Postures, practices, and the value of articulating the mysteries of spiritual life

The following questions were asked on Instagram in response to this earlier post. I’m sharing my responses below. Let’s make it a conversation by commenting and leaving responses of your own.

What role does spirituality play in your life? As in…what’s the value in even articulating it? I don’t know if I could find the words either, but mostly because I don’t know if it matters. But I think about the role of “God” in other folks’ lives a lot lately. Is it just a series of stories that help us understand the unexplainable?Is it a handbook for living community with others? Why do so many find it hard or impossible to acknowledge that one God doesn’t fit all? - LT

My responses:

Spirituality is a series of postures and practices which remind me of, and reconnect me to, the mysteries and wonders of being alive. The postures are internal, and therefore largely hidden. The practices are primarily external, rituals like prayer, reflection, meditation, and community. The external practices help me to cultivate internal postures which bring more peace, awareness, and on my best days, creative purpose and compassion.

In my own life, spiritual practice has taken on many shades and shapes over the years. I’ve always been creative, which I now understand to be essential to spiritual living, but as a teenager, church community and evangelical Christian theologies became the primary markers of my spiritual life. I’ve participated in all kinds of churches and faith communities over the years. While I still very much consider the Christian tradition to be my home, I would lying if I said that my spiritual practice still fits neatly within the bounds of the tradition I was handed. My current practice does not fit anymore, for which I’m grateful. It simply means I’ve grown.

I find value in articulating these things because it makes me feel like I understand myself and like my journey, as winding and varied as it’s been, has meaning. I’m also a writer and a thinker, so articulating what I or others deem inexplicable is simply life-giving to me. Naming our spiritual practice also creates opportunities to connect with others who are on similar paths. Because so much of the journey can be internal, and in some instances, isolating, it’s a gift to say your piece and to hear others respond with, “Me too.”

In thinking about the role of God in other folks lives, I can only imagine how many different case studies we would find if we were to take even a small sample size. For some, knowing God stands apart from practicing a specific religion. I do think of religions as sets of stories about not only the unexplainable, but about the Divine and perhaps most honestly, about what it means to be human. What it means to be on this planet and living in these bodies and having these beautiful, painful, unimaginable, delightful, difficult experiences. Religions speak to everything from “Where do babies come from?” to “Why do nations war?” I mean, it’s broad. I understand why people need it. My convictions suggests we were created to long for such understanding.

But I do think that as religion and God-knowledge (theology) become allied with political, economic and social power, they cease to be about spiritual practice at all. When allied with power, it’s no longer about the internal formation of the soul or about external practices of building connection and creating life. When religions and God-knowledge become allied with power, it’s almost always about domination and control. It’s tragic really, and you don’t have to look far into history, or even into the present cultural moment, to see how much harm this causes.

I think it’s difficult for some to acknowledge that one God-way doesn’t fit everyone for the same reasons humans struggle to embrace all sorts of differences. There is fear of the unknown, the desire to control, the need to be right, the desire to maintain the status quo, the need to belong, and more. When you’ve built your entire life on any religious foundation, it threatens your sense of self to begin questioning things. Some people, by way of pain, exclusion, or doubt choose to embrace the questioning. They let their questions open them up to knew ways and possibilities. Others, choose to double down and become even more resolute in their convictions. We all land in different places for a wide array of reasons.

But I return to the invitations of cultivating a meaningful spiritual life for oneself, one in which we nurture postures of the soul that enable us to expand our capacity to know the Divine, to know ourselves, and to move towards our neighbors in love.

Thank you for these beautiful and thoughtful questions, LT. I’d love to hear from you and others: What role does spirituality play in your life? What is the value in even articulating it?