Where Do We Turn?
Where do we turn when we cannot find justice or peace?
When our world seems inundated by war, pestilence, famine, and death, where do we turn?
There are times when we feel overwhelmed by fear or anxiety, fatigue or hopelessness, loneliness or failure. What is our refuge? Where can we turn to find freedom or reflection, relief or release?
It is easy for us to feel lost and alone, surrounded by challenges and obstacles, out of our depth. The world all around us seems to be burning out of control or sliding into the ocean.
Even the places we turned to in the past are no longer reliable. We appear to be living in a world where there is nowhere to turn, nowhere to find the help we need.
Many of us no longer take spiritual institutions seriously as places we can go to get help. Some of us have been abused by people in religious institutions. We may doubt how helpful spiritual life can be with the practical problems of our lives. Many of us have no real experience with spiritual institutions and cannot imagine how they might help us.
We only remember hearing from spiritual groups when they want something from us or to tell us we are doing something wrong.
What do we do with the questions and desires for which we need answers?
How do we discern what is right? Can we understand whether we are called to do something? Where is the path we can follow with our next steps?
What gives our lives meaning and purpose? Who will help us discover and explore the reasons for our lives?
Why are we willing to persist, to persevere? What keeps us moving, and how do we know which direction to take?
Where do we turn?
Where Do We Turn From Here?
We live in a time of confusion and contradiction. Just when we seem to need ways to find help more than ever we have become skeptical about places which have been sources of help.
It is not surprising. Many of the places to which people have traditionally turned for help have let us down and disappointed us. Some individuals in traditionally helping positions have become abusive and focused on power and wealth. While those individuals are personally responsible for their own actions, they have been shaped by institutions and cultures.
More and more of us have turned our attention from institutional helpers to individual people we know and trust. We have turned our backs on religious institutions and the people in them to look for help on the Internet.
Some of us have more confidence we can figure things out for ourselves, after doing a little research online, than in institutions.
For many of us the Pandemic accelerated this process. We grew accustomed to connecting with our lives online. More and more of the information we sought was found online.
Of course, we need to be careful about simply turning from institutions toward the Internet. Some of us are just exchanging one set of unhelpful institutions for another.
The challenge for us is knowing we can trust the people to whom we turn.
Spiritual life is a relationship, not an institution. Yes, there are organizations and institutions which have helped shape my own experience of spiritual life. The key is finding people in communities and developing relationships which nurture us.
Relationships have difficulties of their own. They require challenging work to develop and sustain. Relationships are living things which grow and change over time.
We cannot take spiritual life, or other relationships, for granted.
Where Do We Turn Toward Spiritual Life?
Spiritual life is a relationship which, even when supported by participation in an institution, stands on its own. The practices we develop as we participate in an organized religion are dependent on our own personal spiritual life. Spiritual life lives within us.
It is important for us to sustain and develop our experience of spiritual life.
We cannot simply sit regularly in a religious institution and expect it to fill us with spiritual life. Our own practices give meaning and purpose to our participation in an institution, not the other way around.
Many of us have experienced spiritual life as a set of expectations or responsibilities. In fact, spiritual life is a source of freedom, of peace, of joy. We need to find practices which help us pay attention to spiritual life and not be wrapped up in rules and regulations.
Our spiritual journey is the story of our getting to know spiritual life. We meet, get acquainted, become friends, and develop an intimate relationship. Each part of the story is a step on the journey, a new experience of relationship.
We grow into spiritual life as it becomes someone we trust.
Where Do We Turn Next?
Each of us needs to take some time and listen to discern where we will turn next.
Some of us need to find someone, another person, we trust and who can help us explore spiritual life. There may be questions we need to ask or simply sit still long enough for some of the pieces to fit together for us.
We may need to do some reading, ancient or contemporary wisdom, to help ourselves understand.
Some of us need to do some spring cleaning, of things or ideas or people, to make space for our developing relationship to spiritual life.
We may need to find a place where we can get away and do some real contemplation, or where we can get down to business. Our relationship to spiritual life might be becoming more about paying attention, or more about practicing love.
One beautiful part of spiritual life is it is particularly difficult to make a mistake. We take a step and, no matter which direction we turn, we learn about ourselves and about spiritual life. Each step brings us closer.
Where do we turn from here today?
Where do we turn toward spiritual life this week?
[Image by orgatriz]
Greg Richardson is a spiritual director in Southern California. He is a recovering assistant district attorney and associate university professor, and is 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.
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