A perennial question I ask myself each year. Looking back, I can say for myself the answer is "I seem to need more and more spirituality with each passing year". My mother used to say to me this when I was an atheistic youth - that as when I'm old, I shall be reconciled with the Church. She hoped that one day, I'd return to regular attendance at Mass, as I'd done as a child.
I regret to inform her memory that this is not to be - the Polish national Catholic Church is not a attractive institution. Masses are boring, the hymns are dirge-like, the sermons uninspired at best and noxious at worst*. Church-going does not elevate my spiritual side, it does not connect me with the metaphysical and numinous. I view it as a mainly social practice - social bonding and social control.
I believe that the need for God (the need for Meaning, Understanding, Purpose etc) rises with age - this is a natural response to one's awareness of mortality. To have made a difference. To have fulfilled your human potential. Even among avowed atheists, the need for something more, something deeper than the mere accumulation of material trinkets and ego-satisfaction grows with age.
"I am not a Random Event!" my soul is shouting. "There is More!"
If you feel there's More, you should seek it. But how? Through meditation or prayer? Most likely. Somehow, gathering with large numbers of other people to do spirituality communally is not something that works for me. Too many distractions. The moment is never quite right. Answers have to sought and found, not just given from the pulpit.
Seeking means refining; fine-tuning; building better ideas, discarding bad ones. Seeking is a journey; but most importantly, it is simply experiencing.
I know I can do it - working up feelings of gratitude, prayers for health and peace, trains of thoughts that add to wisdom - but am I doing enough? Again, I'm often falling into the guilt trap - I am guilty that I'm coasting, freewheeling, taking it easy, not pushing myself. I could be achieving so much more; again that balance must be sought. But then, unlike my daily physical spreadsheet logging paces, diet and exercise, there's no sense of logging spiritual activity. The need comes when it comes, and should not be pushed away. Connecting with God/the metaphysical should snap into place, not be forced. Mediaeval monks, with their canonical hours of prayer, might have felt it all too much.
I am aware, however, looking back over this blog, that there is progress. Spirituality is not a steady state; it does grow - but only if you want it, only if you let it.
* Doesn't have to be this way. There are parishes that do it well, but they are few and distant.
This time last year:
The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson
Peace of Mind
This time seven years ago:
The Name of God and the Consciousness of Everything
This time nine years ago:
The Church and Democracy
Prime lens or zoom?
This time 11 years ago:
Warsaw's failed bid as City of Culture, 2016
This time 12 years ago:
Stalinist downtown at dusk
This time 13 years ago:
The End of an Age of Excess?
This time 14 years ago:
Snowy Easter in England
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