Wayside Pulpit

This is What Happens to Nice Words in Ivory Towers

Spirituality: When transcendent beliefs are lived, holistic experiences occur and can be called, “Spirituality.” These “lived experiences” are not limited to a narrow understanding of religious practices such as prayer, meditation, fasting and pilgrimage. Instead, the lived experiences of spirituality encompass the many experiences that come as the result of holding transcendent beliefs. Spirituality is also not isolated from social location. Such factors as gender, culture, race and sexual orientation are interwoven with these lived experiences and cannot be separated from them. Spirituality learns from itself, it is reflexive. Each lived experience often leads to new lived experiences. In this way spirituality is transformative, it operates as both map and guide to ultimate goals of transcendence and growth.

Surf's Up

As fall comes around the corner I am hiding from it. I am splintering my life in many directions and I think I just might go to pieces. Though I wonder, is the splintering all so bad, or is it my dislike with splintering?

This week begins my doctoral studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. It took awhile for my class schedule to filter through my obsessive compulsive nature. I really DO want to take everything and I would give my bottom Franklin for a time turner. There is simply too much out there in theology that needs to be turned over and examined, played with and picked at.

On an intuitive whim I decided to take a seminar in Christian Spirituality. I fell for the first readings so hard that I spent Friday night glued to my chair. I’m not sure how I got this far and never came across the academic discipline of spirituality. All I can think to say is the bloody cliché, “Better late than never.”

The topic of the nebulous nature of spirituality came up during a dinner conversation this week. A fellow diner said between bites of tofu, “I bet you can define spirituality now!” I laughed. The truth is, I could have defined it better before I read five authors all writing papers about its definition.

See, the waves pull back, way back and you see the ocean floor. It ceases to be the wet sand that cushions the feet of little kids as they scamper in and out of the water. It becomes a big world all its own and no more do you believe that beaches and surfing hot-spots are romantic places to play and make-out. No. Instead, the complex truth runs through your fingers as each grain opens up new possibilities of significance and living; an infinite microcosm all your own. In an instant, “Going to the beach” takes on a whole new meaning.