Spiritual Life is Not About Doing More

Each of us wishes we could do more. We see images of natural disasters or social challenges and wish we could do more to help. People we love are in need or in pain and we wish we could do more for them.

There are so many needs and so many potential ways we could help we can become overwhelmed. It is easy for us to get tired, frustrated, and decide not to do anything. It is easy for us to be faced with so many choices we fail to choose any of them.

There are people who believe spiritual life is all about doing more. They tell us spiritual life will give us more strength, more joy to share, more ways to help others. They see spiritual life as a tool to help us do more.

It is true that spiritual life may open doors for us into new ways to be come active and participate. Spiritual life may draw us into seeing what we do in new ways. Spiritual life changes our priorities and choices.

Spiritual life gives us things to consider and new ways to consider them.

Spiritual life is about understanding in deeper ways. As we grow, spiritual life infuses us, shaping our abilities and insights. Some people become more active, while others develop more contemplatively. Some people become contemplative activists.

Spiritual life is not a checklist of actions for us to take, things we need to do. Spiritual life does not demand we spend more time studying, or singing, or praying. Spiritual life does not mean we must have certain experiences.

Spiritual life draws us into becoming more intimately honest with ourselves, other people, the Sacred.

How do you decide to do the things you do?

Do you want to do more? Why?

[Image by whatleydude]