There's nothing I like better than a blank sheet of paper or a blank place to write on the Internet. I just read all of the stories I have written on this blog and they bring back so many wonderful moments in my life. And as I read these stories that cover at least 60 years of my life, I realized I need to do this kind of writing more often.
Oh I do my 750 words a day, and that exercise is a daily spiritual practice even though very little what you might call spiritual. I see too many people who have to drop everything else in their lives to be spiritual. To me being spiritual is about life.
The term spirituality, so says Wikipedia, lacks a definite definition. Social scientists have defined it as the search for the sacred where the sacred is broadly defined as that which is set apart from the ordinary and worthy of veneration.
The use of the term spiritualiy has changed throughout the ages. In modern times, it is often separated from Abrahamic religions, and connotes a blend of humanistic psychology with mystical and esoteric traditions and c onnotes a blend of humanistic psychology with mystical and esoteric traditions and eastern religions aimed at personal well-being and personal development. The notion of spiritual experience plays an important role in modern spirituality, but has a relatively recent origin.
There is NO single, widely-agreed definition of spirituality. The traditional meaning is a process of re-formation which aims to recover the original shape of man, the image of God. In modern times spirituality has come to mean the internal experience of the individual and it still denotes a process of transformation, but in a context separate from organized religious institutions: spiritual but not religious. Spirituality is now sought not only through traditional organized religions but also through movements such as liberalism, feminist theology, and green politics. It is also now associated with mental health, managing substance abuse, marital functioning, parenting, and coping. It has been suggested that sp irituality also leads to finding purpose and meaning in life.
The term spirit means animating or vital principle in man and animals. It is derived from the old Frends espirit which comes from the latin word spiritus soul, courage, vigor, breath and is related to spirare which means to breathe.
Words meaning spirituality frist began to arise in the 5th century and only entered common use toward the end of the Middle Ates. In a biblical context the term means being animated by God to be driven by the holy spirit,. In the 11th century this meaning changed. Spirituality began to denote the mental aspect of life as opposed to the material and sensual aspects of life. In the 13th century, spirituality acquired a social and phsychological meaning. Socially it denoted the territory of the clergy. And physchologically, it denoted the realm of the inner life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was a pioneer of the idea of spirituality as a distinct field and the transcendentalists of the early 19th century liberal protestant movement emphasized an intuitive experientail approach of religions. The first translations of Hindu texts appeared in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and they were read by the transcendentalists and influenced their thinking. The transcendentalists also endorsed universalist and Unitarianist ideas, leading to Unitarian Universalism, the idea that there must be truth in other religions as well, since a loving God would redeem all lliving beings, not just Christians.
