I recently said a phrase I often say, “Everything is spiritual.” on twitter and someone asked me to clarify. First off, I didn’t not invent the phrase. So it’s not some concept that I originated.
I grew up understanding that one day my body would die and that my soul would go to heaven (if, of course, i believed in Jesus).
And I acted like that for a long time. My soul what was really important. I read my Bible, devotionals, went to church, evangelized, and prayed. All very good “spiritual” things.
And when I was in college, I took a class entitled, “Evangelism in Youth Ministry.”
One day in that class we talked about faith (actually we talked about faith more regularly than that).
Faith is like sitting in a chair. We often sit down without even knowing that a chair is there to catch us. We’re so accustomed to the support and characteristics of a chair that our faith in the chair doesn’t even seem like faith at all. It’s reaction to a history of strong, supportive chairs.
Now here lies what is – in my mind – the real linchpin between spiritual and not spiritual: Can you really have faith in the chair without sitting in the chair?
You can think, pray, feel, hope, wish, want, try & reason about sitting in the chair. But the magical moment of when you have a relationship with the chair is when you actually put some weight on it.
If we follow the metaphor between spiritual and “non-spiritual,” we see that our inward faith is not really faith until it interacts with our tangible, actual reality.
Our soul & our flesh are both spiritual. The car we drive & the food we eat & the amount of money we spend on christmas decorations are all spiritual matters. The facial expression that comes across my face when someone speaks to me is a spiritual matter. The conversation I had with my mom on the phone yesterday was a spiritual practice.
Concerts stir our souls. But in a much more scientific, measurable way: we see that cresendos and certain melodies
There isn’t a contrast between spiritual and “non-spiritual.” They are two different lens’ we can look through. The world looks dramatically different when we only look through one lens…
Everything is spiritual. There isn’t a single decision you make that doesn’t stem from or lead to spiritual realities.
(Does that makes sense at all?)
What Does This Mean?
There is one thing that I have developed over the past couple years, primarily by learning from Dr. James Voelz’s lectures (“What Does This Mean” hermeneutics book) and experiencing it (iTunes U): http://seminary.csl.edu/facultypubs/Default.aspx?tabid=225
One part of the puzzle is determining what things mean, specifically here, what our terms mean. I like to ask questions that I never used to before, even about the simplest of overlooked and assumed theological meanings. I find that many people use the same words, but the terms evoke different characteristics, meanings, and implications due to our experience, culture, environment, etc. Other times, two different words are used but the two parties essentially mean the same thing but perceive there is a conflict.
I think this can either lead to:
1) Perceived conflict: We are using two different words to describe the same thing but we don’t realize we mean the same thing. This is a misunderstanding. I had a much harder time thinking of (an) example(s) for this one in comparison to 2) below.
- Example: “The finches evolved into different species”
Person A uses the word ‘evolved’ and Person B retorts with “No they didn’t! They only adapted, but they didn’t evolve and/or become a different species!”. I’ve heard many that chunk the term evolution into: macro evolution and micro evolution. In the example above, you could say that Person A had micro evolution in mind but when they said ‘evolve’, Person B thought the better/correct term was adapt or perhaps micro evolution. They can both come up with really the same end target in understanding but due to the word terminology, certain words contain baggage for people and can hinder (at least initially) communication.
2) Unrecognized conflict: We are using the same words but mean (are referring to) different things and don’t realize we mean separate things initially.
- Example 1: “Did you see how fast that hog moved!?”
Person A made the above statement and is an urban city-goer that sees motorcycles all the time. When Person B, an avid farmer, heard the statement, a pig came to mind since they work with them day-in and day-out.
You could also use “That bike ate my dust” and be referring to a motorcycle or a bicycle.
- Example 2:
Person A: “Well sir, it looks like you are having issues due to your memory. You will need to upgrade.”
Person B: “What do you mean? I have 50GB free of memory.”
Person A has been in the IT world and by memory he would think and mean RAM (random access memory), while Person B would represent the stereotypical response of: memory = hard drive memory/space.
Going from here…
…these examples can be resolved quickly (meaning cleared up) with some communication via follow up questions that expose that a different object was in mind. Note that this can better help understand what the other means even though you may disagree that it means that, there is at least a common understanding.
But what if after the initial statement was made, there was no attempt to follow up on it with a question or related response to the statement? They would walk away from each other thinking they understood. This is the scary thing, because it happens all the time. At work, school, church, the mail, everywhere. It’s part of human (mis)communication when certain things are assumed to be the way they understand, when they are not.
This became very apparent to me in the past during a detailed discussion of the LDS Articles of Faith with some Mormon missionaries on the campus of Ball State. They used the exact same words as many protestant (and Catholic) churches would use but they meant something quite different beneath the surface: http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,106-1-2-1,FF.html
Okay, I think I need to digress
I’m beginning to blog again, so I would like to more clearly express some of the above ideas among others in the near future.
I was asking about what ‘everything is spiritual’ means partially to spur some conversation and partially as a genuine question to be on the same page and think through what that phrase (whether Rob Bell using it or someone else) could mean.
Does ‘everything is spiritual’ mean that every part of human life, thought, and action is spiritual or that EVERYTHING is spiritual and if so, in what sense? As in animals, plants, bacteria are spiritual? Or just in regards to humankind?
I have just begun to come across some of the new (age) movements where people are transitioning from traditional religions to ‘spirituality’. Where ‘spirituality’ doesn’t necessarily imply any higher power, i.e. God. ‘Sprituality’ would deal with feeling ‘connected’ to everything, to the wind, the trees, animals, the inner self with almost no reference to God, except perhaps in the sense that God is just really your innerself awakening and no actual literal God outside of the body.
I was working under the assumption that you meant that all of human thought, action, living, etc were all spiritual endeavors implanted in each of us from the Creator God at birth.
I enjoy and consider it necessary to critically assess all of our thought processes, beliefs, and actions (i.e., knowledge with accompanied action), although I tend to get absorbed in the former.
I hope to be more active in the blogosphere, including this one as I am able.
Take care
Hey, thanks for your thoughts on this! I wrote out a response in my own blog in hopes of clarifying my thoughts on the topic! Enjoy! http://undereagleswings.blogspot.com/2010/05/nothing-is-not-spiritual-response.html