Does Spiritual Life Really Matter?
I know people who have never really thought much about spiritual life.
We have created a culture in which spiritual life is something to be belittled or ridiculed. Our lives are focused on work or family or friends. Spiritual life is something which makes us feel embarrassed or afraid. We spend our money on vampires and zombies and werewolves, not on real spiritual life.
People who seem to know about real spiritual life are not interested in our questions. They appear to have found answers which satisfy them and spend their time defending those answers. The professionals seem to have more time to convince us than to help us.
It feels like spiritual life only matters if it helps us win the argument.
The questions which really matter to us appear to have little to do with spiritual life. We care about relationships and how we look, what we can afford to buy and how we feel. Spiritual life seems too fuzzy and far away to really matter to us.
Even people interested in spiritual life have a hard time understanding it. The path toward spiritual life is challenging, as if it were hiding from us.
Spiritual life seems to take a lot of time and effort. We need more immediate gratification.
Spiritual life does not feel like it really matters to us. So many other things are larger parts of our everyday lives. We are just not that into spiritual life.
It is easy for us to get discouraged and tired, to stop trying.
The Reality of Spiritual Life
We want to find someone who can make spiritual life easier for us. A checklist or an outline would be good, or spiritual life by the numbers. We would like directions or a diagram we could follow, like with Ikea or Legos.
It would be great if we could find a way to master spiritual life in a month or a year.
The reality of spiritual life is we relate to Sacred truths in our own unique, personal ways. There are no shortcuts or quick answers. We can learn from the experience of other people, but we each learn for ourselves.
There is no easy way for spiritual life to grow in us, to become spiritual masters. Studying spiritual life in school only shows us how much more we need to learn. We cannot learn what we need to know and move on to study something else.
Spiritual life is not an academic exercise. Spiritual life grows in us as we practice ways to become more open to it.
We cannot try to protect ourselves and expect to gain strength in spiritual life. Spiritual life is about spending time and building trust with Sacred truth. Our relationship to Sacred truth changes us, guiding us into deeper truth. We become more willing to share the truth we know with the people around us. Spiritual life allows us to be honest with ourselves, to recognize and appreciate who we are. Our spiritual practices show us how to be true to ourselves, to know ourselves more intimately.
Spiritual life is not warm and cuddly, not fuzzy and far away. It is closer than we are to ourselves and guides us even closer.
Spiritual life is about what really matters.
Deciding What Really Matters to Us
Many of us are not particularly good at deciding what really matters to us. Even when we know what matters most to us, we get scared and anxious about it. We tend not to want to commit ourselves when the stakes are high.
One essential aspect of spiritual life is it does not force itself on us. Spiritual life is patient, waiting for us to decide. The problem, if we put off deciding what matters, is we will miss out on the benefits.
If we stay loose and noncommittal we may miss our chance. When we get stuck in our anxiety and fear, we risk staying stuck and not spending our lives on what matters.
It is easy for us to get distracted until it is too late. We put off deciding what really matters to us and we give away our opportunities to try it.
We are right to think there is a lot at stake. It is important for us to recognize we risk just as much by not deciding as we do by deciding.
How do we decide what really matters to us?
Part of deciding what matters to us is thinking about it, analyzing our options. Another aspect of deciding is reflecting. It can help a lot to pay unfocused attention, not concentrating intently. We allow the possibilities to present themselves. It is also helpful to gain experience. Trying things, even for a short period of time, can give us significant insights.
We also need to remember what matters to us can change over time.
Learning How Much Spiritual Life Really Matters
Deciding whether spiritual life really matters can include thinking, reflecting, and experience. It might help to talk with someone who seems to understand spiritual life. You might want to find a person who is not trying to sell you a particular set of answers.
Spending time learning about spiritual life and reflecting about it could help. There are plenty of websites and books you could explore.
You might want to choose a spiritual practice to try for a set period of time. It might be praying every day for a month, for example.
The key is not to put pressure on yourself. Try some things out and, possibly, move on to trying something else. It is not a test or a challenge. You are just checking it out to see if it works well for you.
We explore spiritual life to give ourselves opportunities to change how we respond to it. There is no reason for spiritual life to be a source of fear or anxiety for us.
Does spiritual life really matter to you?
[Image by CarbonNYC [in SF!]]
Greg Richardson is a spiritual life mentor and leadership coach in Southern California. He is a recovering attorney and university professor, and a lay Oblate with New Camaldoli Hermitage near Big Sur, California. Greg’s website is StrategicMonk.com, and his email address is StrategicMonk@gmail.com.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In