Bishop's letters: March 04 +James : Spirituality

“Religion” said Libby Brooks recently in The Guardian, “must be the new shopping”.

Why? Because the magazine ‘Cosmopolitan’, not normally noted for its religious depth, has appointed a ‘Spirituality Editor’. That’s a clever move because ‘spirituality’ is what everyone is after nowadays. It’s big on the internet. It’s peddled through countless advertisements and a growing number of New Agey Shops. And it is even discussed in the workplace. The producer of one of our most popular TV soaps recently said that she can talk about her faith at work in a way that wouldn’t have been possible a few years ago.

But, of course, different people mean different things by ‘spirituality’. The author, Somerset Maugham, once said that ‘the spirituality of man is most apparent when he is eating a hearty dinner’! For some, spirituality is about teamwork on a football pitch. For others, it has more to do with trying to contact the dead. For most, it suggests a sense of ‘otherness’ - a feeling that there is more to life than just what we can see or smell or touch or taste or hear.

That is certainly where Religious Education in Schools begins. RE Teachers are attempting to convey something of the ‘spiritual dimension’ to life, which is recognised by a majority of people in our society and which needs to be appreciated if we are to make sense of the other three.

Christians would want to go even further and suggest that our spirituality is what makes us truly human, because it is a matter of Jesus dwelling in us and us in him through the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. This is what makes it possible for us to develop our potential - for friendship, compassion, generosity, responsibility, forgiveness. This is what enables us, in fact, to become more like Christ, growing in his image and discovering his ‘mind’. The most ‘spiritual’ people are those whose nature and character are most Christ-like. As the lovely Taize chant puts it, ‘Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est’. (Where there is charity and love, there is God).

That’s hardly surprising since the Latin word ‘spiritus’ (hence spirituality) originally meant ‘breath’ - which is what we have when we’re alive and don’t have when we’re dead. Being spiritually alive means being ‘in-breathed’ or ‘inspired’ by the Holy Spirit. Being spiritually dead means imagining that we are fine in and by ourselves, and that we don’t need help from any other source.

So I find it rather encouraging that so many people today are looking for ‘life’. The problem is that so few of them associate ‘spirituality’ with ‘Christianity’. They will look anywhere and everywhere - except in Church. That means, according to the Old Testament, buying bread that doesn’t satisfy and drinking water that doesn’t quench one’s thirst. It means assembling a pick and mix ‘spirituality’ geared to my own desires which may be fine when all is going well - but falls to pieces when the going gets tough. Arnold Palmer once said he had watched hundreds of golfers practising their swing on the fairway and putt on the green. But he had only ever seen one practising how to get out of a bunker.

The challenge is obvious. Our task is to show the world where the ‘real thing’ is to be found. There’s a new course called ‘Essence’ which may help. But, in the end, it boils down to the essence our friends and neighbours see in us. Especially when we - or they - are in a bunker.

James Newcome
Bishop of Penrith