Inner and Outer Guides

Like Woman of the World, I also went to church as a child. For me, though, this was not part of my "good girl" pattern (which was overdeveloped in so many other ways). Church for me was a place I chose be: a place of discovery and revelation, a place to learn and to deepen my understanding of life. Some of my clearest memories are kneeling in the pew, breathing in the readings and the words of our priest, following their illuminations, feeling where they were true in me.

However, I've never been one to accept things in their predigested form. What was most significant was the new questions that emerged, the ways that the readings and the prayers and the hymns opened doorways into my own ways of knowing. I was still very young when I realized that the conclusions reached by those around me often did not make sense to me. Too often they missed the point of what I knew to be real and true in Christianity.

This balance between inner and outer guides is a tricky one. Social ostracism, violence, and wars are justified on the premise that one group's inner assessment of the words of prophets, sacred texts, and the like are better than some other group's. Too often the resolution of conflict is touted as being as simple as returning to the text, as if it is a pure form of guidance. But loyalty to an outer form of guidance can only be chosen through some inner resonance with that source. The inner guide and the outer guide must align.

Developing my inner guidance system has become a key focus in my spiritual life - learning to recognize its wisdom, develop its strength, and be willing to take action based on what I know. But just as the outer guide needs this inner guidance as a compass, the opposite is true as well. I seek the teachings and the wisdom across centuries that helps me see and know and discover, that engages my inner guide, challenging me, calling me into a confrontation with who I am and all I can be.

It's a day by day journey to find this balance. I'm grateful for the abundance of days through which I may learn.

Body and Spirit

Like a good girl, I went to church when I was young.  I listened to sermons, went to Sunday school, participated in various church functions.  Though there were parts of it that I found valuable, or occasionally fun, overall it was very unsatisfying.  It felt very narrow (also superficial - but I think that was more about the particular church). 

When I came across the Sweet Medicine Sundance path, much later in life, I was intensely, deeply astonished and grateful to have found a spiritual path that incorporated development of the physical body.  It just was not part of my early religious training.  Oh, sure, there was some attention to the body: prohibitions (sex, gluttony) and implicit guidelines (dress well, strive to be attractive).  But within SMSD, physical health and skill development is just as important as any other aspect of self-growth. 

You know the feeling of finding something that you had been seeking, whether knowingly or not?  Of coming home?  Finding a way to access and increase my spiritual connection through working my physical was like that.  I've always been tuned in to my body, to the physical world, how things work, how they break, how to fix them, how to make them.  To begin to see how that could be a facet of spirituality was a revelation.

Since that first "wow" moment, I've become more conscious of other ways, other paths, that also bring in our bodies - for example, many martial arts disciplines do this.  It is one of the ways, I think, that we can remain engaged in making this life the most and the best that it can be.

Finding and Knowing Truth

A recent poll from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reports that many of us in the U.S. mix religious beliefs.  A significant proportion of all of us believe in astrology, reincarnation, and spiritual energy in trees, for example. 

Some of these kinds of beliefs - astrology, e.g. - have been with us culturally for a long time; but others really only became accessible to us relatively recently, with the advent of telephones, tv/movies, air travel, and then, of course, the internet. 

I've heard this referred to as "buffet spirituality."  The derogatory interpretation says we just take what is convenient from whatever religions/spirituality we come across, regardless of whether it fits with our other beliefs, ignoring the cultural context, disregarding other more inconvenient aspects of the religion.  The more generous interpretation says we recognize the deep truths across religions/cultures and incorporate those into our lives and beliefs.

Historically, this is not a new phenomenon.  It's just what people do, both personally and culturally: they blend new things they encounter into what they already know.  Every culture, every religion in existence right now is the result of blending, through travelers, conquest, intermarriage, colonialism, etc.

Now we have access to virtually every culture in the world, if not quite to every single person.  Of course we're going to blend. Of course. 

So, to some of the questions:

Does this give us more access to the possibility of finding fundamental truth in spirituality?  Does the opportunity to look at our connection to spirit from other religious/cultural points of view expand our ability to see it clearly?  Or does it just distract us?  Is it true that for some people, different spiritual approaches than the ones they were born into simply suit them better?  Or should we all just stick with what we were born with?  Is mixing beliefs disrespectful?  Does it show lack of understanding? Is it a legitimate way to find truth?  How does one know?

How does one know?

These are some of the questions.  There are plenty more.