Today we hear many people declaring that they are spiritual not religious. I am one of those people.
For me, church and religion are not about dogma (principles concerning faith and morals proclaimed as true by an authority and/or the church).
For me as a young person, church was about relationships … the place where I experienced being loved and valued.
I found religion and dogma confusing. I wondered why the teachings and behavior of some of the leaders didn’t match the experience of loving and being loved. It resulted in a curiosity that fueled a deeper search for meaning. That curiosity led me to consider complexities that weren’t immediately apparent. Further, I wondered what it meant when people had such different views of the same passages of scripture. I’m often told that I’m quiet and that’s true. I am more prone to listening and pondering before arriving at a view that makes sense as I continue to search for deeper meanings.
For me, spirituality is more about allowing our experience to lead us to our beliefs. It involves growing in wisdom that increases our ability to be guided by Divine Love. It was the experience of being loved by human beings … of being innately curious about the inconsistencies in the teachings … that laid the foundation for the contemplative path of growth I intuitively was led to follow.
Experiencing Unity with the Divine can happen to anyone at any time and sometimes out of the blue. The spiritual journey, however, is an intentional journey of growth that leads us to increasingly mature perspectives (wisdom) about our experience of the Divine Force within us serving as a guide for the way we are called to be in the world. It’s a process of growth in awareness for all of us. And it’s that process of growth I want to focus on in this post.
Developing Spiritually
Caroline Myss’s metaphor for spiritual development is a tall building in a large bustling city. There’s a limited and confining view from the first floor where it’s noisy, the air is smelly and stagnant … quite unpleasant. As you move up the floors, your view becomes exponentially more expansive. From the penthouse, it’s like a different world. It’s quiet, gentle breezes blow, you can see for miles. At sunset, the city sparkles.
The high-rise address (circumstance) has not changed. But from this high altitude (perspective), the world looks and feels very different.
You may remember that I used Myss’s metaphor on New Year’s Eve 2022 to evaluate my own spiritual growth. The pandemic had been difficult for me and I recognized that “stinking thinking” had crept back in. I wanted to see how much I had descended to lower levels.
Combing through my 2022 journal of the letters I write to The Divine, I color coded the entries to signify the level of my perspective. While I found myself sometimes in the basement … even worse than the first floor … I was pleased and surprised how much penthouse wisdom had emerged. I’ve been working to build on that ever since.
Are We Straying as a Country?
In my last post written & posted on Independence Day, July 4, after reflecting on disturbing events in our nation, I asked the question: Could that be because we have strayed from listening to the spiritual guidance that leads to wisdom?
Most people don’t even know about the process of spiritual growth and development … about the need to develop wisdom. Even the seminary I attended, as wonderful as it was in many ways, gave very little, if any, emphasis on the journey within. In keeping with academia in general, most classes focused on getting our belief system right.
Penthouse Wisdom
Even though they held biases and prejudices, those few men who founded our nation in 1776 risked their lives when they, with Penthouse Wisdom,” declared our independence from a monarchy:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
By the summer of 1787, holding to their Penthouse Vision (perspective) that “We the People” could govern ourselves, they worked through their differences, biases, and prejudices and came to agreement on a set of principles that form the Preamble to our Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
It takes Penthouse Wisdom to grow into this Penthouse Vision. In my opinion, our founders were Divinely guided and we are straying from their vision. We are in need of the Wisdom that emerges from a higher perspective.
Beyond Normal Needed in 2024
As I witness the normal strategies of today’s political and media leaders … strategies they’ve found difficult to move beyond even though we’ve been living in abnormal times for quite some time now, seems to indicate a lack of Wisdom and Vision on their part.
I see a need for their Spirits, and thus their perspectives, to move on up.
And it is that need I will address in my next few posts.
How do you relate to this process of growing spiritually in Wisdom and Vision?
Linda you are right on target and what you are saying needs to be coming out of loud speakers placed everywhere!!! In most understandings our spiritual perspective must be fixed and defined, any deviation called a sin, all believers in separate silos, believing their perspective is the only one that is true. You are speaking about a spiritual perspective that is always evolving, always revealing itself, leading us to higher and higher understandings of IT”S ULTIMATE MYSTERY. An individual has to commit to this revealing journey, to it’s uncertainty, to the risk in what it’s revelation will say and always adjusting one’s actions/thoughts to these new revelations/insights. Having the support of others on this journey helps enormously and I am thankful to have you in my ‘village’ of journeyers.
What stands out for me most in your comment, Diana, is “higher and higher understandings of ULTIMATE MYSTERY … something we can, of course, never fully understand. But what a joy to explore the MYSTERY and the meaning of how this DIVINE FORCE operates in our life. It is that DIVINE FORCE that is calling for me to write these posts because I learn so much in the process … learning that hopefully leads me forward in my growth process and piques the interest of others in this journey … to at least be aware it exists. It’s not an easy journey, that’s for sure. Being confronted with “missing the mark,” entering into a process of forgiveness, and making adjustments in one’s behavior and attitudes is challenging. And, for me, I don’t experience having a choice to do otherwise. And it’s what makes life worthwhile for me. It certainly takes a village and I’m grateful for the commitment our village has to this path. I appreciate your support, as well.
I love this post Linda and look forward to future ones on this theme.
In my experience, spiritual growth and wisdom and the altitude one sees through impacts a vision…determines what can be seen. Yes – there are not many people in our population who see from the penthouse. I admire our Founding Fathers tremendously. They saw way into the future from their penthouse view. It’s remarkable that the constitution has governed us for 248 years which seems like a long time in some ways but a mere blip in others. One issue I have observed which I feel is pertinent is that with our Supreme Court, there have been conservative justices who originalists and adhere to the exact meaning and context of our Founding Fathers versus liberal justices who believe it should evolve as we evolve. That’s a practical (non-spiritual) place where our culture is stuck. In my opinion, our brilliant constitution is a living, breathing document that needs to breathe and grow and adapt to modern times that our Founding Fathers could not have imagined. To me, this is not penthouse wisdom, it’s a common belief amongst more liberal folks.
Because individuals develop at their own pace and presumably not many are seeing the world through the penthouse, it’s messy. I’m not sure how many pathways there are to get a penthouse view? Mine is through the spiritual journey of ever increasing awareness and consciousness. I certainly don’t live in the penthouse but know how to access it when needed. I am very open to the notion that there are many pathways to a more elevated perspective.
I look forward to reading more!
Thank you, Jen for your lengthy and thoughtful comment. I, too, do not live in the Penthouse and I think in all matters, personal and professional, it is important for us to at least be aware of these levels and have some familiarity with the behavior and decision-making called for in each one of them …and then do our best to move forward at the highest level possible. Being aware informs my spiritual journey. I fall short often and when I become aware of that, I do my best to do better. What concerns me is that so few aware of levels of growth much less the call to be rising higher.