Reclaiming Spirituality

In recent posts, I have used the term “spiritually” in reference to myself a few times. I have done this pretty tentatively because it is not a word I would have used at all, except derogatorily, until very recently. I have always associated “spirituality” with a belief in the supernatural, the paranormal, and I think most people do.

I, however, have not seen any reason to believe in anything other than the material world for well over 40 years. So you can understand my hesitance to use this word. If you were reading carefully, you would have detected my tentativeness in my first use:

“…intellectually (and maybe even spiritually, though not religiously), I think I have been able to situate myself a little more securely within this history of intentional non-conformity.”

I say “maybe” here, and I’m pretty careful to associate my use of the word with the intellect and to distinguish it from any association with religion. But in my second use, I am a bit more confident: “I am a part of them [the Mennonites] both culturally and spiritually.”

I have been thinking about what “spirituality” might really mean in a material, purely natural world for awhile now. I know a lot of people—even some who I respect highly—who claim to have “spiritual” experiences. As someone who does not believe in the so-called “spiritual world,” how can I explain their experience? Do I, perhaps, have experiences that they would call spiritual if they were me?

In questions like this, I always go to the words, the language. In my view, our worlds are constructed in words; that is, the words come before the things, and it is through words that we can be said to know (about) things. But even if you have a more common-sense understanding of the relationship between “reality” and words, it’s useful to start with the words, just to make sure you know what other people mean, and have meant, by the word you’re worried about.

“Spirituality,” it appears, has had a long evolution that has seen it attached to a lot of different meanings. It comes from the Latin word spiritus, which means breath, vigour, courage, or soul. It is related to the words respire (to breathe), expire (to cease breathing or die), and perspire (to sweat). The most basic meaning of spirituality, then, is “having to do with the life force,” literally the breath (that is the sign of life), and more metaphorically vigour or courage or soul (as in Man, he’s got soul!).

In the late medieval period, the word spirituality emerged in church law to indicate the possessions and authority of the church, as opposed to those of the king, which were called the secularity. Thus, the spiritual realm was opposed to the secular realm in all human affairs. I suppose this sense would include activities that we would now call “spiritual,” such as worship, prayer, and partaking in communion.

About the same time, spirituality started to be used to denote what might be called the “inner” or “invisible” aspects of human life, including motives, affections, intentions, and dispositions, what we might now call psychology.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the term started to be used in association with specifically religious activities and tendencies, in both a positive and a negative sense. In its positive usage, the term spirituality came to be used as a synonym for “devotion” or “piety,” so a “spiritual” person was one who was more devout and pious, what we would call “religious.” In its negative sense, spirituality was used to denote mysticism, ecstatic religious behaviour, too great a focus on private contemplation (quietism) instead of partaking in church rituals, and so on. This sort of religious pursuit was considered heresy.

In the modern world, which is divided between those who believe in some sort of supernatural and those who don’t, the term “spirituality” came to indicate generally some sort of communion with the supernatural. This includes practices associated with formal religions, such as prayer and meditation, practices associated with traditional cultures such as drumming and dance, or so-called New Age practices like the use of crystals and the tarot deck.

Over two centuries, then, the meaning of spirituality has traveled from “life force” to “inner life” to “the realm of the church” to “devotion and piety” or “mystical excess” to “communion with the supernatural.” Interestingly, in the last 50 years or so, in what many claim to be a crass materialistic world, the frequency of use of the term skyrocketed, after remaining pretty constant for hundreds of years. I’d ascribe this to the dramatic increase in both fundamentalist Christian and New Age hucksters on the air waves and the internet.

Whatever the case, I find that I am not alone in trying to forge some sort of non-supernatural, non-transcendental understanding of spirituality. Other humanists and materialists of various stripes have done the same. I think we are all generally going back to that late-medieval sense of the “inner life,” the “spirit” that motivates an individual’s behaviour in this world.

I must say that even when I believed in God and believed in a spiritual life that was of a different order than physical life, I didn’t feel that I had “spiritual” experiences as other people described them. I never had a dramatic conversion experience though I prayed for one frequently. I never had a sense of the immanence of the Divine, never “knew” that my prayers were heard, never “heard” the voice or felt the direction of God. I never saw any event that I could ascribe only to a “miracle.” (Indeed the only feeling some might call spiritual that I ever experienced was guilt.) Since my mother talked frequently about all of these sorts of positive experiences, it was very hard for me to feel that I had a proper relationship with God. I really had to take it completely on faith.

But there have been times—even since I stopped believing in God—when I have sensed something in my environment that I could not see, something that raised the hair on the back of my neck, that freaked me out. It might be the sense of a presence in my house or a more unspecific feeling of impending doom. In every case, I could find no evidence of anything physical, and my fear or apprehension was proved ungrounded. Some, I suppose, would ascribe such experiences to the supernatural, but I always put it down to some malfunction of my senses and my imagination, something completely natural.

On the other hand, I have often experienced an overwhelming sense of awe at something that I find remarkably beautiful. This might be a natural phenomenon (the Grand Canyon, a breaching humpback whale, the complex curve of a naked woman’s hip, the aurora borealis, or the exquisite intensity of an orgasm) or a work of human artifice (a poem or a passage in a novel, a sculpture or a painting, a piece of music or a dance movement, a building or a very clever algorithm). It is not unusual for tears to come to my eyes on such occasions.

In speaking with friends who are of a spiritual bent, I have come to realize that this sort of aesthetic experience is not dissimilar to experiences they would call spiritual. So perhaps a component of spirituality is an openness and sensitivity to the intangible “things” that give life meaning: beauty, kindness, love, creativity, innocence, sorrow.

There is also, for me, the aspect of taking life seriously, of thinking about everything, of having a developed set of principles by which one lives. It is, perhaps, a recognition that we do not and perhaps cannot know or understand everything, but, despite that, applying what we do understand to our every action. This is the “examined life” of Socrates, and it doesn’t require religion or a belief in the supernatural to live it.

Finally, there is for me the sense of a connection with all things. Religious people may find this sort of connection through their belief in a Creator, but I find it through my belief in biology, chemistry, physics, history, and evolution, to my understanding of ecology. I strongly believe that I depend on all of the universe and that how I live my life affects the universe.

I am not self-made and cannot survive without my environment and my community. I believe that I have a responsibility to live a humane and ecological life in this world, a life that gives as well as takes, a life that leaves a small environmental footprint but as large a circle of care as I am able to sustain. This sense of responsibility brings with it a great sense of humility, the knowledge that I can never do anywhere near enough, but an acceptance that the best I can do is the best I can do.

Spirituality for me, then, is a certain aesthetic, intellectual, emotional tendency that causes one to attempt to rise above mere consumption and survival and personal success, to live in an intentional way that produces as little harm in the universe and as much good as possible. It is not a part of my life, but rather the essence of how I live every aspect of my life.

I do not believe one needs a God to experience such spirituality, and I do not believe that God-oriented spirituality necessarily produces a better life by any measurement.