It was a surprising encounter. While in a waiting room, I began a friendly conversation with a young man. We were the only ones there. I was joking around with him about nothing in particular. He asked me what I did for a living. I rarely tell people in these kinds of situations that I’m a minister as it has a chilling effect on the conversation. I told him I was a professor, referring to my “other job.” He told me he worked in IT and asked for more information about what I do. Through our exchange, I explained that I taught in a graduate program in psychology and that my research interest was the integration of psychology and spirituality. He wanted to know more about psychology and spirituality.
I shared that I understand spirituality as the human capacity to create or discover meaning, purpose, or value in life. It’s that aspect of who we are, which enables us to find something more in the routine aspects of our lives. I gave a few examples, like parents who work very routine jobs not because the work is always rewarding but because they want to provide a good life for their families. Or when being outdoors hiking or fishing lead people to feel connected with something larger than themselves and it changes how they experience something about themselves or their day to day life.
He nodded. He told me that he was 32, had a girlfriend for the last ten years, didn’t want to get married or have kids, and didn’t know what he wanted in life. He said he’d been thinking a lot about whether there’s any point to his life. “It seems to me that people are born, live, work, and die. It seems like that’s about it. I’d like there to be something more. But I don’t think religion or other things give you something more. I think you have to do it for yourself.” He’s right: meaning and purpose are what we create or discover for ourselves.
Our conversation ended there when he was called to be next-up for customer service.
If I would have had time to talk with him longer, there are other things I would have shared. I would have asked him about the times he felt most alive, when he felt that something he was doing or a place where he had been touched him deeply. When something resonates with us deeply, that’s a clue about the spiritual dimension of our lives. The deeply resonating experience takes us out of our ordinary awareness to something more than the details of the moment. Perhaps the context is music or art, being in nature, or it can be another kind of encounter, like holding an infant or, yes, a moment of prayer or singing in a religious service. Identifying those moments in our lives and nurturing them is what enables us to develop the spiritual dimension of our lives.
Yes, spiritual practices have a role. Spiritual practices, like meditation, prayer, chanting, or reflective reading of a sacred text, enable us to set aside our usual preoccupations so that we are more mindful in our day to day living. When we are more mindful in our daily life, we become more attuned to the spiritual dimension of our lives — as well as to the other dimensions as well.
I think the young man I met is like many people. He knew that there was something more to life than his usual routine of work and time with his girlfriend. But he didn’t know how to make the connection to that deeper dimension of spirituality. It’s the deeper spiritual dimension of our lives that opens us to things which bring us meaning and purpose in life while also help us to experience our lives as being meaningful and valuable. Perhaps our brief conversation will germinate as he continues on his way toward finding something more fulfilling in his life.
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