptions, prejudgments, and assumptions (for better or for worse) on the part of other people and myself. I have nothing at all against organized religion, I gladly take part in it, but I also know that its structures, rituals and belief systems, while often beautiful, are limited. They serve as powerful reminders of a deeper Truth, they offer community, shared fellowship, and some sense of direction. But they, by themselves, are really only grandiose tools we can use to come closer to the ancient memory of God which is the foundation of real knowledge.
"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.
It has been found difficult; and left untried."
~ G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With the World (1910)
