In search of spirituality

[Anonymous]

Unknown wrote:

Recently, I’ve been substituting the word “spiritual” for “meaningful”, generally, I think they mean the same thing.

Bingo. This is in everything.

[Anonymous]

I was reading Chieko Okazaki’s LIghten Up yesterday and I stumbled across the following,

Quote:

The second point I’d like to make is that spiritual strength is personal. It’s individual. It’s part of our lives that doesn’t belong to a Church program. The Church can put us in good places where we have increased opportunities to build our spirituality….For me the point is that being a good Christian is a Church job all by itself. We don’t have to be perfect….We can respond to needs kindly, responsibly, sensitively

Further on in the chapter she writes,

Quote:

My third point is closely related to the second: In addition to being incremental-one bit at a time- and progressive, spirituality is also individual….But the point I want to make here is that what builds your spirituality may be different from what builds someone else’s.

And the final joyous piece,

Quote:

Maybe you’ve received a lot of “shoulds” and “oughts” about your spiritual life. Do any of these sound familiar? “you should read the scriptures at the same time every day. You should go to the temple once a month. You should always wait quietly for an answer after you’ve prayed. You should always accept every calling in the Church.” Well I have another “should for you. Here it is. Are you ready? You should do what works for you.

She wraps up her point with this-

Quote:

“It’s okay to consult your own needs and wants. Growth comes when we feel ourselves drawn in certain direction, when we feel unsatisfied needs in ourselves and reach out to meet those needs in righteous ways. Maybe what we need is the discipline of spending a whole uninterrupted half-hour every day reading the scriptures. Or maybe it’s our season of life where we really need to interact with little children so intensively that scripture study means reading one scripture cared stuck on the mirror while we are brushing our teeth…What do I want out of my attendance at church? Am I getting it? If I could have any calling in the ward, what would it be? or If I didn’t have any Church callings right now, what kind of service would I rather be doing….Spirituality is individual. Find things that work for you as you develop spiritual strength. Our Heavenly Father has not just one mansion but “many mansions” I don’t think he expects us all to find spiritual strength in exactly the same ways. Find out what works for you and then follow it.

[Anonymous]

SD, i have had many spiritual experiences. Some before i even joined the church. Most of my experiences come in the form of dreams. I will shared a few….

When i was a teenager i repeatedly use to dream about the tree of life from Lehi’s dream…but i didnt know it because i didnt find the church until i was in my 30’s. I cant say that i just “remembered” it somehow from reading other scripture because i had never went to church when i was young or read any scriptures. It was a very profound experience for me when i read the BOM for the first time and my “tree dream” seemed just like Lehi’s. I knew right then that the BOM was scripture.

Shortly after i joined the church there were some people from my past that tried to convince me to leave the church. And it wasnt just that they wanted me to leave the church, but they were very bad people. During this time of my life i had terrible nightmares. I honestly think i saw the gates of hell, or was close to it. All i could hear was the gnashing of teeth and close ups of tortured mouths screaming in agony…i could see everything in great detail. I would wake up with tears streaming down my face sobbing. I know deep down that i was being warned if i did what those people wanted me to do that i would suffer terribly for it. As soon as i stopped contact with them the dreams stopped.

Shortly after that time i was laid off from my job and wanted to move to another state to find work. Well things didnt work out and after several weeks of living with a friend and not finding anything…i decided to move back home to family. I didnt have enough money for a plane ticket so i bought a bus ticket. I was 1500 miles away from home standing in a bus depot. I was terrified. I had 300.00 cash on me and i was surrounded by beggars and strangers. To make matters worse, i had 4 transfers to catch across the country. I was told if i missed a transfer due to a late bus that i would have to spend the night in a bus depot in some strange town. I went into the bathroom and a said a silent tearful prayer asking God to help me get back home safely. I walked out in the main waiting area and found myself at the end of a very long line. Alas, it looked like i wouldnt make it on my bus and would end up sleeping somewhere in a bus depot. A short hispanic woman standing at the very front of my line (there was like 6 lines) turned around and stared at me. She came back and said “your a member of my church”. I said “what?”. She said “your a member of my church, the church of jesus christ of latter day saints, and im going to make sure you get home safely”. I almost started to cry again. My prayer had been answered. She grabbed my luggage and my hand and steered me to the front of the bus line. I told her i couldnt possibly cut in front of every one. She told me not to worry, that no one would say anything, and they didnt. Then she told me to get something to eat. I asked her later how she knew we belonged to the same church? She told me she saw my quad in my tote bag, which by the way was not visible to anyone. It took me about 36 hrs to travel from that depot to my hometown. And i never once worried. In fact every bus was 1 1/2 to 2 hrs late for each transfer, but would you believe every single bus waited for me to join them? I didnt miss one transfer and i made it home early…even though each bus was late…i never did figure that one out.

I have had many more experiences. When i am struggling in the church i have dreamed that i was barred from entering the temple…at these times the temple is surrounded by dark, black, turbulent waters. As i have worked towards making myself temple worthy the temple became brighter, surrounded by warm light, and i was allowed into the temple again.

One last experience.. and the best one of all….when i was contemplating joining the church and praying about it i had a really great dream. I dreamt i was in this house. But it was dark, and full of black water. A booming voice from behind me told me that it was my choice, my choice whether to be with him or without him. I knew at that very moment who was speaking. He told me the black water and filth represented a life without him. This brought feelings of fear and despair to me. Then he lifted me and placed me in another house. This house was full of light , it was warm and inviting, i walked into the kitchen and a woman was cooking, she was wearing an apron and turned around and her face lit up when she saw me. She ran to me and embraced me and felt loved. We hugged. Then the voice told me this home represented a life with him in it. I woke up with tears on my face and decided to join the church. Would you believe when i walked into the chapel for the very first time, that woman was sitting on bench in the chapel? She was assigned to be my visiting teacher and we are now best friends. She has on more than one occasion welcomed me into her home.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for sharing that story, wornoutsneakers. I have had some spiritual dreams and still do in my life. Thank you for sharing. 🙂

[Anonymous]

Fwiw, Chieko Okazaki’s “Ligthen Up!” (and everything else she said and wrote) should be required reading in the LDS Church and everywhere else.

She was one of my favorite church leaders, ever – and if I believed in mid-life reincarnation, I might believe Pres. Uchtdorf is channeling his inner Chieko.

[Anonymous]

Amen Ray. Amen.

[Anonymous]

I was thinking about spirituality today and this thread was a much needed lift.

One of the things I struggle with is spiritual experiences. I am very emotional and I find it extremely difficult to distinguish what is what. I cry at church, I cry watching those Budweiser welcome home soldier commercials, I cried during the final episode of How I Met Your Mother. So who knows.

However, I have many times while with my family felt pure joy. I have felt overwhelming happiness in those moments and I know I must be doing something transcendent by trying to be the best I can for my family. I fall extremely short, but continue onward.

But the reason I was thinking about spirituality was a conversation with the HPGL in the ward that I work with. I saw him at work today and he mentioned that the thing that keeps him up at night is the spirituality of the HPG and EQ and he indicated that hopefully I could help him increase the spirituality of the ward. I nodded my head and said sure, but have been mulling that over all afternoon. Which has led me to some thoughts:

What is spirituality? How do you increase it? How does someone like me increase it? What could I offer to more Orthodox members as a means for them to increase their spirituality?

This has led me to think about ways that I can increase my spirituality even if moving forward in an unconventional manner. Do you still find peace in the scriptures? Prayer?

Would love to hear people’s thoughts on ways you work on your spirituality and what suggestions I (or we) can offer more orthodox members without taking anything away from their faith.

[Anonymous]

There was a book called “To Grow in Spirit” by an LDS writer named Christiansen, probably not the apostle. It had 10 ways to increase spirituality. I read it for years, and only remember a few, an they were scripture reading, prayer, work, service — all the things you hear at church, and more. I lost it and wish I had it as I would read it. it was a short read, but it was good.

Also, Gene. R. Cook visited my mission when I was a missionary, and he listed the 7 ways of inviting the spirit.

1. prayer

2. spiritual experiences

3. expressions of love to god and man

4. Priesthood ordinances

5. Music

6. Scriptures

7. testifying in the name of the Lord.

I think these things are in Preach My Gospel.

Here are a few things I have shared before that have worked. The people you do it with need to be prepared, however — they need to be receptive, and it often means talking openly about your intent to invite the spirit, and prepare people to be prayerful and reverent. In my missionary lessons, i would try to use as many of the seven ways as possible, but as appropriate.

Once we started with a song my companion and I did well together. We sang it. Then we talked about the power of the spirit to manifest itself, quoted a scripture about fruits of the spirit, said a prayer, and shared a spiritual experience about the time we consciously brought the spirit to a meeting. Then we asked everyone to participate in an exercises where we asked them to listen to a recorded, instrumental hymn like As I have loved you, or something that moves you (In humulity our Savior, oh my father). A song with strings is best, rather than a solo piano, I found as for some reason, in my view, a string section sounds more heavenly and intense. Have two songs worth ready, and have the brethren mediate during the songs, writing down a) things they are thankful for b) ways God has shown his love.

After the song ends, ask each person to share the thoughts that came to them. I have done that many times and it does bring a powerful spirituality to the room. It combines song, music, prayer, spiritual experiences, scripture, and expressions of love (thanks to God and man). In a priesthood meeting, you could even ask if someone felt they would like a blessing of comfort and counsel, and given them a blessing. or having several brethren consecrate oil in a row using the priesthood.

It worked quite a bit when I was a missionary. It served a number of purpose — it strengthened the family we did it with in their homes because they often shared thanks and love for each other, it gave them a spiritual experience, and it also showed the family we were capable of inviting the spirit. If we could do it with them, we could do it with our investigators.

[Anonymous]

Spiritual experiences come in all shapes and sizes so I categorized them (a bit arbitrarily).

1. My wife seems to feel the Spirit almost daily. Not so often for me. I think I feel the spirit and I think it happens fairly often but it sure helps when my wife points it out to me.

2. The more obvious “wow, that was powerful” sort of experiences are easier for me to identify and I would say that they don’t come along even once a month for me.

3. The unequivocal, faith promoting, really cool experiences that I will remember for a lifetime don’t even happen as often as once a year (again, for me).

4 And at the top of the pyramid we have the life altering, touched by the hand of God, can’t even talk about them without choking up sort of experiences and I can count those on one hand.

As for when and how they happen, I’ve got nothing. I can’t find a common thread that runs through them all. There isn’t a part of life that the Spirit doesn’t touch in some way nor is there a single thing that I can find that guarantees me a spiritual ‘event’ of some sort. I don’t always feel the spirit while attending the Temple, for example. Sometimes a Temple session is just a relaxing and peaceful couple of hours and I go back to my daily routine, nothing more. On the other hand, I attended a Pentecostal Church in Louisiana and talked to the Pastor afterwards and we both felt the Spirit very strongly.

I wish I were better at this, to be of more help to you but mostly for me.

[Anonymous]

SunbeltRed wrote:

I was thinking about spirituality today and this thread was a much needed lift. One of the things I struggle with is spiritual experiences. I am very emotional and I find it extremely difficult to distinguish what is what. I cry at church, I cry watching those Budweiser welcome home soldier commercials, I cried during the final episode of How I Met Your Mother. So who knows.

I am emotional too. I have tendencies when I see something moving to get tears in my eyes, or even when I feel strongly about something. I asked a doctor about it and he said there is a center in the brain responsible for emotion. He said that area of the brain may be very sensitive to external stimulii the brain receives.

I generally accept that when I am feeling good emotions (fulfillment, joy, love, respect, happiness) that it’s a spiritual experience, even if emotionally induced. I believe it was Maslow who indicated self-actualized persons like Ghandi, for example, regularly had what he called “peak experiences” where they felt completely fulfilled.

The only time I struggle with distinguishing what is spiritual, and what is emotional, is when the implications of the experience are far-reaching. For example, if I was sitting in a meeting where a leader shared how holding family home evening produced a touching result, and I felt motivated to hold FHE, that requires no analysis The consequences of holding FHE, even if it was wrong, would not be great. In this case, I’ll not fret over whether the experience is spiritual or emotional.

However, if the person speaking provides a touching experience that is meant to motivate me to sign over all my IRA’s, my properties, and my wealth to the church — that’s a different story.

At that point I’m going to take a real hard look at whether the feelings were emotional, or if they were spiritual.

So, I would say that if the Budweiser commercial makes you feel pride and kindness toward the military when they come home, embrace it. Let it inspire you to be patriotic in those small ways we are patriotic. But if the emotions are part of a presentation that could encourage you to act in ways that are destructive if your spiritually-induced decisions are wrong, then look really hard at whether its an emotional appeal, or a confirmation from God. Hold the experience to a much higher standard.

I learned a decision-making technique years ago called the Min-Max regret approach. It’s for situations where the consequences of being wrong are severe. You basically look at each decision you have to make based on the stimulus at hand (in this case, the spiritual/emotional feelings). Then you write down the cost of being wrong next to each decision alternative. You pick the decision alternative that has the smallest damage (called a regret) if you are wrong.

When the stakes are high, I look long and hard at Min-Max regrets, and also hold the level of spirituality to a much higher standard.

[Anonymous]

When I reflect back on my life, I can think of a few experience that were “spiritual”, meaning peace, clarity, understanding, or direct guidance for what to do in a given situation. But I have not been able to repeat them on any kind of a regular, consistent way.

My first experience was when my brother died unexpectedly of a stroke. His wife was very distraught, and was feeling guilty for somehow causing his death. A few days after the funeral, I was visiting her and felt moved to offer comfort and support. I felt that I was simply the conduit from God to her. What I said was not of my understanding but was simply given to me, but we both felt better for the experience.

An other occasion I was just entering my faith crisis. Certain elements of the temple ceremony, just didn’t make sense to me. After several months of struggle, I felt that I needed to go to the temple to resolve them. During the session, I again was struggling, but then the words came to me, “Don’t worry about it. I don’t understand it either, but you will be glad you don’t let it bother you.” From that point onward the ceremony became a non-issue with me, even with the added paradox of God supposedly not understanding it either.

My next experience was many years of inactivity later. I was living in SLC at the time, and was going for a walk one afternoon. I passed a Mormon church, and suddenly felt like I needed to start attending. So I did some wart hopping. After several weeks of this I felt prompted to talk to my resident bishop. I had not attended that ward, but I looked him up and called him for an appointment. I didn’t understand why, but I thought I would at least share with him my frustrations with organized religion. He listened carefully, and agreed with many of my concerns.

We had two more such discussions, before I got engaged. My fiance was a temple worker, who knew all about my concerns. She said she would marry me anywhere I wanted, but she had just one request. Would I just ask my bishop what it would take for me to get a temple recommend? I made another appointment with him. We discussed the relevant issues around the recommend questions I told him I was mostly agnostic, but felt no need to resist the various beliefs. He asked me if I would be willing to start attending church, pay tithing, and wear G’s. I said I would. Then he said let’s formally go through the temple interview questions, and you answer with only a “Yes, no, or earnestly trying.” I did, and he then prayed about right then, and told me he felt I was worthy. He then instructed me to interview with the Stake President and again only with a Yes, no, or earnestly trying.” He said the Stake President was an accountant that saw the world as being either black or white, and I shouldn’t confuse him with my questions or concerns.

I got the recommend, the wife, and now over 20 years have varied between 1-3 hours of meetings every week, and have held various callings. Currently, I am not feeling very good about the correlated drivel in priesthood and SS, so mostly skip them. But I do feel it is important for me to attend Sacrament Meeting. Surprisingly, I am less bothered by the simplistic drivel there than in the other two meetings. I just know God wants me there.

Relating to the question of whether spirituality is an emotion, or something different, I believe it is related, but not the same. I college, I had a class studying the economic and social underpinnings of communism, fascism, and capitalism. I couldn’t help wishing I was blond haired and blue eyed (I am neither) while reading Hitler’s autobiography and manifesto, “Mine Kampf”. But I felt the fruits can be used as a litmus test can help sort the wheat from the chaff. Stories of people doing particularly good things can bring me to tears, for example, Oscar Schindler (the movie Schindler’s List), Mahatma Gandhi, and Maria von Trapp (the movie The Sound of Music). I like some of the back stories of the contestants on American Ninja Warrior, as well as their enthusiastic support for their competitors. And there was a story of a young African boy who was kidnapped by some warlords, drugged and manipulated do their bidding in their battles. Somehow he escaped their clutches, found his way to a big city where he got some help. Ultimately he got to the USA where he graduated from high school and college, and is working to help kids living in the slums to overcome their circumstances and live a positive life. Talk about choosing your reality. Wow! How can I complain? – I can get maudlin about these kinds of stories.

Probably the most impactful experience for me is the reading of the book “The God Who Weeps, How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life”. (Reviewed in the book section of StayLDS as well as http://www.amazon.com.) It gave me a God who I can emotionally believe in and support.

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