As I write this, I'm looking from a balcony out over a placid lake. A storm blew through here last night, but today is calm, though still cloudy. I've been holding my infant twin grandsons this morning. All in all, these moments have been a peaceful experience for me. One might even say a spiritual experience.
In many ways, I find the word spiritual a difficult word to define. I can certainly feel something different in me at certain times and I sometimes call those moments spiritual. I've looked at this lake before without that moment creating that "different experience." Yet, today for several minutes, it felt spiritual, perhaps a transcendent moment. This is the first opportunity to hold the twins since they were born, so that helps me understand the feeling I had while doing it, and I still feel a bit of that feeling even while thinking about it.
The question I'm struggling with is this: is any of this an experience of God?
Years ago, when one of my sons had drifted away from attending worship, I asked him about it. He said he could worship on a boat as he fished as well as he did in church. I countered with, "But, do you?" I don't doubt there may be something spiritual about being on the ocean or a beautiful lake, watching sun burnished water. Maybe even the moment the struggle to land a fish ends well can be spiritual. But is that moment an acknowledgement of God's transcendent, or grace, or mercy? Or is it just a moment with the ordinary is replaced by something different?
I think I want a spiritual moment to not only be transcendent of the ordinary, but also a moment when God's presence is tangible and acknowledged. Such a moment first happened to me when it dawned on me that Jesus didn't just die for the sins of the world in the abstract, but that he died, in the words of John Wesley in a similar moment, "He died for me, even me." There are certain moments in the Eucharist that feel spiritual to me, such as, when the Host is elevated, or when I receive the bread or wine. But, in truth, I don't always experience such moments as spiritual. It seems it very much depends on how receptive I am to the moment being a transcendent experience of God.
Another thought I have about this is that a moment may contain in it an awareness of God and, therefore be spiritual, but not evoke the response of awe and worship that perhaps is, or dare I say, should be, part of the moment to really qualify as spiritual. Put another way, Moses knew God was in the burning bush. He clearly felt his presence. But it didn't end there. He hid his face because he felt unworthy to be in that presence.
I'm a bit afraid, that for many of us, it's possible to be in worship and not experience God, just as it is to have a spiritual moment and not experience God. We may find comfort in looking at a lake or a sunset, or a newborn baby, just as we may find comfort in following a familiar ritual. Whether or not we are worshiping God in those moments seems to be a very different matter.
I think.
Confusingly yours, Jerry+
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