Spirituality Part 2 - Bishop Roger
There are many ways to look at spirituality. We can consider the spiritual patterns underlying the great world religions, or the practices which make up the spiritual life of specific religious groups, such as the Carmelites, the Benedictines, or, in other métiers, the Sufis (Muslim) or the Theravadins (Buddhist). If there is sufficient interest we may look at these later (and prolong this series for ever!). 
But for me the most important thing is to get to the
nitty-gritty, the base rock of spirituality. For all these variants, valid as they are, are really add-ons which give a specific flavour to the basic, rather as vinegar or ketchup or mayonnaise give a specific flavour to basic fish and chips.
The basic of spirituality is the search for God. As Christians we believe that we have it made in this search – ‘just believe’ we are told, ‘faith not works’ or ‘faith and works’ depending on who is doing the telling, but a great adventure, which real spirituality is, demands preparations. We are embarking on a journey into God, and, as C S Lewis said ‘God is not a pussy-cat.’
So we need to make our preparations – we need to take some thought about what we are going to do. We can look for help to those who have gone before us in this quest, and we will see that they struggled. Some left or rejected ‘the world’, some used asceticism, even standing in cold water all night reciting psalms, some, like the young St Benedict rolled in banks of stinging nettles to subdue ‘the flesh’.
Do I hear you say ‘not for me’, well, not for me either. We can look to Jesus saying ‘my yoke is easy and my burden light’. But have you seen a yoke - a pole across the shoulders with a weight on each end? And have you seen the callouses which develop on the shoulders after carrying even ‘light’ burdens? Make no mistake, the spiritual life, though joyful and full of wonder is not easy. The Eastern Christians speak of Spiritual Warfare, and we know that Jesus also said ‘small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it’ (Matt 7 ;14). It is no light endeavour we are embarking on, but a strenuous interior way that leads to glory.
If we look at how we are made we have a body – important, because without it we cannot function as humans. St Francis may have called it Brother Ass for good reasons – it can lead us astray as well as it can take us where we want to go. A perfect body is not necessary on this adventure, but a body as efficient and healthy as we can make it is an enormous help – so we will be looking into ways and means of achieving that.
Then we have a mind. In recent years much research has gone into the way the mind functions, and particularly into the ways in which religious matters are appreciated. Also important is the way in which the mind’s functions affect the body – we know so much more about this than our forbears did even though they (sometimes) achieved great spiritual heights, so we shall consider this too.
Finally we have a soul – at least we think we do! I say this because souls are difficult to see, and their reality can be agued about ‘til the cows come home – and longer! We step on difficult ground here, but for those of us who believe that spirituality has reality then this is where we are we are really going, and here we follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before us, most especially for us, Jesus, who is, after all our leader and our main support in this field.
So next time we shall start looking at the body’s function in the spiritual life. I hope you will join me in this adventurous quest, because I believe it is the only worthwhile thing in life.