Saturday, January 23, 2010

The work of spiritual recovery

The act of spiritual recovery can be a daunting challenge at times. Some time ago, I realized that my perceptions of God and religion had become nothing more than clinical exercises that left me feeling lost and spiritually destitute. It was not a pleasant admission to say the least. Personal introspection and honestly appraising one's catalog of ideas and the beliefs that direct your spiritual journey can be a most unpleasant task.

I would like to say that the solution to this problem is to simply return to the place where we last felt right. Of course, as with most spiritual problems, it is not always that easy. Our spiritual journey can not be measured in snapshots. The balance of experience, circumstances, education, acculturation, etc, all work together to make us who we are and who we are becoming. The narrative of our spiritual lives must stand as written, no matter how tempting it is to discard certain chapters and rewrite the story in a way that makes it more palatable to us in retrospect.