spirituality

WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY?
and how can it heal the world?

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This is the conventional narrative: Spirituality is mostly an individual enterprise. A choose-your-own-adventure project of enlightenment or healing or growth. Spirituality helps us be better people. It helps us understand ourselves, our understanding of the world, and place in it. The Great Problems will be solved by lots of individuals tending to their own healing and growth, so they can have better thoughts and feelings, and make better choices. If enough people tend to themselves this way, it will scale up to change the world. Reflection informs intentions. Intention determine actions. If enough people choose the right sorts of actions, … Read more

The Spirit Moves Us to Places of Pain

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“To be wounded by the suffering of others is a gift of the Holy Spirit.”Gregory Baum The Spirit moves in places of pain. Not because suffering is sacred, but because people are sacred. And in that movement, there is an invitation to compassion, for us to suffer with the sufferer. My heart swells with a mix of sadness and anger when I remember that the word “compassion” has, for so many, become a merely sentimental idea. An ephemeral word about feelings in the moment. A sort of cathartic wave of piteous fondness that leaves as quickly as it arrives, like … Read more

Brother Juniper and the Pig’s Foot

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I wrote a piece about the tradition and vocation of “holy fool” for a recent issue of Geez Magazine. I’ve written an accompanying piece here, focusing on my favorite holy fool in Western Christianity. To me, the classic example of holy fool within the Western Christian tradition is Brother Juniper. Born in the late 12th century, Brother Juniper was an early follower of Saint Francis of Assisi. Francis was himself a holy fool, having famously renounced his inheritance by stripping naked, kissing lepers, preaching to forest creatures, and living a life of such stark simplicity and deep generosity that it sparked … Read more