Not Religious but Spiritual…and what that means to me!

Recently I shared that last year was My Year Without God and I had several questions come in about that, so I wanted to take some time to unpack why I did this and what I learned from that time. I had several friends write me off right away, which was part of it honestly, and I had several friends get behind me and were excited about my journey…again to me this is what it was all about.

You ready to dig in with me? Here we go!

What really set me off on this journey, the proverbial “straw that broke the camels back” for me was a football game. Yep, I said it…a football game. Ok so maybe not the game itself but a comment that was made after the game AND I suspect that if you have ever found yourself in a place where you have questioned God or the church or Christians in general, you probably know the comment before I even say it. The comment isn’t even something that was unique to this game, it’s a comment that I have heard from several players and coaches throughout my life time of watching sports but it was this time, this game and this moment that stuck with me and started my path and motivated my year without god.

Are you ready for it?

“I want to thank God (my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ) for this win tonight. We won because of Him and without Him we wouldn’t be here right now. He gets all the glory.”

Now hear me out, some of that sentiment sounds perfectly fine and resonates with my Judeo-Christian background - I think it is a great thing to thank God for moments in life that bring about joy. Seriously, bring it on! But what if they had lost the game, would they be thanking Him then? Would they be giving Him “all the glory”? Would they have done the same had they lost because of Him?

And this had me going down a rabbit hole that was amazing:

Had they had lost the game, would they be thanking God?What about the opponents that are praying for a victory as well?Does God care who wins or loses a football game?Do we get any credit for the work we put in or is it “all glory to God” for all things because God does all things despite our efforts?If God gets all the glory when things go right, is it safe to assume that we can then blame God when things go wrong?Why do so many simply praise God in the good times and loath God in the bad times and during our painful season?What is my role in all of this and how do I take ownership of that which is good and bad in my life?What if we give God WAY more credit for things in life than really deserved? Is it ok for me to take some credit for my life?

On and on it went…question after question, deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole I went. Then something interesting happened, with every question I raised, the “good christian answer” that I was taught and that I have taught others, surfaced but it didn’t feel right. I was calling bullshit on myself and my own answers. I decided I needed to detox and take time away from the situation in order to answer the questions that were digging at my head and my heart.

So in that moment, the very first question that came up for me was this: is there a God? The answer I came to is simply stated as YES BUT…what if God was what I called something that was at play in my life and there was so much more going on below the surface? That led me to the idea of spirit…let’s not call it god yet but let’s call it spirit and see if we can find out how spirit moves in daily life.

Now I am still working through this in my mind but here are some thoughts that I have on what spirit means and what it means to be spiritual. A disclaimers as we begin, in fairness, some of the ideas I have come to are derived from Rob Bell’s book Everything Is Spiritual, a book I listened to at the end of My Year Without God.

It is fair to call me out for cheating by using a spiritual book to better understand the spiritual, however if you are familiar with Rob Bell he has been labeled an apostate by most of the church and I appreciate his fresh take on god, the bible and all things spiritual…he has a very different approach that makes sense to me and resonates with me. Lest it end there, I also read a book by Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Jewish Rabbi, entitled The Sabbath to help me understand the Jewish concept of God and how it might differ from my christian roots. To top it all off, I am currently working through a book on paganism, entitled Fire in the Dark by Jack Donovan, highlighting the ancient beliefs and traditions held about gods and man…so lest you think I settled back into the familiar, please know that I am pushing the boundaries of my understanding of these topics to this day.

Ok…so here we go, let’s talk about Spirit and what I understand Spirit to be (and why not simply call Spirit God). I needed to devoid myself of the “Sunday school answers” I was used to and find another way to talk about this. For me (and I know not everyone agrees) I quickly came to the conclusion that there is a part of life that exists in our daily lives holding all things together and giving meaning and purpose to all that exists, even if I couldn’t name it.

It’s that element of life outside of my natural, physical body that draws me to a higher level of thinking and reasonIt’s those moments in time that I have experiences that are hard to quantify or be put into wordsIt’s the sunset that takes your breath away, the news that gives you pause and forces reflection or an intended outward expressionIt’s the joy and elation that causes me to utter the words thank you whether from my lips or from my heart…even if I don’t know where to direct that simple expressionIt’s the tension in my life that stands in those moments I experience the deepest pain and suffering

I think of spirit as those moments that happen in us, to us and through us that can’t be fully explain, it’s the “something bigger than ourselves” that we sense in the pockets of time that stand as a great mystery residing beyond understanding…and somehow it is this very entity that ties us all together, unites us and gives life meaning.

Maybe that is the better word or description, the great mystery, but for the sake of this conversation let’s stick with spirit and spirituality.

This description even falls short because it makes it sound as though anything not in the aforementioned space isn’t spiritual (concluding that some things are spirit and some things aren’t) but I don’t believe that to be true either. I believe Spirit is that which runs through all things, connects all things and gives life and meaning to all things…therefore, in my opinion, all things are spiritual because it is Spirit connects them all.

Rob Bell talks about the distinction between form and spirit; spirit gives life to the form and the form gives shape to universal truths, the spirit that is behind it. The catch is that we often give form to the spirit and fail to progress into the deeper meaning or essence that lies within. When we continue to dig in and see the spirit behind all things we begin practicing spirituality - the constant progression to discover spirit at the deepest level of all things.

Bell gives a great expression for how spirituality shows in in our lives, he states “You, that is the expansive, connected, struggle-overcoming you, is alive and invited to play a part in the ever-increasing awe-factory that is our universe; this is what it means to be spiritual.”

I think there is more to the spirit than any religion or religious institution can hold…I was brought up in the church and the ideology of “God” is what resonates most with me and why I am resisting the temptation to immediately draw the conclusion that “given the definition I have laid out so far, I should just call Spirit God.” That is the easy way out for me and why I am exploring other philosophies and ideologies. The truth is, I’m fine calling this entity God but I am not fine equating this new understanding of God with what I have experienced from the church. I think the church is missing out on what connects Spirit to the traditions and teachings of the ancient texts and traditions. I want to better understand that realm at the deepest, most sacred places and discover how all of this fits together - I want to keep digging into this ever expanding world of spirituality!

So let’s tie a bow on this…what does all of this mean?

I’ve come to understand spirituality as authentically embracing and engaging the greater mystery every day and in every way to become the greatest version of myself while I experience life to the fullest!

Am I a religious man? Nope I can truly say that I am not BUT I do believe that I am a very spiritual man. I am a man that sees that there is a greater mystery at play in life and in the lives of others and I can’t explain what’s going on, I am committed to spend the rest of my life engaging with that mystery so that it becomes more expansive, more connected, more alive to me in every moment of every day.

[BTW, this is part one of three because Everything is Spiritual was one of three books that influenced me greatly last year.]