It is a mid-September afternoon and a weak, skim-milk sun
is doing its best to seep through cloud and rain. I've decided that today is the day to begin an article on the nature of spiritual awakening. Will I research, then write? Perhaps simply write; write with the hope that you, dear reader, will find some quickening within, some break in the clouds that allows the silent, sometimes-familiar Knowing of your connection to what seems bigger than - often outside of - your Self. The sleepy afternoon chooses for me and I see that I've already begun ambling a path toward the gifts of a road less traveled...

First thoughts revolve around two commonly misused phrases, "awakening the spirit" and "how to be spiritual." One simply cannot awaken what is a priori; neither can one be anything other than what one already is - Spirit in human form. What we can do is awaken TO Spirit, then act in ways that allow us to BE, as one of my professors was fond of saying, "alive and awake to being alive and awake," as good a definition as any of what "being spiritual" means. Journalist and man of faith Bill Moyers wrote, "Any journalist worth his or her salt knows the real story today is to define what it means to be spiritual. This is the biggest story - not only of the decade but of the century." Today, more than ever, the human world requires such an inquiry, burdened as it is with anxieties, fears, violence, and an overall soul-sadness. And the natural world, inseparable from the human, is deeply, loudly pleading with us to move ever more intentionally into this soul work of waking to the Spirit that lives in and behind every thing.

When asked by producers of the documentary, "One: The Movie," to define spiritual awakening, Father Thomas Keating replied, and I roughly paraphrase, "First, it's the realization, not the information, that there is something Other, capital O, than ourselves. Second, it's the longing to know and connect to that Other. Third and finally, it's the realization that there IS no Other, that we are It." Awakening to Spirit, then, is an ultimate, deep recognition of Oneness. If Keating and Moyers are correct, as I believe they are, then how do we actually become alive and awake to being alive and awake? Once "there," how does our awake-ness inform our living?

Spiritual awakening, while it's defined in large part through the commonality of its elements, often occurs in ways specific and unique to each individual. My favorite story of awake-ness comes from Ron Miller's essay, "Space for Spirit," in "Finding a Way, Essays on Spiritual Practice." He writes, "Whitaker Chambers, author of "The Witness," saw his atheism dissolve into faith while watching the oatmeal drip from the ear of his baby daughter. Could such a delicate instrument as that ear be nothing more than a chance cancatenation of atoms? Suddenly the divine was present in a worldview that had no room for God." Miller also writes of Jesuit theologian and scholar, Avery Dulles. While a young atheist in college, "...the sight of the 'new green' of springtime propelled him into an awareness of the Creator." Miller goes on to say, "If such simple events can constitute a miracle, then what could NOT be a miracle for one with eyes to see and ears to hear? ...If the door is everywhere, all that is wanting is our attention."

I like to think of discontentment and enthusiasm as the front and back of the hand when it comes to spiritual awakening. Discontentment can be a sign of an inner call to awaken, a sign that something is "showing up as missing." The restless desire for something more, something different, is always one's spirit calling out to be heard. In being attentive to the undercurrent of our discontent, we open to the possibility of responding to that pull toward something else. It is first through attentiveness, then by responsiveness that we may move into our enthusiasm. To engage with one's spirit is to become enthusiastic in our living, which is a literal engagement with the Spirit in and behind all things, as the word enthusiasm is derived from theo (God) and means "full of God."

Spiritual awakening and enthusiasm - we might now call it "en-theos-ism" - both ultimately mean living with deeper awareness, participation and purpose, and can't help but lead to significant behavioral changes. One particular awareness that can arise is our realizing the inherent wisdom in all circumstances and events, no matter how things are showing up. Such consciousness allows a trust in Life to take hold, which leads to being able to participate fully in THIS moment, rather than live in memory (past) or imagination (future). Conflict and being "right" lose their appeal, as do judgmentalism and criticism. Feelings of connection can overcome us, as they did Whitaker Chambers and Avery Dulles, and we suddenly know that Life has purpose, that OUR life is a part of that purpose. Lo and behold, we find ourselves "behaving as if the God in all life mattered."*

In awakening to Spirit we come face to face with the truth of who we really are. We know our sister as our Self, see our brother as our Friend. "For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." Paul's quote from I Corinthians is Father Keating's, "There is no Other; we are It." The door IS everywhere, my friend. All that is wanting is our attention.

*from Machaelle Small Wright's book by the same name