Of Course We are Spiritual – We are Born That Way

Occasionally I hear someone say “I think of myself as a spiritual person, but I’m not religious.” The implication is that “being spiritual” is somehow a completed state – that religion is unnecessary if a person is sufficiently “spiritual.”

I usually count to 10 before answering, if I respond at all.

What I want to point out is that saying “I am spiritual” is as meaningful as saying “I am a mammal.” We are made in the image of God, which means – among other things – that we are of necessity spiritual beings as well as physical. Developing and keeping our spiritual selves healthy is as crucial as developing our intellect, our character, and our physical health.

We develop our intellects with education, training, reading, and every other form of learning. We develop and care for our physical health with regular preventive medical care, good diet, exercise, and good sanitation. We develop our character in the beginning through attentive and good parents, and later in life through self-discipline, seeking out the right kind of role models, and choosing our friends and companions with some care.

We develop our spiritual selves in similar ways: through participation in the sacraments; participation in the community of the faithful; prayer; fasting; and, in particular, learning and observing the precepts of our faith.

Prayer and fasting are things one can do alone to some extent, but everything else we need to develop our spiritual selves requires a community. And this observation strikes at the root of the fallacy of claiming to be spiritual but not religious: we cannot develop our spiritual selves in a vacuum. We need the structure, the guidance, and especially the institutional experience that religion provides.

One Size Does NOT Fit All

I do not intend to harm anyone’s ecumenical sentiments here. I am a Roman Catholic by choice, having been received into the Church in 2006. As the denomination of my childhood slipped into heterodoxy, syncretism, and in some places even outright heresy I fled, looking for a new home.  It mattered to me immensely that I avoid settling into a new home only to become an erosive force, duplicating the kind of damage done to the home I had lost.

I spent several years wandering in the wilderness, praying for the Holy Spirit to mold me while guiding me to a place where I might fit.  I wanted to meet the needs of the community as we’ll as having my own needs met.

During that time I think I encountered the foundations of both the difficulty and the possibility of ecumenism. The possibility lies in the fact that one can find holy people in most denominations. The difficulty is that the environment that nurtures those people is so different. It is an old reality writ large: “One size does NOT fit all.”

Since leaving Eden, more than our languages have fractured. The wedge of Babel split us into different types, each with different needs, different ways of perceiving, communicating, learning and teaching.

It’s exhausting to contemplate.

Structure, Guidance, And Institutional Experience

The good news is that, by and large, no matter what type person you might be, it is possible to find a Christian community that provides the kind of structure, guidance, and institutional experience you need.

For me, that place is the Roman Catholic Church.

So, you may rightly ask me, what has this religious stuff done for your spiritual self (because, as you have no doubt discerned, I think of myself as a spiritual person who is also very religious).

My answer to this question will always begin and end with the sacraments, “an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace,” or in the language I grew up with, the “outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” The sacraments are gifts to us, gifts to and of the spirit.

For a time during the pandemic, when attendance at Mass was restricted to online only, I felt the pangs of slow starvation. Spiritual communion may be efficacious, but it doesn’t really feel the same as being in the actual Presence.

The Sacraments Matter, And Require “Religion”

Baptism may be in my past chronologically, but like all the other sacraments it lives continually, providing that continuous flow of water such that we may never thirst (unless we deny its presence). I was confirmed as a “tween,” confirmation at that time being the gate for admission to the Eucharist.

For a time, before being received into the Catholic Church, I was a member of the Order of St. Luke, a cross-denominational Protestant organization administering Unction. I have continued to receive this great blessing, which always heals something, even if not what you might expect.

I have been blessed by matrimony for nearly 49 years (admittedly sometimes in the form of having my rough edges scraped off by another’s sharp edges).

I have benefited from Holy Orders through the ministrations of our priests and deacons – from administration of the other sacraments to good counsel to the simple rewards of conversation and fellowship.

None of these benefits – graces! – would be available if I tried to hold myself apart from community by claiming that being spiritual was equal to (or superior to) being religious.

The Safety Of A Fireplace

So far I have approached this from the standpoints of the benefits that “religion” adds to “being spiritual.”  But let me spend a moment on the perils that religion averts.

The peril of being “spiritual but not religious” is the risk of living without the safety of walls and boundaries. Not every spirit is holy; not every spiritual development or direction is healthy. Among the services provided by religion are discernment of the direction and progress of someone’s spiritual development.  Religion also provides  almost innumerable aids and guides to healthy growth, years of experience, and wisdom in avoiding dead ends, pitfalls, and the snares and illusions of the enemy.

I was given a powerful metaphor for understanding this by a member of the Charismatic Episcopal Church (CEC), a group that arose from the charismatic wing of the old Campus Crusade For Christ. They abandoned their highly individualistic and independent loose affiliations for a more formal structure mirroring the Episcopal church, even to the point of adopting the Book Of Common Prayer. As it was explained to me, “We realized that we had the fire of the Holy Spirit, but that we needed a fireplace to keep it from turning into a strictly human wildfire.”

This is the purpose of the metaphorical fireplace the CEC member had in mind–to provide a defined and focused home for the fire of the spirit. Confined to a fireplace, a fire warms and comforts while providing heat for cooking and light for illumination. Unconfined it can spread into a conflagration that consumes instead of serves. The Epistles of St. Paul are full of corrections for communities that took the fervor of the spirit  too far in directions idiosyncratic to those communities.

No Religion Means No Creed

At the risk of being uncharitable, I also cannot help but feel that one reason people take refuge in saying things like “I consider myself to be a spiritual person but I am not religious” is that they want the comfort of a vague sense of being aligned with God without any of the onerous responsibilities and restrictions of actual virtue. They can point to various hypocrisies (either imagined or real) and congratulate themselves for not being a part of such duplicity, while at the same time not having to bear the responsibility of even rationalizing their departures from virtue.

But without religion, one has no creed or code to live up to other than what one formulates for oneself. (Discovering that I could not fully live up even to such an amorphous set of standards was one powerful force that led me back to the church after a period of rebellion in late adolescence.)

Claiming a spiritual nature is easy, however, living up to objectively virtuous spiritual standards is anything but.

An Approach to Evangelization And Witness

Writing for Catholic Stand, I feel that I am likely “preaching to the choir.”  The problem that arises is how do we address this attitude in those we know and love?

I doubt very much that this attitude has a strong hold in people who attend Mass regularly and who are otherwise involved in their local parish. It may be more likely to occur in people who attend Mass on Christmas and Easter and various other special occasions of a personal nature. It is certain to exist more frequently in those who are un-churched or who have fallen away from what they may refer to with scorn as “organized religion.”

How do we reach people who use this attitude to defend themselves from the call of the Holy Spirit to join with a community and receive the benefits of the sacraments and the company of the faithful?

I return to the observation that “one size does not fit all”. In context, I could also point out that even the best master key only works on one kind of lock. Each one of us is capable of being the key that unlocks the heart of someone who needs the full range of what the church offers their spiritual nature—but most of us are best suited to unlocking a particular kind of heart, to help a particular sort of person move from being vaguely spiritual to becoming concretely religious.

Concluding Thoughts

You can probably tell by reading what I write that I am more likely to witness successfully to certain kinds of people, especially those who are prone to intellectualize everything. When I see someone wearing a T-shirt with the message “Hold on while I overthink this”, my response is joyous recognition.

You know yourself. You know the type of person you can reach, because you know how you could be reached. It is my hope that the next time you encounter someone you feel you can reach who seems to be clinging to this position as a defense against entering into the life of Christ, understanding the position a little better will give you a bit of insight so you can be an effective evangelist to that person. Let us bring people in from the wildfires of their wilderness to the comfort and safety of hearth and home.

Prayer:

Father in Heaven you made us in your image as spiritual beings; please give us the grace to use that spiritual quality to reach the spirit of others and draw them toward the graces and gifts you provide for us through the sacraments of your church, the living body of Christ on this earth at this time. Give us compassion, wisdom, discernment, and courage in our encounters with others so that we may draw them closer to you and toward all you want for them to gain from your boundless love.

Amen