TOW: Spirituality

I have been spending the last little while doing a little bit of spiritual work, which is interesting, since I am revisiting a lot of things that I used to do on a regular basis. Contemplative prayer, reading the Bible more regularly....heck, I'm a regular born again Christian, let me sign the waiver!

That aside, there is something to be said for the spiritual life, whatever that means to each of us. Everyone has a side of themselves that needs to be nutured, a side which is different from our emotional and rational faculties. Without putting too much emphasis on the dogma or ideals associated with the third side of ourselves, we can just call it 'the spiritual.' I am a big fan of Rudolf Otto's "Idea of the Holy."

Otto had some really great things to say after the Great War. A lot of people were confused about the place of 'meaning' in a thematic sense, and for Otto, the Holy was something mysterious, terrifying, and yet attractive all at the same time, something we could understand from the realm of personal experience without relying on the events in history to be explained to us fully. The numinous, or the feeling of 'something that is not me' that encompasses the Holy, and having a feeling of other-than-me is what creates a great, ethical world that allows us to see a big picture. Or something like that. (Never said I can always coherently recount my lessons in philsophy properly.)

The major point is that religion and religious experience is not reducible to something else. We can say that our spiritual faculty, whatever that means, is something necessary and in need of nourishment on a regular basis.

So find that spiritual food that makes you feel healthy. I am doing my best to include my daily intake of the spiritual, myself.

And now, I am off to feed the part of me that needs sleep. =)