In the spirit of questions...
I used the word "spiritual" in a conversation last week, and ever since then I've been sortof pondering what exactly I meant by it. It strikes me that the word means different things to different people.
So...how do you define the word "spiritual"? Or if you don't want to give an exact definition (I find that to be very difficult), what sorts of things leap to mind when someone uses that word to describe a state of mind, a person, or an experience?
posted by Katie @ 8:15 AM
5 Comments:
I find "spiritual," like "believe [in]," to be in a class of words that serves little purpose beyond obfuscation. It's one of those words which, when used with people who also use it, elicits a feeling of understanding even if you have totally different ideas of what it means. I submit that there is almost always a better word for what you're trying to express.
In various cases, the word overlaps religious practice, the awe inspired by that practice, perception of supernatural entities, and the drive to understand that which cannot be understood. Or it could refer to the genre of music created by African-American slaves. That meaning is unambiguous. ;)
This, of course, is just one heathen's opinion. Apply grain of salt as desired.
When I hear the word "spiritual" I think of it as all three; state of mind, person and/or experience. I work with someone who I think just absolutely defines the word.. she's very attuned to herself, other people, and the world in general. I also think of Native Americans when i think of spiritual.. in how they find spirit in everything from rocks to rivers to animals, and see everything as being connected.
~jen
I think spiritual can mean multiple things to even just one person. Mostly I think of it as a state of mind triggered either by a person or an experience. I become either deeply centered in myself or expanded beyond myself. When I'm praying, confronting a fear, moved by music, loved, or focused on a fire so much I tune the rest of the world out. Any time my awareness of the present is suspended - that's spiritual.
NC
It strikes me that the word means different things to different people.
I'd go farther than that -- I think it means different things in different contexts. (Kind of like "rhetoric," which may be an even harder word to pin down effectively.)
Meanings that come to mind:
- a marker of being "good" ... when I think of someone as being more spiritual than me, I really mean "better than me, and God probably thinks so, too" ... though that really says more about me than the word.
- adjective describing the realm I find most personally interesting (and least easy to define) ... the realm of things that, by definition, I don't fully comprehend or fully experience with my (conscious) mind, given that it's mostly invisible, populated by forces I don't really understand, etc.
- in touch with that realm somehow, intuitively
- describes moments of being able to see how that realm touches the here-and-now, day-to-day life I live
- concerned with the big questions of life (why are we here? what is meaningful about life?)
- depending on context, can evoke associations with "exciting," "deeply moving," "powerful," "abusive," and/or "dull"
- like NC says, being focused on things beyond my me-here-and-now -- others, the greater world, the whole swath of time rather than my little snippet, etc.
I think I'm making this murkier rather than clearer. Blame the rhetoric in me. ;)
Perhaps I took a few too many theology classes in college, but, like Brian, I find spiritual to be more confusing than helpful. Taken literally it means of or relating to spirit, something I think we all possess. But my frustration is that everything we do is (or should be) spiritual. What do I do only with my body? I think its typical use in Christian circles (having to do with God) reinforces the absurd division between body and soul that abounds in the church. Christians are turning into modern day gnostics, whether preaching the evils of human sexuality or ignoring environmental stewardship because, after all, "we've got a home in glory land."
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