INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER TO BOOK
Introduction
Fruits from the Bottom Up
On the South side of England on the English Channel is the Holton Lee Centre, situated on acres of virgin land. I have many fond memories of the lush countryside, especially many of the oak trees with large canopies of leaves that bud, blossom and shade, and of the acorns dropping and finally the leaves falling after displaying their orangish brown colours. These trees were my inspiration and deliverance because they offered such a clear model of the spirituality displayed at this Centre for Disabled People and Carers (or caregivers). Picture nourishment, wisdom, vision, insight and experience moving up from the roots through the trunk and out into the branches. The leaves cause this inner siphoning action as they draw on the inner moisture while sending their juices out into fruit (acorns) and back down to the earth to create more trees.
If one day lightening were to strike one of these trees, then after the storm had passed we could examine the exposed bark, which attempted to protect the tree; phloem, which transports sap from leaves to the rest of the tree; a thin layer of cambium, which is the growth layer; and the sapwood, which is a pipeline for transporting moisture up to the leaves. At the centre is the heartwood, which is dead sapwood. The leaves, whether skinny pine needles or broad oak leaves and branches, would have served the same purpose of converting carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight into sap (a sugar with nutrients). The roots, which often are as large a bundle underground as the tree’s branch-and leaf crown above ground, complete the system by drawing up moisture and using the sap for growth as enlargement and extension.
Trees and Spirituality
A first connection of the tree with spirituality is that both grow from the ground up. A tree places its roots in the soil to draw up only the nutrients needed while ignoring, even resisting things that are not healthy for it. We have already taken in unhealthy things. We need to identify those attitudes and beliefs which are contrary to living and bearing the fruit of good trees.
The parts and functions we see are really a whole thing that works together to grow, blossom and produce. In humans, what is produced is the key to understanding that spirituality. As Jesus says in Matthew 7: “Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but every bad tree bears bad fruit.” Every religion seems to make a similar affirmation.
A second connection is that both are influenced by their soils or contexts. As I grew in understanding and spiritual expression, I had several major questions about my own context, wondering how to appropriate and truly live out my own new deep learning. Patriarchy, dominance, and power-over people, I learned, were not an authentic or a loving way of living, nor was living in oppression and under that dominance a healthy way of life. I began to see so many places where this way of life was being lived out, and this presented so many challenges to me.
These places were within the Church, my ecumenical lay Christian community, which I had been part of for thirty years and even within the structures of the charity organisation. The suggestion of our tutors was to see things through the lens of our contexts. In the masters, we also studied third world spirituality, women’s spirituality, the Church structure and context and the concern for the environment. I could no longer, for the sake of justice and my own integrity, ignore what I saw and experienced.I began to challenge, ask questions and change or leave those unhealthy, inauthentic contexts—which stated one thing and practiced another—because those structures were oppressive.
There are two basic models of systems and how they operate. One is dominant, top-down, power hungry, unjust, not living out right relationships. Even after years of countering sexism, racism, classism, and all the other -isms, these systems are still generated. One model that is promoted in this book – and that fits the metaphor of a tree – is bottom-up, vision sharing, just, and seeks to live in harmony with others. The first type tries to make things grow by pulling on the branches; the second type makes things grow by sharing the soil and its nutrients.
Fruits from the Bottom Up
On the South side of England on the English Channel is the Holton Lee Centre, situated on acres of virgin land. I have many fond memories of the lush countryside, especially many of the oak trees with large canopies of leaves that bud, blossom and shade, and of the acorns dropping and finally the leaves falling after displaying their orangish brown colours. These trees were my inspiration and deliverance because they offered such a clear model of the spirituality displayed at this Centre for Disabled People and Carers (or caregivers). Picture nourishment, wisdom, vision, insight and experience moving up from the roots through the trunk and out into the branches. The leaves cause this inner siphoning action as they draw on the inner moisture while sending their juices out into fruit (acorns) and back down to the earth to create more trees.
If one day lightening were to strike one of these trees, then after the storm had passed we could examine the exposed bark, which attempted to protect the tree; phloem, which transports sap from leaves to the rest of the tree; a thin layer of cambium, which is the growth layer; and the sapwood, which is a pipeline for transporting moisture up to the leaves. At the centre is the heartwood, which is dead sapwood. The leaves, whether skinny pine needles or broad oak leaves and branches, would have served the same purpose of converting carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight into sap (a sugar with nutrients). The roots, which often are as large a bundle underground as the tree’s branch-and leaf crown above ground, complete the system by drawing up moisture and using the sap for growth as enlargement and extension.
Trees and Spirituality
A first connection of the tree with spirituality is that both grow from the ground up. A tree places its roots in the soil to draw up only the nutrients needed while ignoring, even resisting things that are not healthy for it. We have already taken in unhealthy things. We need to identify those attitudes and beliefs which are contrary to living and bearing the fruit of good trees.
The parts and functions we see are really a whole thing that works together to grow, blossom and produce. In humans, what is produced is the key to understanding that spirituality. As Jesus says in Matthew 7: “Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but every bad tree bears bad fruit.” Every religion seems to make a similar affirmation.
A second connection is that both are influenced by their soils or contexts. As I grew in understanding and spiritual expression, I had several major questions about my own context, wondering how to appropriate and truly live out my own new deep learning. Patriarchy, dominance, and power-over people, I learned, were not an authentic or a loving way of living, nor was living in oppression and under that dominance a healthy way of life. I began to see so many places where this way of life was being lived out, and this presented so many challenges to me.
These places were within the Church, my ecumenical lay Christian community, which I had been part of for thirty years and even within the structures of the charity organisation. The suggestion of our tutors was to see things through the lens of our contexts. In the masters, we also studied third world spirituality, women’s spirituality, the Church structure and context and the concern for the environment. I could no longer, for the sake of justice and my own integrity, ignore what I saw and experienced.I began to challenge, ask questions and change or leave those unhealthy, inauthentic contexts—which stated one thing and practiced another—because those structures were oppressive.
There are two basic models of systems and how they operate. One is dominant, top-down, power hungry, unjust, not living out right relationships. Even after years of countering sexism, racism, classism, and all the other -isms, these systems are still generated. One model that is promoted in this book – and that fits the metaphor of a tree – is bottom-up, vision sharing, just, and seeks to live in harmony with others. The first type tries to make things grow by pulling on the branches; the second type makes things grow by sharing the soil and its nutrients.
The second model emerged over the years in the actual research process as we continued to be alert to combine theory and practice. We became aware of the various definite stages or phases, which finally totaled eight in number. This second model is splayed out in chapters 1 through 8.
A third connection is that both grow from the inside out. Many persons who study spirituality grow in knowledge and perhaps good feelings. Yet nothing emerges into the world because growth is not obtained or realized . The reason is that they have approached spirituality as though it is a theory. It has theoretical components, but it also is a practice.
A third connection is that both grow from the inside out. Many persons who study spirituality grow in knowledge and perhaps good feelings. Yet nothing emerges into the world because growth is not obtained or realized . The reason is that they have approached spirituality as though it is a theory. It has theoretical components, but it also is a practice.
We need to combine theory and practice into a praxis, which is theory-informing practice and practice-informing theory. With such a dynamic flow back and forth, we are on a journey of growth, change, and hopefully transformation.
Just as a tree has a moisture up-sap down cycle, so our transformation is a circular process. In the present moment when we encounter a problem or question we can then consider options and reflect on the best decision or way forward. Then we act on that decision and experience what happens. Later, once we experience the fruit of our decision, we can spend time reflecting on what happened and consider whether the decision was the most helpful or expedient for us.
This concept of cycles is important. Life is not lived on a straight line. Our journey is not simply a series of rational decisions moving from A to B, but rather a series of experiences where we can choose our response and way forward.
The fruit and insights of such action-reflection-revised action changed my life at a deep level. It was transformative only in as much as I chose to take on board and live out that which I was learning. I still find the material and what I learned from it – and am still learning - so exciting and revealing.
Just as a tree has a moisture up-sap down cycle, so our transformation is a circular process. In the present moment when we encounter a problem or question we can then consider options and reflect on the best decision or way forward. Then we act on that decision and experience what happens. Later, once we experience the fruit of our decision, we can spend time reflecting on what happened and consider whether the decision was the most helpful or expedient for us.
This concept of cycles is important. Life is not lived on a straight line. Our journey is not simply a series of rational decisions moving from A to B, but rather a series of experiences where we can choose our response and way forward.
The fruit and insights of such action-reflection-revised action changed my life at a deep level. It was transformative only in as much as I chose to take on board and live out that which I was learning. I still find the material and what I learned from it – and am still learning - so exciting and revealing.
The second model emerged over the years in the actual research process as we continued to be alert to combine theory and practice. We became aware of the various definite stages or phases, which finally totalled eight in number. This second model is splayed out in chapters 1 through 8.
A third connection is that both grow from the inside out. Many persons who study spirituality grow in knowledge and perhaps good feelings. Yet nothing emerges into the world because growth is not obtained or realised. The reason is that they have approached spirituality as though it is a theory. It has theoretical components, but it also is a practice.
A third connection is that both grow from the inside out. Many persons who study spirituality grow in knowledge and perhaps good feelings. Yet nothing emerges into the world because growth is not obtained or realised. The reason is that they have approached spirituality as though it is a theory. It has theoretical components, but it also is a practice.
PRAXIS
One of the first and key understandings for me in considering the research question and methodology design was to understand praxis. That is if you combine theory and practice you get praxis, which is theory-informing practice and practice informing theory. That is true in the field of spirituality as in any field. I realized that we could learn a new, relevant and authentic theory of spirituality, which then would inform our living, and in turn our living experience would shape and inform our theory about spirituality.
To consider spiritual praxis, we need to change metaphors to our lives as journeys. As Aristotle once said, the difference between plants and animals is that animals can move around while plants are, well, planted.
Our lives are not static and stationary. There is constant change. As was stated above we are on a journey of growth, change and hopefully transformation, growing into who we were created to be.
The two models, which are shared in subsequent chapters here, might look simple yet the arrow is critical because it represents the journey of transformation!
Both oppressors and oppressed must change. A paradigm shift– along with significant transformation at personal, group, family, organizational, national, and world levels – must occur, and we can see more clearly without the constraints of our previous programming, experiences, projections and collusions.
We are set free to see in a new way with new eyes and hearts and then be able to have more considered responses and make more healthy decisions.
The journey of change on which we embark when we begin to become more aware and conscious of life in and around us, is really a journey of transformation at every level of our beings and continues for the rest of our lives. It isn’t easy or automatic and we have to decide and choose what we want and how committed we will be. The more we learn, the more intense the journey is, and we seem to get more deeply involved in life, in our wider social contexts rather than thinking as some people do, that spirituality is very personal only. Instead, it really affects the whole of our lives: our bodies, minds and spirits; how we spend our time, money, and resources; our friendships and relationships; our politics, sexuality, energy, family and so on. There is not one aspect of our lives that is untouched.
Living praxis required me to write from both my head (authentic academically) and heart. This was very challenging –requiring personal experience, integration and a search to find words and text to match or express that reality – language! It was yet another aspect of my journey that I felt I could “not” do and
so for the past nine years I continued to study and “experience” more.
We Are All One
Some dimensions of spirituality are very broad. Spirituality is both personal and social, and has to do with the uniqueness of our being. It is non-material and is also a process in which we follow our own path, on our own journey. It gives us life. It is something a reflective person knows and is aware of in varying degrees. It is different from humanitarianism. Our spirituality informs and forms all aspects of our lives.
We have not mentioned, however, the various forms of spirituality and different types of practices, such as eco-feminism, yoga, sexuality (for example, Kama Sutra), Buddhism, quantum physics, psychology, and various denominations or faiths. Yet, we are all still one, joined together in a web of relationships,
sharing our earth home and cosmos.
Even in this twenty-first century, we are becoming increasingly more numbed and spiritually silent. Perhaps we are afraid of our spirituality and the surrounding confusion that happens when we think church, religion or theology is synonymous with it. Perhaps we are afraid of the implications of a cost or responsibility to be authentic and to love.
If we are not conscious and aware of our spiritual life as people, then we tend as a result to be poor lovers. Conversely, if we constantly develop our spiritual life, as we would tend and nurture a garden, then we will grow in what Love is. We can’t be a spiritual person without being a lover.
“We are all one” means that we are interconnected, that the choices you make have an impact or implication for me; my choices have consequences for you. This also means that life for the oppressed cannot improve until both oppressor and the oppressed are changed. This change comes through wisdom and living (praxis), not through thinking and rationalizing alone (theory) and not through routines and refinements (practice).
Take a look at the other outcome. When we encounter what we often call blocks, brick walls, dark places, or no-go areas, we may want to stop, give up or run away. Often then, we do run away into alcohol, drugs, food, sex or other forms of avoidance to calm our shattered nerves and growing fears. This can be especially the case as we experience our inability to weather these storms or difficulties when we didn’t know how to grow and to find light instead of darkness. We may feel overwhelmed, sinking or even drowning. We may seek respite in whatever way we can or have learned how to do. We affect others and ourselves with whatever choice we make and so we alter the journeys of others.Our lives are complex, compounded – and intertwined. We are all one, living in a web of relationships.
Our feelings, thoughts, beliefs and experience may make us think it is a viscous circle with no way out and we feel powerless. However paradoxically, it is at these times of darkness, confusion, despair and fear that there can be deeper growth, change and transformation.Our lives are journeys which we live alone and also share with others. Our spirituality evolves as we choose our responses to what is happening in us and around us each moment. It comes from inside us and is evolving constantly as we interact with our world around us. We are in a process of living life – a process that is not me or you, but forms and informs and makes us.
A central aspect of being spiritual is to shift from thinking I to living we.
God-Talk
The language that we use about God can be difficult for each other. It is important to realise this in all discussions and consideration about what words we can use. Or, perhaps there are no words. More than a few have discussed the difficulty and inadequacy of language, especially spiritual language. Some of us
carry baggage from our childhood about words used for God. Some people now prefer to use the words such as Higher Power, Energy, Life, I Am, Divine Mystery.
The reality is that no one religion, faith or belief system has a license or ownership of spirituality – we are all one, sharing together in our web of life, ideally, mutually, reciprocally and with inter-dependence. It is a reality and experience which we live – a Living Reality or Presence and Energy within and around
us, whether we recognize it individually or collectively or not. That is we can be living it either authentically or in an unhealthy way.
Remember, we can tell if we are living with the Spirit by the fruits of our lives and how we relate to others. Descriptions such as love, kindness, care, inclusiveness, in patience and mutual relationship should be used by those who observe our lives.
Growing in Love, not Fear
With a wide range for God-talk language, and with the ability to ascertain paths by their fruits, we need to explain another important aspect of spirituality. Spirituality is not a religion or a belief system or a reasoning system like theology. To be spiritual is not to join a cult or go to worship on Sundays. Those fearful of these things need not worry. You will not be asked to follow some self-styled guru or practitioner.
In fact, we need to grow into love and let go of fear – that is transformation (King, Zohar, Myss, Hughes). Whether we know it or not, we are on our spiritual journey with others and with the Mystery, Love or Higher Power. Our search for meaning, truth, reality, integrity, authenticity and love continues throughout our life‘s journey. We never arrive as such, but we are continually searching in many places and in many ways. We search with our minds, hearts and bodies. We search alone and with others.
Many opinions, points of view, theories, theologies, books and spiritualities are available. For example, according to Cashmore and Puls, fifty-two types of spirituality are readily available – along with individuals and groups offering us help on the way to one or another of them. Some are deemedauthentic and some are not. There is also a proliferation of books and websites. Some books are centuries old, written by saints and mystics and containing a wealth of wisdom and experience.
Our journeys are both into our inner selves along with a realization of our outer selves and lives we live in the world context around us – with all that is happening and all the realities presented. We are not alone; we do not live on an island. We live in a context, both locally and globally.
In our letting go of our fearfully and tightly held perspectives and beliefs something new happens in our cycle of transformation; we can begin to integrate our experiences and life-styles with growing awareness, (that is consciousness, alertness, wakefulness, attentiveness, consciousness according to the
thesaurus).
In letting go we begin to experience mystery and wisdom, not just our thinking that is often rigid, fearful, and full of logic and certainty. We find we aren’t afraid of imagination and our feelings, even if it all seems confusing and not the same as we are used to. We probably won’t even feel we have any answers but we can live in peace with all the questions, as we rest more on intuition and inspiration in our cycle of transformation and our leap of faith or quantum leap and paradigm shift.
Spirituality and Quantum Physics.
Physics and spirituality need to take the next step together for the wisdom of our separate disciplines is incomplete on its own – an interconnection and interconnectedness.
Spirituality is uniquely oriented toward an emerging global society that fosters a collaborative desire for peace in neighbourhoods and nations. (Miriam Therese Winters)
As Zohar writes, to have a successful worldview we must draw personal, social and spiritual into one coherent whole. We must therefore be in touch with our own experiences and deepest intuitions to have our knowledge of the world and ourselves.
Quantum physics gives a physical basis to a more holistic, less fragmented way of looking at ourselves, realising that the whole Fruit-Bearing Spirituality world of creation shares a physics with everything else in the universe: with the human body, all other living creatures, the coherent ground state, matter and relationships and the quantum vacuum itself. This vacuum is not empty but is the basic, fundamental underlying reality of which everything in this universe, including ourselves, is an expression. It is like a bubbling soup or is a theory of everything. Quantum field theory proposes the link between the physics of human consciousness and the physics of the quantum vacuum. (Zohar)
King, a UK professor and internationally known scholar on spirituality, writes that
Spirituality can be linked to all human experiences, but it has a particularly close connection with the
imagination, with human creativity and resourcefulness, with relationships – whether with ourselves, with
others, or with a transcendent reality, named or unnamed, but often called the Divine, God or Spirit.
Spirituality can also be connected with a sense of celebration and joy, with adoration and surrender, with
struggle and suffering – the global dimensions of this quest, which are rooted in the earth and connected to
the diversity of peoples, cultures, and faiths around the world.
She explains that this has a transformative quality as lived experience, linked to our bodies, nature and our relationship with others and society. This experience seeks the fullness of life, of justice and peace and integrating body, mind and soul, living in a world that has become more globally interdependent, while still so painfully torn apart.
She notes that, “spirituality is no longer a luxury of life ... but appears as an absolute imperative for human sanity and survival. Spirituality is essential to all human flourishing, wherever we live, whether in religious or secular surroundings.”
King points out that the hallmarks of a mature spirituality are Fruits from the Bottom Up to take seriously integrity, wisdom and transcendence. It cannot remain the privilege of a few – the religious and educated elite – but needs to permeate social life at all levels. It cannot just be a quest for inner peace but must provide energy and input to the global problems of poverty, homelessness, and human rights violations.
She writes in her recent book, The Search for Spirituality – Our Global Quest for a Spiritual Life (2008) that
A global awakening has to occur on a much larger scale than exists at present. For this, we need education that is more spiritual at all levels. Only then can we achieve wide spiritual literacy, a literacy that goes far beyond learning to read and write, beyond the acquisition of professional training and skills. It also goes beyond emotional and ethical literacy to a much deeper dimension of insight and wisdom that grows from the heart and fosters love and compassion. These are the deepest energy resources humans possess, and the global community is still far from drawing on the transformative power of these resources in all situations of need. To explore the different forms of spirituality in the contemporary world, whether secular, humanistic, scientific, or artistic, and explore their joint potential to enhance and augment the fullness of life, can give ground for new hope. We need ideas to think and work with, to inspire and transform us. To develop consciously spiritual literacy by providing spiritual education and fostering spiritual awakening is one such idea. (King 1992, 2008)
My book is dedicated to offering “more spiritual education” toward the “deeper dimension of insight and wisdom.”
One of the first and key understandings for me in considering the research question and methodology design was to understand praxis. That is if you combine theory and practice you get praxis, which is theory-informing practice and practice informing theory. That is true in the field of spirituality as in any field. I realized that we could learn a new, relevant and authentic theory of spirituality, which then would inform our living, and in turn our living experience would shape and inform our theory about spirituality.
To consider spiritual praxis, we need to change metaphors to our lives as journeys. As Aristotle once said, the difference between plants and animals is that animals can move around while plants are, well, planted.
Our lives are not static and stationary. There is constant change. As was stated above we are on a journey of growth, change and hopefully transformation, growing into who we were created to be.
The two models, which are shared in subsequent chapters here, might look simple yet the arrow is critical because it represents the journey of transformation!
Both oppressors and oppressed must change. A paradigm shift– along with significant transformation at personal, group, family, organizational, national, and world levels – must occur, and we can see more clearly without the constraints of our previous programming, experiences, projections and collusions.
We are set free to see in a new way with new eyes and hearts and then be able to have more considered responses and make more healthy decisions.
The journey of change on which we embark when we begin to become more aware and conscious of life in and around us, is really a journey of transformation at every level of our beings and continues for the rest of our lives. It isn’t easy or automatic and we have to decide and choose what we want and how committed we will be. The more we learn, the more intense the journey is, and we seem to get more deeply involved in life, in our wider social contexts rather than thinking as some people do, that spirituality is very personal only. Instead, it really affects the whole of our lives: our bodies, minds and spirits; how we spend our time, money, and resources; our friendships and relationships; our politics, sexuality, energy, family and so on. There is not one aspect of our lives that is untouched.
Living praxis required me to write from both my head (authentic academically) and heart. This was very challenging –requiring personal experience, integration and a search to find words and text to match or express that reality – language! It was yet another aspect of my journey that I felt I could “not” do and
so for the past nine years I continued to study and “experience” more.
We Are All One
Some dimensions of spirituality are very broad. Spirituality is both personal and social, and has to do with the uniqueness of our being. It is non-material and is also a process in which we follow our own path, on our own journey. It gives us life. It is something a reflective person knows and is aware of in varying degrees. It is different from humanitarianism. Our spirituality informs and forms all aspects of our lives.
We have not mentioned, however, the various forms of spirituality and different types of practices, such as eco-feminism, yoga, sexuality (for example, Kama Sutra), Buddhism, quantum physics, psychology, and various denominations or faiths. Yet, we are all still one, joined together in a web of relationships,
sharing our earth home and cosmos.
Even in this twenty-first century, we are becoming increasingly more numbed and spiritually silent. Perhaps we are afraid of our spirituality and the surrounding confusion that happens when we think church, religion or theology is synonymous with it. Perhaps we are afraid of the implications of a cost or responsibility to be authentic and to love.
If we are not conscious and aware of our spiritual life as people, then we tend as a result to be poor lovers. Conversely, if we constantly develop our spiritual life, as we would tend and nurture a garden, then we will grow in what Love is. We can’t be a spiritual person without being a lover.
“We are all one” means that we are interconnected, that the choices you make have an impact or implication for me; my choices have consequences for you. This also means that life for the oppressed cannot improve until both oppressor and the oppressed are changed. This change comes through wisdom and living (praxis), not through thinking and rationalizing alone (theory) and not through routines and refinements (practice).
Take a look at the other outcome. When we encounter what we often call blocks, brick walls, dark places, or no-go areas, we may want to stop, give up or run away. Often then, we do run away into alcohol, drugs, food, sex or other forms of avoidance to calm our shattered nerves and growing fears. This can be especially the case as we experience our inability to weather these storms or difficulties when we didn’t know how to grow and to find light instead of darkness. We may feel overwhelmed, sinking or even drowning. We may seek respite in whatever way we can or have learned how to do. We affect others and ourselves with whatever choice we make and so we alter the journeys of others.Our lives are complex, compounded – and intertwined. We are all one, living in a web of relationships.
Our feelings, thoughts, beliefs and experience may make us think it is a viscous circle with no way out and we feel powerless. However paradoxically, it is at these times of darkness, confusion, despair and fear that there can be deeper growth, change and transformation.Our lives are journeys which we live alone and also share with others. Our spirituality evolves as we choose our responses to what is happening in us and around us each moment. It comes from inside us and is evolving constantly as we interact with our world around us. We are in a process of living life – a process that is not me or you, but forms and informs and makes us.
A central aspect of being spiritual is to shift from thinking I to living we.
God-Talk
The language that we use about God can be difficult for each other. It is important to realise this in all discussions and consideration about what words we can use. Or, perhaps there are no words. More than a few have discussed the difficulty and inadequacy of language, especially spiritual language. Some of us
carry baggage from our childhood about words used for God. Some people now prefer to use the words such as Higher Power, Energy, Life, I Am, Divine Mystery.
The reality is that no one religion, faith or belief system has a license or ownership of spirituality – we are all one, sharing together in our web of life, ideally, mutually, reciprocally and with inter-dependence. It is a reality and experience which we live – a Living Reality or Presence and Energy within and around
us, whether we recognize it individually or collectively or not. That is we can be living it either authentically or in an unhealthy way.
Remember, we can tell if we are living with the Spirit by the fruits of our lives and how we relate to others. Descriptions such as love, kindness, care, inclusiveness, in patience and mutual relationship should be used by those who observe our lives.
Growing in Love, not Fear
With a wide range for God-talk language, and with the ability to ascertain paths by their fruits, we need to explain another important aspect of spirituality. Spirituality is not a religion or a belief system or a reasoning system like theology. To be spiritual is not to join a cult or go to worship on Sundays. Those fearful of these things need not worry. You will not be asked to follow some self-styled guru or practitioner.
In fact, we need to grow into love and let go of fear – that is transformation (King, Zohar, Myss, Hughes). Whether we know it or not, we are on our spiritual journey with others and with the Mystery, Love or Higher Power. Our search for meaning, truth, reality, integrity, authenticity and love continues throughout our life‘s journey. We never arrive as such, but we are continually searching in many places and in many ways. We search with our minds, hearts and bodies. We search alone and with others.
Many opinions, points of view, theories, theologies, books and spiritualities are available. For example, according to Cashmore and Puls, fifty-two types of spirituality are readily available – along with individuals and groups offering us help on the way to one or another of them. Some are deemedauthentic and some are not. There is also a proliferation of books and websites. Some books are centuries old, written by saints and mystics and containing a wealth of wisdom and experience.
Our journeys are both into our inner selves along with a realization of our outer selves and lives we live in the world context around us – with all that is happening and all the realities presented. We are not alone; we do not live on an island. We live in a context, both locally and globally.
In our letting go of our fearfully and tightly held perspectives and beliefs something new happens in our cycle of transformation; we can begin to integrate our experiences and life-styles with growing awareness, (that is consciousness, alertness, wakefulness, attentiveness, consciousness according to the
thesaurus).
In letting go we begin to experience mystery and wisdom, not just our thinking that is often rigid, fearful, and full of logic and certainty. We find we aren’t afraid of imagination and our feelings, even if it all seems confusing and not the same as we are used to. We probably won’t even feel we have any answers but we can live in peace with all the questions, as we rest more on intuition and inspiration in our cycle of transformation and our leap of faith or quantum leap and paradigm shift.
Spirituality and Quantum Physics.
Physics and spirituality need to take the next step together for the wisdom of our separate disciplines is incomplete on its own – an interconnection and interconnectedness.
Spirituality is uniquely oriented toward an emerging global society that fosters a collaborative desire for peace in neighbourhoods and nations. (Miriam Therese Winters)
As Zohar writes, to have a successful worldview we must draw personal, social and spiritual into one coherent whole. We must therefore be in touch with our own experiences and deepest intuitions to have our knowledge of the world and ourselves.
Quantum physics gives a physical basis to a more holistic, less fragmented way of looking at ourselves, realising that the whole Fruit-Bearing Spirituality world of creation shares a physics with everything else in the universe: with the human body, all other living creatures, the coherent ground state, matter and relationships and the quantum vacuum itself. This vacuum is not empty but is the basic, fundamental underlying reality of which everything in this universe, including ourselves, is an expression. It is like a bubbling soup or is a theory of everything. Quantum field theory proposes the link between the physics of human consciousness and the physics of the quantum vacuum. (Zohar)
King, a UK professor and internationally known scholar on spirituality, writes that
Spirituality can be linked to all human experiences, but it has a particularly close connection with the
imagination, with human creativity and resourcefulness, with relationships – whether with ourselves, with
others, or with a transcendent reality, named or unnamed, but often called the Divine, God or Spirit.
Spirituality can also be connected with a sense of celebration and joy, with adoration and surrender, with
struggle and suffering – the global dimensions of this quest, which are rooted in the earth and connected to
the diversity of peoples, cultures, and faiths around the world.
She explains that this has a transformative quality as lived experience, linked to our bodies, nature and our relationship with others and society. This experience seeks the fullness of life, of justice and peace and integrating body, mind and soul, living in a world that has become more globally interdependent, while still so painfully torn apart.
She notes that, “spirituality is no longer a luxury of life ... but appears as an absolute imperative for human sanity and survival. Spirituality is essential to all human flourishing, wherever we live, whether in religious or secular surroundings.”
King points out that the hallmarks of a mature spirituality are Fruits from the Bottom Up to take seriously integrity, wisdom and transcendence. It cannot remain the privilege of a few – the religious and educated elite – but needs to permeate social life at all levels. It cannot just be a quest for inner peace but must provide energy and input to the global problems of poverty, homelessness, and human rights violations.
She writes in her recent book, The Search for Spirituality – Our Global Quest for a Spiritual Life (2008) that
A global awakening has to occur on a much larger scale than exists at present. For this, we need education that is more spiritual at all levels. Only then can we achieve wide spiritual literacy, a literacy that goes far beyond learning to read and write, beyond the acquisition of professional training and skills. It also goes beyond emotional and ethical literacy to a much deeper dimension of insight and wisdom that grows from the heart and fosters love and compassion. These are the deepest energy resources humans possess, and the global community is still far from drawing on the transformative power of these resources in all situations of need. To explore the different forms of spirituality in the contemporary world, whether secular, humanistic, scientific, or artistic, and explore their joint potential to enhance and augment the fullness of life, can give ground for new hope. We need ideas to think and work with, to inspire and transform us. To develop consciously spiritual literacy by providing spiritual education and fostering spiritual awakening is one such idea. (King 1992, 2008)
My book is dedicated to offering “more spiritual education” toward the “deeper dimension of insight and wisdom.”
A Simple Model Introduced
The research behind this book elicited two models. I explain the first here so it can be understood and applied as we progress in the sharing of the process of learning. The second model is expressed in Chapter 1.
The model of inclusivity emerged into consciousness during a time of quiet reflection and prayer. I believe that it is simple and can be used within any circumstance, situation or context. On the left side are two arrows in opposition. One comes from the top down and represents power over and dominance. The other, from the bottom up represents those who live under such dominance: the victimized, oppressed and those existing under the thumb of power.
The research behind this book elicited two models. I explain the first here so it can be understood and applied as we progress in the sharing of the process of learning. The second model is expressed in Chapter 1.
The model of inclusivity emerged into consciousness during a time of quiet reflection and prayer. I believe that it is simple and can be used within any circumstance, situation or context. On the left side are two arrows in opposition. One comes from the top down and represents power over and dominance. The other, from the bottom up represents those who live under such dominance: the victimized, oppressed and those existing under the thumb of power.
The victimized cannot be released from their victimization until the victimizers are stopped. Yet notice that the victimizers cannot stop their victimization until the victims are released.
From the tension point of these two opposing arrows, a third arrow moves toward the right-hand direction. Here victimizers and the victimized can circle around this arrow as they explore distinctly opposing concepts, such as male-female, gay-straight, white-black, first world-third world. Gradually, people and situations are changed and transformed until we can all live in a relationship of mutuality and equal power–represented by the large oval sphere.
This Basic Model of Inclusivity can be used within marriage model relationships, families, businesses, churches, schools, that is, any structure or relationship. We can use it as a heuristic device to sketch out oppositional problems as well as ways forward.Former combatants can more easily see what is going on, how the context in which we are living is structured, and whether we are being oppressed or seeking more power.
From the tension point of these two opposing arrows, a third arrow moves toward the right-hand direction. Here victimizers and the victimized can circle around this arrow as they explore distinctly opposing concepts, such as male-female, gay-straight, white-black, first world-third world. Gradually, people and situations are changed and transformed until we can all live in a relationship of mutuality and equal power–represented by the large oval sphere.
This Basic Model of Inclusivity can be used within marriage model relationships, families, businesses, churches, schools, that is, any structure or relationship. We can use it as a heuristic device to sketch out oppositional problems as well as ways forward.Former combatants can more easily see what is going on, how the context in which we are living is structured, and whether we are being oppressed or seeking more power.