What does it mean to be spiritual?

For one thing, every human being has a spiritual side, just as every human being has a physical body.

Spirituality is to organized religion, as physical movement is to organized sports and the fitness industry.

You don't have to belong to a team or a league or a gym to move your body; and you don't have to belong to a religious group to move your spirit.

As I go from being a parish pastor to becoming a hospice chaplain, I move from representing one particular denomination in one religion, to providing spiritual care to any hospice patient or family member who requests it, whatever their beliefs or nonbelief.

But everyone has a spiritual aspect to their life.

So, what is spirituality?

Spirituality — like love — is notoriously hard to define, but here are two themes that I've come across repeatedly:

Idea #1: Our spirituality is about our connectedness.

This idea is represented in religions by ideas like Indra’s net — a web of connections. Connections to what? Our connections with our selves, our own inner lives. Our connections with other people, not just the living but our ancestors and descendants as well (the seventh generation principle is a spiritual idea). Our connections with the more-than-human world — the natural world and the life it carries. And, our connections with the transcendent, which can show up with unexpected and mysterious power.

This is why such notions as justice, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, forbearance, acceptance, reparation, penance, healing so often show up in religious teachings. These are drawn on to stay in right relationship with our inner selves, with one another, with the natural world, and with the transcendent.

Idea #2: Our spirituality is about our response to what we cannot control.

We cannot control other people (though we can harm others through attempts to do so). We cannot control aging or disease or death. We cannot control our own bodies. (How long can you go without falling asleep?) We cannot control the weather. We cannot control what we see and hear on the news. We cannot control our own minds; the inner thoughts and feelings and agitations and distractions that arise, often against our will. We cannot even control our own interests: why do you like the things you like? You just do.

So how do you respond to what you cannot control? Do you meditate? Pray? Journal? Take deep mindful breaths? Practice acceptance? Read scripture? Go to temple? Sing? Perform or participate in ritual? Contemplate imagery? Go on a pilgrimage? Go forest bathing?

That, too, is your spirituality, the way you express your spiritual sense.

So perhaps what it means to grow spiritually is to keep aware of the state of your connections with your self, with others, with the natural world, and with the transcendent; and also to keep aware of how you are responding to what you cannot control.

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References

Indra’s net - Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia (no date). Available at: http://www.tibetanbuddhistencyclopedia.com/en/index.php?title=Indra%27s_net (Accessed: 13 September 2023).

PBS.org, Warrior content (No date). Available at: https://www.pbs.org/warrior/content/timeline/opendoor/roleOfChief.html (Accessed: 13 September 2023).