Permission To Seek and To Find: Your Spiritual Journey Will Be Unique
Let Your Spiritual Journey Be Unique. It Already Is.
A Reflection on Giving Myself Permission To Let My Spiritual Journey Be My Own
Growing up in the Christian church, I was surrounded by this idea that spiritual growth should look a certain way.
Progress looks like this: You move from attending youth group to leading youth group, from muttering songs half-heartedly to playing guitar in front of the group and leading songs.
When I stopped attending church altogether at university, the standard definition of what I was doing was "rebelling."
In my heart of hearts, though, I was not rebelling. I was looking for more truth. I just couldn't look in the Christianity pit anymore since that was all I had known.
****
It's been a very strange 3 years, as I've tried to make sense of the fact that I currently work in a church, helping the church produce Christian content while I sort out my personal beliefs.
Thankfully, I understand now that my spiritual journey is not supposed to look like anyone else's.
People with different temperaments and personalities connect with God in different ways.
A few years ago, I heard about a book called Nine Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas that explores how people can connect with God differently. This concept was God-send.
It outlines 9 different ways that people with different temperaments might connect with God:
NATURALISTS love God outdoors
SENSATES love God with the senses
TRADITIONALISTS love God through ritual and symbol
ASCETICS love God in simplicity and solitude
ACTIVISTS love God through confrontation
CAREGIVERS love God through loving others
ENTHUSIASTS love God with mystery and celebration
CONTEMPLATIVES love God through adoration
INTELLECTUALS love God with the mind
(Here's a PDF I found online with an excellent summary of each type.)
Seeing this breakdown was a breakthrough for me. It showed me that I connect with God in unique ways, and I don't need to expect others to understand. I could also write essays about how writing essays can help someone connect with God, but that's just because I'm wired to enjoy solitude and contemplation. Other people might connect with God by fighting injustice or serving others. What if we actually acknowledged the gifts of different ways that people connect with God, instead of fighting them?
I have learned to enjoy my ways of connecting with God, accepting that they are God's love language to me.
I've learned to accept that I experience God through beauty and that the western protestant church doesn't focus much on worshipping God through beauty. It's ok. It doesn't mean my God-inspired art is worthless. My art-making can still be a gateway to God.
In my spiritual journey… I have a strong propensity to keep exploring.
On top of knowing these nine sacred pathways, I recently did the Enneagram Institute quiz and got my official Enneagram report. I've read books about the enneagram before and self-diagnosed what I thought were my main types, but receiving an official report has changed everything.
I left like God was speaking to me directly through my test results. The words from my report lifted off the page and addressed the deepest parts of my insecurities and doubt. The first lines read:
Type Seven exemplifies the desire for freedom and variety and for exploring the many rich experiences that life has to offer.
Coming back in Toronto in 2017, I had to make sense of the part of me that found so much joy in travel, and this 'Christian' idea that you should stay in one place, live a simple, quiet 'Christian' life and shut up.
Sentence after sentence, I felt like God was affirming, Yes, I made you this way, and it is beautiful. This is your gift.
My top three Enneagram types are Type 7, which explains why I love to travel, Type 4, which explains why I have so many feelings and am inclined to turn them into art, and Type 1, which explains why I do things like write blogs pondering the meaning of life.
I've come to understand that my spiritual journey will always include a sense of curiosity and exploration. It's how I'm wired. It doesn't mean that I will choose exploration over stability every time (I'm certainly learning the value of tradition and stability), but I am allowed to be curious and to explore!
In my spiritual journey…I am inclined to be inclusive.
I recently took a World Religions course at my seminary, and it was fascinating to read the comments from some of my classmates. They were exactly what's you'd expect from a typical Christians. "Jesus is the only way, truth and the life."
Then there was me, talking about my travels and friends who are spiritual, non-religious, recovering Christians, seekers, agnostics, atheists and everything in between.
My comments always leaned towards inclusivity and kindness, not towards evangelism and exclusivity.
If I tried to explain my 'strategy' for being a 'Christian', it would be something like this:
I believe that God exists and lives in me, which is to say there is infinite, divine, non-material intelligence the supports and encourages my existence and the entire cosmos.
I choose to live my life in service to the good, the light, the loving, the true and the beautiful, trusting that as I pour my life out in these directions, I am contributing to a 'better' world, which is to say I am an agent of God's restoration and new creation.
These are my core beliefs. They had stood the test of time and given me hope and meaning through my life's highs and lows.
On the periphery, there are ideas, thoughts, theories and beliefs about Jesus, Christ, Buddha, Enlightenment, Holy Spirit, etc., which continue to morph. You might think that seminary would make me more bigoted, close-minded and obnoxious (I, for one, had those fears), but seminary is actually making me more open-minded, more exploratory.
I realize my version of being 'Christian' mentioned above may sound general, perhaps humanist, agnostic, something you'd find quite easily off the self-help section of the bookstore.
The strange thing is, that message is also gospel. (Not the whole gospel, but part of it).
God is here with us. If someone changed that word God to Jesus, Love, Spirit or Universe, it doesn't bother me too much. I can explain the difference between those words if I needed to, because at different points of my life, a change in words has helped me grow closer to God. I don't feel a need to coerce people to see God and the Purpose of Life the way I do.
Seminary is showing me that 18 years of growing up in church only taught me 2% of what it really means to 'follow Christ.' I'm ok with keeping a loose grip on my beliefs since seminary is changing them every few weeks anyway!
I trust that God is the one shaping my mind and heart.
When I started seminary, I put all of my ideas about other faiths and spirituality in a dark corner in my mind and tried to see Christianity for itself. Through no particular action of my own, those thoughts about other general spirituality and belief have crept back into my sphere.
When I study and learn about the intersection of multiple religions and spiritualities, I feel, literally feel, a spark of giddiness arise in me. It feels like my mind is being illuminated, like I'm being show something.
I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that my spiritual journey is unique. I have surrendered my personal desires, beliefs and dreams to God as sincerely as I possibly can. Whatever happens next is from God.
Who am I to say that God shouldn't take me into inter-faith, inter-spirituality routes?
Who am I to say that God shouldn't take me into mystical Christianity?
Who am I to say that the way God fits Christianity into my soul is 'incorrect'?
2000 years of Christian history is showing me that we're a bit incorrect anyway. The point is not correctness. The point is to become more like Christ. God is both at the centre and periphery.
I have finally given myself permission to just follow where God seems to be leading me.
He/She/It is taking me a place that is both deeper inside a religion, and also beyond religions.
So I will keep exploring, keep including, keep trusting that One who is guiding my heart and mind.
You have permission, from me and from God, to seek and to find.
