Evolutionary Spirituality: we shall not cease from exploration.
Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash
BY SHEILA PRITCHARD
This piece was first published in the summer 2021 issue of Refresh Journal, ‘Spirituality’.
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot
Life was very simple at the beginning. Love and awe, the intimate and the transcendent were core experiences – without those lofty words, of course. I was privileged to grow up in a family where my very earliest memories are of being deeply loved – not only by my parents but also by God. Like most things in early childhood, this was absorbed by a kind of emotional osmosis.
From the age of six, summer holidays on Ponui Island gave me freedom to roam the beaches and the bush without fear of ‘stranger danger’. Somehow, the boundary between creation, God and me, felt very permeable. I can still vividly recall moments of wonder-filled awe. Ponui was for me what Celtic Christians have called ‘a thin place.’
These are the roots from which everything else has evolved in my spiritual journey: knowing a loving God and experiencing that vast, exciting Mystery beyond me. I am profoundly grateful for such a beginning.
Concentric Circles
I can’t remember when this image occurred to me, but for many years it has been the most helpful way to express my continual exploration of life with Love/God at its core. Just as the rings of a tree grow with the oldest cells at the centre, so the central core of love and awe has been sustained through all my expanding circles.
Photo by Joel & Jasmin Førestbird on Unsplash
Like most children, I began by assuming the circle of God’s love and acceptance was wrapped around ‘us’ – in my case good Baptist Christians. Maybe the Anglicans and Methodists and Presbyterians were sort of included provided they’d asked Jesus to be ‘their personal saviour.’ Catholics weren’t even on my radar!
It’s inevitable all of us draw a circle with our own familiar group at the centre.
Yet, we’re all born into this vast cosmic universe as a tiny baby on a very small planet. We each grow up in a particular culture and religious heritage and specific family. Initially, there’s no other way to view life than with ‘myself’ and ‘my group’ at the centre. And if that perspective doesn’t change and evolve – a world of division, conflict and egocentricity is the result. A tribal ‘God’ is worshipped who loves and protects ‘us’ above all others. Sadly, this is all too evident today – culturally, spiritually, and politically.
The evolution of the cosmos has been continuing for 13.8 billion years, so scientists tell us. On planet earth, change can be a slow and gradual process – often subtle and barely noticed. And yet, there are cataclysmic events that can’t be missed.
Within the short span of a human life, our spiritual evolution may also be slow and subtle, yet marked by defining experiences. The journey for each of us will be uniquely designed – as God patiently draws us to grasp more fully ‘how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ’. (Eph 3:18).
I’m grateful to whoever originally said: ‘God is a circle whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.’
And as thirteenth century mystic, Mechtild of Magdeburg said,
‘The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw, and knew I saw, all things in God and God in all things.’
Our own scriptures proclaim: In God ‘we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28); astoundingly it’s also true that in us God lives and moves and has God’s being (Gen 1:27; John 17:20-23 and elsewhere). What’s more, the whole of creation is the expression of God’s being (Gen 1; Rom 1:20).
As Judy Cannato puts it,
‘We all flow from one source. There is a single Creator
who remains present to every person and every part of the cosmos, sustaining and empowering their on-going development. Some will call that process evolution; others the work of the Spirit.’
I call our willing participation in that process ‘evolutionary spirituality’. At the deepest level of reality there is no boundary. All is enveloped in Divine Love. God’s grace is a circle without circumference. But what does that really mean in the living out of life? Seeing God in all things? Really? What about pandemics and global warming and refugee camps?
If we see God as a separate being above and beyond the tumult of this world, it’s natural to ask: ‘If I’m supposed to “see God in all things” why doesn’t God become a bit more visible in sorting out the mess and brokenness?’
But if the Mystery we call God is intricately and inextricably woven into all things, then God is participating in the anguish, the grief, and the brokenness. God is also the source of creative wisdom in new discoveries in science, technology, and ecology. God is expressed through the hearts and hands, skills and sacrifices of millions of human beings like you and me.
I remember many years ago realising with a jolt:
‘The whole world is the body of God and I am a cell in God’s body’.
Each of us is a cell in the body of God. Every single cell is crucial to the wellbeing of the whole. Our conscious participation in that holistic wellbeing is what evolutionary spirituality is about.
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
I want to unfold.
Let no place in me hold itself closed, for where I am closed I am false.
I want to stay clear in your sight.
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, around the primordial tower. I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?Rainer Maria Rilke
I’ve been ‘living my life in widening circles’ for more than seven decades now and I’m nowhere near ‘the end of all my exploring’. I look back in gratitude to the ways God continues to nudge, call and challenge my evolving participation in ‘the circle with no circumference’. When I was a child, no one asked me to explain or put words on my experience. So too in these widening circles – words become more and more inadequate.
However, I’ve been grateful for the words of others. So – rather hesitantly – I offer a few glimpses into some of the factors that have supported my evolving spiritual journey.
The Integration of Science and Theology
Science and theology are both searches for truth. Sir John Templeton of the Templeton Foundation ‘is interested in “humility theology” which emphasises the need for both scientists and religious believers to recognise the limits of their way of knowing and leave room for the other.’ When this happens a deeply enriching integration is possible.
In 2005, I attended an international conference for spiritual directors. Mathematical cosmologist, Brian Swimme, was the speaker. His presentation took me to places of awe and wonder on a scale vastly greater than my childhood experiences, though the central ‘knowing’ was the same. I’ll never forget his passion and joy as he moved seamlessly from the infinite expanse of the cosmos to the delicacy of a fern frond.
Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash
Those who bring cosmology ‘down to earth’ and quantum physics close enough to excite me, have made a significant impact in the evolution of my faith. If this interests you, a great place to start might be with The Luminous Web: Essays on Science and Religion by Barbara Brown Taylor. Or you could dive in the deep end with Ilia Delio’s, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love.
Knowing and Unknowing
The Cloud of Unknowing, by an anonymous 14th Century author, is a book I’ve read many times and a book that means more on each reading. It’s liberating to ‘know that not knowing’ is actually the place of humility and surrender to the Mystery we call God.
In the deep challenges and unanswerable questions of life, ‘unknowing’ can be a bedrock of trust. I remember one period of many months when the only prayer I could pray was ‘I don’t understand, but I trust you.’ Paradoxically, alongside this ‘unknowing’ there can be an inner ‘knowing’: an impulse of the Spirit hard to ignore.
As a young adult I ‘just knew’ I had to respond to the inner conviction to leave my secure circle of comfort and career to go to Nigeria as a missionary. Later, after returning to New Zealand and nine years teaching at the Bible College of New Zealand (now Laidlaw), I ‘just knew’ I had to spend my sabbatical in a Jesuit retreat centre training to be a spiritual director. These two decisions were among the most challenging of my life. Responding required the boundaries of my circle to evolve in life-changing ways.
Photo by Ben Seibel on Unsplash
Spiritual Practice
In his book The Contemplative Heart, James Finley has a section headed: ‘Find your Contemplative Practice and Practice It’. Spiritual practice, like most other things can evolve over time. From early childhood I was taught to have a ‘quiet time’ each morning. That meant reading the bible with the help of age-related Scripture Union notes and talking to God. I’m grateful for that well-ingrained habit.
Over the years that prayerful beginning to each day has been maintained. Now though, it’s more about silence and less about words. Centering Prayer is a daily rhythm, but solitary walking or simply sitting and gazing are spiritual practices too. Photography, painting, singing, gardening, knitting, dancing... and other forms of art and creativity can be deeply contemplative practices.
The heart of any spiritual practice is that it ushers us into a deeper place of ‘hard to explain’ connection with the Mystery beyond us. I’m sad when people feel there’s ‘one right way’ and lack the freedom to discover, in a myriad of ways, what Brother Lawrence called ‘practicing the presence of God.’
However, lest we think that spiritual practice is all about achieving silent serenity, let’s not forget this story from the Desert Fathers: Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, ‘Abba, as far as I can, I say my little office. I fast a little. I pray. I meditate. I live in peace and as far as I can I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?’ Then the old man stood up, stretched his hands towards heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire, and he said to him, ‘if you will, you can become all flame.’
This story came to mind one day in 2002 as I was reading Revelation 8:1-5. In my journal I wrote:
If you wish you can become all flame!
Silence in heaven for half an hour
Then censers of prayer and incense causing
earthquakes and thunderclaps.
Who is this God we so casually talk about?
How dare we play with fire as if it were an interesting toy?
How dare we speak so flippantly about our ‘images of God’
as if we decided which one suits our fancy today.
Rain fire from heaven to consume our paltry wonderings
into the deafeningly silent wonder and awe of a nameless God
who destroys in order to create!
Destroys words, defies images in the silent flame of terrifying love.
Do I wish to be all flame?
Yes – and no.
Candlelight is more comforting.
Photo by Cullan Smith on Unsplash
Spiritual Companions, Dead or Alive!
Many of my spiritual companions are the authors of books. You may have gathered this already! My reading has evolved as my spirituality has evolved. Or perhaps it’s the other way round! Unless I know a person well, I hesitate when asked to recommend books. It’s usually about the right book ‘finding you’ at the right time. And there definitely is a right time. I can’t begin to list the hundreds of spiritual companions who ‘found me’ between the covers of books – spanning the centuries and across many spiritual traditions.
Of course, real live spiritual directors over the years have been supremely important. They prayerfully listened, encouraged, and acted as midwives to each emerging circle of my spiritual journey. Several special people have filled that role over the years. Without them, I’d have hesitated or turned back from some of the Spirit’s invitations to evolve.
One of my current spiritual companions is my Syrian friend, Abir. She and her family arrived in New Zealand three years ago. Abir and I have become close friends. We often have lunch together and usually end up in very satisfying discussions about spiritual things. They’re satisfying conversations because ‘iron sharpens iron’. We’re open to learn from each other and challenged to articulate our own faith. She’s a committed Muslim. Neither of us is trying to ‘convert’ the other. I feel free to be passionate about the good news as I experience it from my life-long Christian journey. I’m enriched by Abir’s deeply lived faith. We delight in many similarities and respect and explore our differences.
An Inclusive Spiritual Community
After all these years I’m still a Baptist! I’m privileged to belong to a Baptist church where deeply thoughtful theology and genuinely inclusive spirituality are practised. We’re a wonderfully mixed bag of people with varied backgrounds and life experience. I learn from scientists and university lecturers in our midst. I’m enriched and challenged by people whose sexual orientation is different from mine. I’m humbled by how I once would have judged them. I deeply appreciate people who live with mental health challenges. We’d be impoverished without their insights and contributions.
Children and young people contribute to our gatherings and are consulted about issues that affect them. Each person is respected and welcomed for their unique contribution to the fabric of our community. I often sit in church and think, ‘I’m sure Jesus feels right at home here.’
‘Chop wood, carry water’
There is a Zen saying: ‘Before enlightenment I chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment I chop wood and carry water.’ Exactly! It doesn’t matter how far the evolutionary journey has taken us – life continues with laundry and dishes, work and money worries, sickness and health, aging and loss, winter and spring. We don’t evolve to float on some exotic plane. Jesus, the supremely evolved person, participated fully in the mess and brokenness of the world. He sought out the marginalised and made sure no one was excluded. He knew how to celebrate life. He didn’t hide his agony over what his commitment required of him. His constant communion with God was his source of power, wisdom and love.
I hope ‘I shall not cease from exploring’ that same path until the day I die. That will be the day I ‘arrive where I started and know the place for the first time.’
Sheila Pritchard is enjoying settling into a sunny apartment at Evelyn Page Retirement Village. She is very grateful to have an office space near the beach where she continues to offer spiritual direction and supervision two days a week. Walking along Orewa beach to one of the many excellent cafes for a coffee or lunch is a bonus! You can experience more of Sheila’s writing on Sheila’s Blog.
