“Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”
Spirituality is not synonymous with religion but rather embraces all religions. It is the yearning to understand what we all feel when we stand on the brink of the unknown abyss and try to make sense of it all. Spirituality exists in our searching for what lies beyond and in looking for meaning and purpose. Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? Our lives are tossed back and forth, from knowing to unknowing, and we still keep living to the best of our abilities.
How you derive your strength for the road ahead is a deeply personal choice. Formal religion finds support in Christian, Judaic, Hindu, and Islamic tenets, among many others. Nature comforts the soul with its pastoral hills, meandering streams, vast oceans, and towering mountains. From secular to spiritual, each of us finds our own source of comfort and meaning.
Take time to review the following questions. Each serves as a clarifying point that dips into your mind’s recesses and helps you access long-forgotten memories. Some questions will resonate more than others. Allow one or two of them to serve as the basis for your thematic story or lead you to other observations that can power the narrative. Keep in mind that they are just guidelines.
Whether we connect spirituality to religion or not, spirituality does have to do with the nontangible, ethereal aspects of life. We all struggle to make sense of our world, especially when something inexplicable happens. In this story, Dawn Vanderloo shows how an ordinary drive became a spiritual experience.
Something spiritual happens to me on the open road. More than in any church, more than when bare-footing on a beach or cresting a mountain path, more than in a morning prayer … the road is the place where I most often touch God.
I’m not sure when these spiritual experiences began. What I do specifically remember is a drive from Salt Lake City back to my former home in Palo Alto in 1993. For a woman who was usually euphoric behind the wheel, this one stretch of road was hell on Earth. Heading west out of Salt Lake City on Interstate 80, I had to cover more than 500 miles of wasteland before hitting Reno and ascending into the beauty of the High Sierras. This area was comprised of short hill ranges and their subsequent valleys, all colored brown. Dull brown. Stale brown. Pig-shit brown. It was the most boring drive, and I dreaded it every time.
I was in a calm, contemplative state and decided to spend a few quiet minutes in prayer. And it was in that place of contemplation that I crossed the threshold into my cathedral. Call it an altered state. Call it heightened consciousness. Call it the love of God. All I know is that it was transcendental. I was enveloped in unconditional love; my sense of universal connection was expansive. And as I looked out over the once-brown wasteland through which I drove, all I could see were the colorful auras of all that existed there … blurry spectrums of color everywhere.
Wow… so this was rapture.
And then I was joined by an angel, who I couldn’t see but knew was there. He sat in my back seat—a little too large for the rear of my SAAB convertible—but he didn’t complain as he stretched his long arms out across the back and smiled as the wind hit his face. In fact, he was thrilled with my speed. I found myself driving 100 … 110 miles per hour, literally passing cars and a couple of parked patrolmen as if I were a silver bullet with a cloak of invisibility surrounding me. And this state of mystical rapture lasted for miles … for hours … until I hit Reno, where my celestial guest left and the laws and confines of earth restricted me again.
—Dawn Vanderloo
Spirituality and religion both grapple with the bigger questions in life: What is the meaning of life? How did I get here? What happens when we die? Religion is organized around a set of beliefs and rituals that help followers answer such questions. Spirituality focuses on the nonphysical, more intuitive aspects of life in order to understand its meaning. Both lead to transcending the self. The following exercise, creating a spiritual map, will sidestep your analytical left brain and allow you to freely explore your spiritual history. Allow yourself thirty minutes to chart the peaks and valleys of your life.
You will need a large sheet of unlined paper, as well as pens, crayons, or markers. Set aside a time when you can quietly reflect on your life without being disturbed. To create your spiritual map, briefly answer the following questions:
Jot down a list of the peaks and valleys of your life from childhood to the present. Include your successes as well as your failures, times of regret, fear, dismay, joy, and so on. Recall what you were feeling during each situation. Create a symbol or word that describes each event.
On your sheet of paper, draw a shape that represents your life. This will be the shape or space that contains the peaks and valleys of your life.
Using your markers or crayons, draw the highs and lows of your life on your map. Use the symbols and words, or draw pictures to identify your life’s spiritual journey.
Have fun with this. You do not need to share your map with anyone else. This will open your perspective to new ways of thinking about the spiritual highs and lows in life.
This map will provide a visual representation of your life’s most significant moments. You may see connections that you had not considered previously. For the first time you may be aware of the emotional aspects of each of the experiences. You will see how far you have come in your spiritual life and may find new directions for where you are going.
Refer to your map as you write your Secular to Spiritual story.