Spiritual?

I'm not a very spiritual person . . . 
I'm spiritual, but not religious . . . 
She's really spiritual . . . 

What do we mean when we say these things?  

I was at Starbucks this week and couldn't help but hear a loud conversation at the table next to me.  Two ministers. It seemed they were from a Holy-Spirit oriented church, with ministries of prayer and miracles.  They counseled folk to look for signs, like cloud configurations that give messages and other ways we try to hear God speak in a world where God can seem silent.  One of them writes books about her life, to help others find the Spirit in way she has. She grew up Presbyterian, she said: "Very formal. Not very 'spiritual.'"  

Got me wondering.  We often think of spirituality as the way we feel, or how we talk or what we do to connect to a realm beyond worldly things.  It's beyond our rational side.  In this view, spirituality is about the mystical, or the numinous (fancy word), or the unexplainable.  "Spiritual" is the opposite of "material." You're either keyed into it or not. You're either "spiritual" or not.  

But that view of it doesn't really work for a Christian.  For spirituality is not the opposite of materiality in Christian tradition.  Spirituality is not what is "beyond" what we see. Spirituality is how we relate to what we see.  It's about the relationship, and it takes many forms.  

Jesus is our clue here.  For Christians affirm that in some mysterious, but real, way, the living, breathing, acting, laughing, teaching, suffering Jesus was (and is) God among us—spiritual and material together, relating in sacrificial love.  If he's our clue, then Christian spirituality can't be outside the material. And it can't be the possession of just a few.  

We're all spiritual.  We all relate to the stuff of life in one way or another.  We pause and seek God's presence, we stand in awed silence, we sing for joy, we embrace friends and share our hearts, we join up and make a difference, we think things through, we study and teach and wonder and accept and declare.  

I know a guy who builds.  That's what he does. Little religious language.  Doesn't mouth prayers. Doesn't sing much. Probably wouldn't be the first to take communion to someone at home.  But is the first to show up to get a job done. Sees a need and meets it. Solves practical problems. Leaves his camp cleaner and more organized and safer than he found it.  By some definitions he's not a very spiritual guy. But oh, how wrong that assessment is. For all this is his spirituality. And it's a wonder to behold.  

Our spirituality often relates to our personality type (like an extrovert or an introvert), or experience (maybe witnessed an unexpected healing, or not), or what we've been taught (Sunday School has an impact!), or what you've been willing to try (organized prayer, a mission group, serious study).  But we're all spiritual.  And we tend to gather with folks who are spiritual in ways we are.  That can help. That can also keep us from learning.  

So it seems to me that the question is not whether you are spiritual, or "we" are spiritual.  The question is how we are spiritual, and how healthy, whole, stretching, humble, compassionate, courageous our spirituality is.  And how freeing—from the things that might hide us from God (like judgment, anger, self-hatred, selfishness, envy, fear).  

How are you spiritual?