It seems almost silly to say this, but Christianity actually involves spirituality. It is a spiritual discipline. Some people like to call it a relationship, some call it a religion, but what often seems missing is an awareness of the spiritual aspect. Spiritual means “of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit.”
Flat out, Christianity is weird. It is all about the weird. The spiritual is weird. Weird in fact means, “suggesting something supernatural.”
Some people are uncomfortable with the supernatural. Some people don’t even like the word “spooky” used in context with Christianity, and the word “magical” can conjure up all kinds of distress. People tend to be very leery of the occult (and for good reason) but sometimes that fear of anything other worldly takes on a mind of it’s own. Sometimes we wind up with this very flat, rigid, legalistic kind of faith and anything outside of that is to be rejected as too charismatic.
Well than, so much for prophecy, healing, miracles, spiritual growth, a Divine relationship with your Creator. So much for the entire scripture actually, because scripture is just loaded with that stuff. Ephesians 6:12 keeps coming to mind, For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
I have no idea how one goes about the business of spiritual warfare, without some kind of awareness of the spiritual. This is not criticism, some people really are called to keep their feet firmly planted on the ground and their head out of the clouds. Different people have different callings. That’s not the purpose of this post, I just live in a part of the world where that spiritual hunger is so thick, so tangible, you can almost feel the ache. Every street corner is full of crystals, tarot cards, psychic readings, meditation, herbal cleansing rituals, prayer flags, wiccans, pagans, and the newly formed medical marijauna collectives.
The only place you have a hard time finding people pursuing the spiritual seems to be in some of our churches.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
God can be spooky – in a good way, in that you know exactly Who is in charge and just how much He loves you. God is the kind of spooky like last week when I was in the car with my parents and the road was icy; we were trying to drive up this incredibly steep incline, and eventually we ended up sliding backwards. What was miraculous about it was the direction we were heading was just a couple of degrees shy of a broken fence that a truck must have tumbled through not long ago that led into a deep trench. Yes, God is spooky in the ‘I-just-could-have-been-totally-screwed’ kind of way.
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Yikes, so glad you’re all okay! I’ve felt His hand on me a few times and had that same thought, “I-just-could-have-been-totally-screwed.”’ Left to my own devices, I would have been.
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When the children of America were systematically, and deliberately, denied Christianity’s standards of behavior and its spiritual teachings, by the U. S. Supreme Court in1963 (all of which had been bequeathed to them by our illustrious Christian Founding Fathers) the children, and grandchildren, of those innocent youngsters were at that very moment, cursed to live their lives in a desperate, yet dysfunctional, search for the spirit of God. It’s like being lost in an enormous forest, without a compass. You are doomed to make life-threatening mistakes, over and over and over again.
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I really see that coming into play today and yet people are still so spiritually hungry. So much for ridding the world of religion. You take away Christian values and people are still driven to seek, they just have no idea what they’re looking for. Young people are the hardest because you try to point them in the right direction, but often they’ve been fed so many lies about Christianity they shy away.
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So, prior to 1963, did simply being born in America almost make one a de facto child of God? “Standards of behavior” to me sounds like what the Jews were chasing in trying to keep the Law….
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Aren’t we all de facto children of God?
She wrote a post, “polite society’s purpose” which really spoke to those standards of behavior we are referring to.
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“The only place you have a hard time finding people pursuing the spiritual seems to be in some of our churches.”
IB..how do you think of these lines? I could write an entire post using that line as a reference point. There are a lot of things I’m not sure we pursue sometimes in our churches, and the spiritual is certainly one of them.
You are so correct, the world is starving spiritually, people are seeking for sure, The problem is, they keep finding the wrong things to fill their hunger. You made a list of many of them. Why not Christianity? Well, that may be directly linked to the lack of spiritual hunger among ourselves. Not only are we not spiritually hungry, but we are not heartbroken for the lost. I sometimes wonder if we actually believe what we say we do, because if we really got it, we would be yelling it on the streets. A world of hungry people, we have the only meal ticket in town, and we are busy feeding our selves only in our church building.
Just sayin.
And thank you so much for making me think so much!
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Thanks, Wally. I should say there are a couple of sweet little churches I attend that really do seem to get it and I can feel the presence of the spiritual there. I bet there are churches all over the country like that, it’s just that the need is so great and there is so much suffering in the world.
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IB…yes and more yes. In fact, I am wonderfully blessed to attend a church that, in my mind, is am model for what a church family ought to be. You can walk in the building and feel the love for God and the love for each other. But, again, your last line is very telling…such a great need.
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There is a connection between spirituality and emotions, but the church constantly says “don’t trust what you feel” – that’s like saying don’t trust your sense of smell or your vision. Your emotions tell you how your spiritual self is doing – ignoring emotional warning messages is a terrible idea. It’d be like looking at your car’s check engine light and deciding to ignore it – eventually it will cause a problem.
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Jamie, great point. Look, where I go to church, if you kill a fly you have to do it one handed or somebody might think you are clapping. Sometimes I swear it wouldn’t kill us to actually feel something.
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That is a really good point. I have bumped into that myself a few times, “you should do the exact opposite of what you’re feeling.” For women especially, that is a terrible message, because our feelings are often where our empathy lives. In the absence of our “feelings,” we may be prone to poke you in the eye with a pencil or something 😉
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I’ve seen how my former churches emphasize being ‘Good logical Christian men’ and usually make some sort of joke about emotional women, which seems odd given that most of the ’emotional’ women in those churches restrain themselves from lashing out against such comments. There are some destructive teachings going on and I just don’t know how to stop it. I try to focus on helping people who have been hurt by such messages.
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You make an excellent point about the “good logical Christian men.” I’ve written quite a bit about the complimentary nature of men and women, but also about the importance of embracing the “irrational,” the mythical, the emotional, the spiritual. The thing is, in order for that to blossom, you have to have a whole lot of men around, men strong in faith. It’s counter intuitive, but it is that stability that men provide that lets the feminine come out. When you have men resentful about emotional women, then there’s a power imbalance throwing a wrench in things.
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By the way, don’t misunderstand me…I love my church..vastly and hugely..we are just boring sometimes LOL
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Weird? Heck that’s tame. After all donkeys, excuse me parrots, talk every day. Seriously huh, if God could reach Saul (stubborn as a mule) of Tarsus, is anything too hard for Him?
And peculiar people, that’s a good one too. Spiritual warfare? Yea, that’s weird really, but true. I’ve read your comments and noted some of ‘the many voices in the air.’.
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correction :
Comments TO you of course; you know that, others may not.
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LOL, weird may be understatement.
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Like Aliens. Aliens are like Totally real…
And, I wonder what the longevity of the average medical marijuana collective will be. And… will they know it?
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I’ve seen and been involved in Spiritual warfare, I’ve moved in the giftings of the Holy Spirit at times. Its just part of my relationship with God. I’m not weird, in fact I’m pretty normal. I have also seen some very weird stuff that people have said was from God, and it really wasn’t. God gives us wisdom to discern and use his gifts correctly and in his perfect timing.
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The funny thing is that unsaved people who fancy themselves very spiritual are seduced by the exotic and esoteric trappings of foreign religions – whether Don-Juan style Amerindian Shamanism, Eastern mysticism in its many forms, philosophy-based idol worship, even Luciferian/Crowley-style do-it-yourself religions based on anti-Christ rebellion. The unifying aspect in much (not all) of this is that drugs and/or sex (farmakeia) are acceptable paths to spiritual experience.
I remember being at the point where I saw almost ANY form of “spirituality” as valid except the black-bound red-letter Judeo-Christian Bible – which I despised. “But God…”
As you point out here, six-armed love gods with third eyes, fat-belly Buddhas, tripped-out Amazonian shamans, Satan-worshiping misfits and noble priestesses of ‘White” Magic along with Yoruba Santeria devotees all offer real experience –
but the actual message of Christ and the New Covenant is infinitely more mind-blowing and singular than any of these pretenders and offers eternal life as a gift.
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LOL, great comment. “Infinitely more mind blowing” indeed 😉
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