Come
Alive
“I love
living. I have some problems with my life, but living is the best
thing they've come up with so far.”
Neil Simon
I have written all week
from the interview that Krista Tippett (On Being) had with Brother
David Steindl-Rast in December, 2017, because it moved me so much.
This is another excerpt from it, which I have rearranged a bit for
our purposes. Tippett commented that there is a certain amount of
confusion today when people describe themselves as “spiritual”
but not religious. She asked Stiendl-Rast to describe the difference
between them. Here is his answer:
“Religion is a
difficult word, because it really combines two very, very different
things, and you're never quite sure which one you're talking about
when you say 'religion.' Humans are religious beings, all humans.
That means we are open towards this great mystery that some use the
word 'God' for, but whether they use it or not, we all are confronted
with the great mystery as human beings. And in that sense,
religiousness is very close to spirituality...Spirituality comes from
'spiritus' and that means 'life,' 'breath,' 'aliveness.' Spirituality
is aliveness on all levels. It must start with our bodily
aliveness...when we say spirituality, we also mean aliveness to
interrelationships, aliveness to our confrontation with that divine
mystery with which we are confronted as human beings and which we can
look away from or forget or be dead to. We come alive to it. And all
this coming alive—that is spirituality.”
In
order to call ourselves “spiritual” then, we must first be alive
to ourselves, to one another, and to the grand intersection between
our humanness and all else. Becoming spiritual may be based in a
religion, but it is more visceral than the heady precepts that most
formal religions are founded upon. The great mystery is a felt
experience—in the gut, in the heart. When we feel that connection,
we are most alive.
To
follow Neil Simon's example, there is nothing better than feeling
alive—regardless of what is going on in your life. Just that
in-breath, that out-breath and the awareness of being part of
something so much bigger than our one single self—that's something
to be grateful for every minute of every day.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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