Spiritual Life

Defining Spirituality

Life found beyond philosophy, beyond Christmas, beyond the rainbow.

Being well is not defined by the absence of symptoms, but rather experienced through perspectives that transcends present limitations. Spirituality, therefore, should not be measured by the absence of adversity. Our lives are diverse, our lessons many, and those lessons fall in many domains. Spiritual wellbeing could be measured by congruence between a multiplicity of domains, even while struggling in one or more domains.

Domains are areas of life, usually core. Broadly we could say there is a physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual domains. Within these are layers of mini-domains, usually measured by our functionality in each, sometimes across multiple layers, and these include self-care, social life, work, physical and mental health, education, and entertainment.

Life is layered, like nested dolls. It is true you can be physically ill, but emotional and psychologically resilient. The measure of spiritual congruence within a multiplicity of domains does not translate that you are spiritually impoverished if you are failing somewhere. Spiritual essence isn’t measured by any one domain in isolation, or even by looking at all. There is something to spiritually that transcends all measures.

Failure is not bad. It is only a data point that informs you on what’s next.

Spirituality is measured by attributes that are transferrable between domains, and or gifts that can be rallied around the domain, or domains, in need of repair. Things in a state of disrepair is not evidence of spiritual poverty, but rather that is the area that we neglected or intentionally unsettled in order to learn something about ourselves.

It doesn’t matter if disrepair was intentional, neglect, intentional neglect, or even maintenance, as if we hyper focused on building muscles up in a specific domain while others were put on hold. Sometimes, when the waters of life are rising, you got to focus on swimming. Keep swimming.

Cross over.

There should be something, regardless of the state of any domain, that is transferrable and consistent across all domains. That is part of the spiritual definition that we need to entertain. We are seeking that thing which is congruent regardless of domain state.

We think of Christmas as one time a year, but Christmas might be more profoundly understood as the spirit that should be cultivated year-round. Goodness can’t be locked to a specific day of the week or year, unlocked at a certain threshold of wallet, but rather should flow from day to day.

We serve where we can, when we can, and because we choose to, without compulsion of duty or guilt.

Ethics, like Christmas, seems to be an attribute that should be found in all domains. Regardless of religion or spiritual practice, within the core of all philosophies exists an ethical principle about how to relate to self and others.

It has always struck me that the Prime Directive, as presented in the episodes of Star Trek. It informed us how to be with others. This philosophy is practical in every domain of life, from economics to wellbeing. All of the domains are exercise in being social.

I can’t watch Star Trek and not think of Christmas. Something about the colors of the lights and the sets and the uniforms…

In isolation, I must learn to be with myself- which is an act of becoming more social. One can be too indulgent with a body, or too severe, but somewhere between those two interaction patterns results in a reasonably decent person that holds the highest level of relatability to others.

You can find us being overindulgent or too severe with the physical, emotional, or psychological bodies. I suppose we could say the spiritual body is a fourth, and there are certainly times when that perspective oscillates between literal and metaphor, but since spirituality must necessarily permeate all domains, it is not a body that can be abused. Intentionally practicing physical severity only means you have demonstrated physical discipline, maybe even cruelly so, but that doesn’t mean you have mastered love.

I don’t think one can be spiritually severe or overindulgent. If the essence of spirit is perfect, unconditional, positive love- then that just is. You will see severity in all other domains, like physical, or emotional, or psychological, even economics, but by definition- there can be no severity of spirit.

The person that is…

The person that is- is what transcends any one domain. Take away my money, my body, my mind, my emotions- my personhood remains. Whether you allow for reincarnation or not, the physical and all the domains of this reality are temporary- and so this one life should not be the measure of eternity.

We come to these moments in our lives in order to multitask domains. we are practicing interdisciplinary skills.

We are practicing being in a universe, in a world, in a community. We are practicing being in relationship with God vicariously through others.

We are always and forever in spirit. All else is simply transferring that love to these other domains. We, as persons, are necessary. We are relational points, energy nodes if want a more materialistic, functional way to map out system energy flow. Our point of reference, our perspective, that quiet story teller that seems to be constantly flowing as if narrating our day could be the equivalent of automated telemetry subtly signaling positional awareness to all the surrounding points of reference, and as a whole- think collective unconscious, the ocean of our conscious rises and falls.

Or, as the character George Bailey discovered in It’s a Wonderful Life, played by Jimmy Stewart, after wishing for having never been here, the whole world was different. Maybe that was because George was actually better than he thought he was. Most of us seriously underrate ourselves, because we’re only measuring one of our domains by comparison other people’s domains.

I suppose we could argue that some unpleasant folks shouldn’t be here. In Christmas terms, they only give people coal. Could that coal be a gift in winter? Is that unpleasantness a gift to us, to spin our perspective and allow us to grow and change our story?

Give me coal, and I will give you back a diamond.

May the gift of this season be the discovery of your personhood, a beautifully wrapped present, within a beautifully wrapped present, within…