Listening to the Today programme this morning, I caught a discussion of the decline in religious assemblies in Welsh schools and a suggestion that more emphasis should be put on spiritual education than on compulsory collective worship. And that set me thinking about what we mean by ‘spiritual education’.
I suppose it would be agreed that to be educated means to have gone through a process which involves in varying proportions being taught or mentored, personal study, practical experience, and the development of an ability to go on learning for oneself. Spirituality on the other hand is now notoriously hard to define. We might think that it has simply to do with private prayer and public worship, and, for the people who have time, the occasional retreat or visit to a religious community. We might assume that it makes use of silence and the development of certain techniques for stilling the mind. We might regard particularly spiritual people as blessed with mystical experience a union with God that goes far beyond anything we might hope to find in our daily lives. For ourselves we might treasure certain spiritual experiences gifted to us through music, poetry, painting, or certain types of landscape.
If you consult the National Society for Promoting Religious Education’s website, however, you will find a much more extensive understanding of spiritual education. There spiritual development is said to depend on the cultivation of a set of values, principles or beliefs, not necessarily religious, which inform the way you lead your life. It involves awareness of and respect for the beliefs of others as well as self understanding; empathy, concern and compassion; courage in the defence of your beliefs; an appreciation of the intangible, of mystery, paradox and ambiguity; a respect for insight as well as knowledge and reason; an expressive/creative impulse; an understanding of feelings and emotions; an ability to think in terms of wholeness, harmony, and interdependence; a readiness to challenge whatever might constrain, oppress or diminish the human spirit.
Such an extensive account is hard to summarise but it might help us to think of spirituality as the catalyst between belief and behaviour. Spirituality is that which translates thought into action, it is what incarnates the idea, it gives the logos a locus.
The hint that we must be in need of spiritual education comes when we begin to wonder why on earth our faith requires us to believe something – what difference does it make if I can or can’t affirm this particular element of the creed, this claim in Scripture? Is this doctrine a piece of disposable historical baggage or would it make a difference to my life if I really understood it? Our need for spiritual education becomes apparent when we find it difficult to be alone with our thoughts and feelings and when we find ourselves indulging in compulsive behaviours (which can include work) to avoid the burden of being ourselves. Our spiritual need becomes pressing when we find it difficult to form significant relationships or when our relationships begin to fall apart. Our spiritual needs voice themselves when we find ourselves devoid of enthusiasm or the ability to take pleasure in anything, and when we remain unmoved by the plight of others.
And if we have identified such a need, how do we respond to it? The early desert fathers and mothers (in spite of their retreat into solitude) recognised that Christian spirituality cannot ‘go-it-alone’. ‘Your life and your death is with your neighbour,’ St Anthony said, rather elliptically. He meant, I think, that all aspects of our lives are developed in relationship with others; and such relationships can be either creative or destructive. What we believe, our faith, our values, our aspirations, can only be translated into real experience and action in collaboration with others who will challenge, nurture, remember, and value us. This can best be found through a relationship with a spiritual director or in a small group dedicated to the search for spiritual education.
January is a time for New Year resolutions but before resolution must come reflection. Perhaps the National Society’s list given above may be a place to start (or see www.natsoc.org.uk/school/curriculum/ethos). The parish’s working party on worship and spirituality is always interested in suggestions as to what we might do to develop spiritual education in the parish. After all without it, what we have celebrated at Christmas will make no sense the word will not be made flesh in us and we will only have the appearance of being alive.
With my love and prayers,
Fr Stephen
The Vicar Writes
Stephen Tucker