Spiritual Journeys
Our Quaker Meeting had a discussion after worship this morning, on the subject of "Where am I on my spiritual journey?" There were ten participants, and we spoke for an hour, each person only speaking once, out of the silence as in worship.
I would like to share a somewhat edited version of what I said. I have been thinking about "where am I" questions in this journal and in conversations with friends, so it was a particularly useful time to be asking myself about spiritual directions.
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I feel that I'm a synthesist. I want to make sense of my world; and I enjoy trying to bridge between contradictory ideas. So my spiritual journey has partly been as a seeker- but I'm seeking for the purpose of finding practical answers I can use in life, instead of just intellectual edification.
The Quaker community has been an essential part of my journey over the last 14 years. I have learned so much from watching other Friends living their faith. From reading, from talking with Quakers locally, but particularly learning from people at FGC Gathering and at FLGBTQC gatherings and through online discussions. My spiritual life has been richest when I'm in community; and I think it's been weakest when I've felt like I wasn't in community.
I think over my life I've been good at coming to terms with my limitations, to figure out how to accommodate. I've had the realization that I've been paying so little attention to my strengths. So right now part of my spiritual journey is to figure out what my strengths are.
One image that resonates with me is from Karen Armstrong, the title of her memoir- "The Spiral Staircase." Before she found her place as a writer on religion for the popular press, she went through a number of careers. She says she kept trying things and failing badly. She was a nun, but she kept asking difficult questions and eventually left the order. She studied toward a PhD at Oxford, but she failed her defense. She went on to teach high school, and was fired for health reasons, undiagnosed epilepsy. She went on to be a TV writer, which brought her some notoriety with her programs investigating religious life, but she was fired from that as well. But it also led her to consider further research into Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in an attempt to explain their meaning to non-practitioners.
And in that career, as an independent researcher and writer, she discovered that her life, when she'd thought she was just going around in circles, what she'd previously seen as failures had also meant lateral steps upward, as if she were climbing a spiral staircase.
I don't feel like I've been going in circles, but the image of trying and failing and climbing and gradually growing into who one is, resonates with me strongly. At this moment, I'm at something of a turning point, or at least I hope I am. I'm reassessing. I don't know where I should be going. I have a job, but I don't feel like I have a career. In some ways, this has felt like a stagnant period for me.
A while ago, [someone in our Meeting] quoted the British Quakers' book of Faith and Practice: "Live adventurously." This advice has resonated with me. [The entire quote is: "Live adventurously. When choices arise, do you take the way that offers the fullest opportunity for the use of your gifts in the service of God and the community? Let your life speak. When decisions have to be made, are you ready to join with others in seeking clearness, asking for God's guidance and offering counsel to one another?"
So I'm trying to open myself up to living adventurously.
I would like to share a somewhat edited version of what I said. I have been thinking about "where am I" questions in this journal and in conversations with friends, so it was a particularly useful time to be asking myself about spiritual directions.
---
I feel that I'm a synthesist. I want to make sense of my world; and I enjoy trying to bridge between contradictory ideas. So my spiritual journey has partly been as a seeker- but I'm seeking for the purpose of finding practical answers I can use in life, instead of just intellectual edification.
The Quaker community has been an essential part of my journey over the last 14 years. I have learned so much from watching other Friends living their faith. From reading, from talking with Quakers locally, but particularly learning from people at FGC Gathering and at FLGBTQC gatherings and through online discussions. My spiritual life has been richest when I'm in community; and I think it's been weakest when I've felt like I wasn't in community.
I think over my life I've been good at coming to terms with my limitations, to figure out how to accommodate. I've had the realization that I've been paying so little attention to my strengths. So right now part of my spiritual journey is to figure out what my strengths are.
One image that resonates with me is from Karen Armstrong, the title of her memoir- "The Spiral Staircase." Before she found her place as a writer on religion for the popular press, she went through a number of careers. She says she kept trying things and failing badly. She was a nun, but she kept asking difficult questions and eventually left the order. She studied toward a PhD at Oxford, but she failed her defense. She went on to teach high school, and was fired for health reasons, undiagnosed epilepsy. She went on to be a TV writer, which brought her some notoriety with her programs investigating religious life, but she was fired from that as well. But it also led her to consider further research into Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in an attempt to explain their meaning to non-practitioners.
And in that career, as an independent researcher and writer, she discovered that her life, when she'd thought she was just going around in circles, what she'd previously seen as failures had also meant lateral steps upward, as if she were climbing a spiral staircase.
I don't feel like I've been going in circles, but the image of trying and failing and climbing and gradually growing into who one is, resonates with me strongly. At this moment, I'm at something of a turning point, or at least I hope I am. I'm reassessing. I don't know where I should be going. I have a job, but I don't feel like I have a career. In some ways, this has felt like a stagnant period for me.
A while ago, [someone in our Meeting] quoted the British Quakers' book of Faith and Practice: "Live adventurously." This advice has resonated with me. [The entire quote is: "Live adventurously. When choices arise, do you take the way that offers the fullest opportunity for the use of your gifts in the service of God and the community? Let your life speak. When decisions have to be made, are you ready to join with others in seeking clearness, asking for God's guidance and offering counsel to one another?"
So I'm trying to open myself up to living adventurously.