The Door to the Spiritual Life

The main question anyone asks about God is why is there suffering if there is a God, but it is equally valid to ask why is there love if there isn't a God?

There are important signposts in life that point beyond themselves to the spiritual dimension, and teach us what that dimension is like. These signposts all "grab" us and take us out of ourselves. They tell us something important about ourselves, and about our purpose in life.

These signposts are as follows.

Relationships - perhaps the most important part of human life is our relationships - with our friends, family, lovers, people we work with, our neighbours, visitors, strangers even enemies. Getting relationships right is an important part of having a meaningful and happy life. Relationships take us out of ourselves, make us think beyond ourselves, they make demands on us and give us purpose and significance. Relationships are difficult, and people talk about "keys" to successful relationships, or "secrets" to finding the right partner.

Spiritual traditions have a lot to say about relationships and it isn't about "keys" and "secrets" but about learning an ancient wisdom to meditate on and enlighten your mind. Spirituality also speaks about the fundamental brokenness of our relationships with each other, and the need to return to the ground of our relationships, to find our relationship with God. Yet we don't just find each other when we find God, we find God in each other: learning to relate with each other, to love and accept each other, to value, to care for, to listen to, to understand and share with each other is fundamental to any meaningful relationship with God.

If we have understood something about relationships we have begun to understand something about God. Relating to each other is a path to relating to God.

The next signpost is culture - but perhaps that isn't quite the right word. What I mean is not just art, theatre, opera and sculpture but all creative and engaging human activity - music, concerts, clubs, films, busking, performance art, events, festivals, games, sport, design, fashion, shopping, the internet... basically our human world. There is so much here that engages us, we have our favourite rock stars, singers, styles of music, favourite films, favourite TV shows. In today's society much of this experience is about consumerism - consuming these pleasures through spending money - but our human world isn't just about consumption, we can envision a world of pleasure and creativity that doesn't revolve around spending money.

We can create and enjoy things of significance and value not just to make money but to create a world of joy and pleasure for everyone. When we stop thinking about individual consumerism - what makes me happy - and think of the groups we belong to and the relationships we have, and instead ask what makes the people I care about happy, we can take pleasure in giving pleasure. In religion pleasure and fun have sometimes been seen as "wrong" but the true spiritual path is about finding joy and happiness that can be shared and enjoyed together. Creating a beautiful, happy, rocking, joyful culture for our society is a spiritual path. Experiencing pleasure and significance in culture -the human world - can be a way of experiencing God. Again, spiritual traditions have much to teach us about the joy of giving pleasure to others, there are ancient words of wisdom that can give depth and purpose to our lives today.

A related, but separate, signpost is ethics: right and wrong, justice, politics, creating a fairer, better society. Society isn't just about pleasure, culture, meaning, it is about treating people with respect and dignity, giving people a fair chance, helping those in need, sharing with others today because you might need help tomorrow. When we work for a better society, fight injustice, stand up for what is right, we are finding purpose and meaning in our own lives.

These signposts are about understanding what it really means to be human - the challenges we have and the opportunities we have. Standing up for what is right, speaking out against injustice, oppression and evil, are core parts of our human spirit. No worthwhile spiritual tradition is silent on how to love our neighbour in a practical and meaningful way. It isn't about giving money to those in need - although of course that isn't wrong - it is about asking why society is structured in such a way that it produces some people with too much and others with not enough, and working to create mechanisms to give everyone a fair share and opportunity be someone.

Many people have found their faith gave them a voice to speak up against injustice, and their faith community gave them a platform to fight that injustice. In the Bible many prophets are told by God to speak out against injustice and oppression, and anyone following God today should listen to what God is saying now about injustice in our society. Similarly anyone who cares about human rights has found a dimension of God, the strength of feeling to stand up for what is right can also be a connection to the God of justice.

Another signpost is our experience of nature. Some people call this the experience of the sublime - the feeling of our life in the context of the universe - when we look up at the stars, when we think about the size of the universe, when we think about how long our lives are, when we look out at the ocean, gaze at a landscape, contemplate an old tree, watch wildlife and animals, that experience of ourselves in this cosmos, tells us something significant.

When we really think about many of these signposts, to say what the ultimately mean is impossible, yet it is equally impossible to finish speaking about them. Many words have been written about the beauty and glory of nature, some people spend their whole lives dedicated to working with nature in some way, whether to care for animals, plants or areas of land, there is something about nature that attracts us and engages us. It gives us meaning and purpose, yet it also questions our meaning and purpose. It makes us ask "what are we doing here?", "what is my purpose?" For many people experiencing nature is the most direct way they experience God - that awesome, indescribable splendor of being a part of something vast and beautiful. The universe is a temple too small to hold God, yet through it we can know God has visited us.

And this leads me to my last signpost - the spiritual dimension of life. Those experiences of God, or something or someone beyond ourselves, of a grace and love reaching out to us from beyond ourselves. For many today that dimension is closed because they have not given God any space in their lives, yet as we have seen from the other signposts, God can find a way in to speak to us anyway. But being open to God isn't about leaving out all those other signposts, engaging with God, starting a spiritual journey, is about engaging with all of life - loving God means loving those around us - valuing our relationships, it means enjoying the pleasures of life in a way that isn't selfish, it is about standing up for what is right, treating people with dignity, being a part of the universe and experiencing it as something valuable and wonderful.

Engaging with God should be about experiencing more of life, not less. It is about living life as it should be lived, with joy and purpose. Knowing the love of God expands your reality and completes it.