2. Spirituality defined
(Pages 4-5)01
table of contents
How spirituality is created
(Pages 6-8)02
Characteristics of a healthy
spirituality
(Pages 13-14)
04
Some spiritual challenges
(Pages 15-18)05
Some striking examples
(Pages 9-12)03 Direction to move forward
(Page 19)06
3. It is no easy task to walk this earth and find peace. Inside
of us, it would seem, something is at odds with the very
rhythm of things and we are forever restless, dissatisfied,
frustrated, and aching. We are so overcharged with
desire that it is hard to come to simple rest. Desire is
always greater than satisfaction.
Ron Rolheiser
Author, Speaker, President of The Oblate School of Theology
4. 4
The word “spirituality” is often misunderstood.
Few words are as
misunderstood in the English
language as the word
spirituality. Spirituality
wasn’t even part of the
English vocabulary 50 years
ago. Neither churches nor
the secular world had any
interest in the concept.
Today, bookstores, religious
and secular, are overflowing
with books on spirituality.
Despite this explosion of
literature in the area of
spirituality, there are still
major misunderstandings
about the concept.
For many people, the word
spirituality conjures up
images of something
mystical, churchy, holy,
pious, otherworldly, New
Age, and/or optional.
Rarely is spirituality
understood as
referring to something
vital, non-negotiable,
and lying at the heart
of our lives.
This is an unfortunate
misunderstanding.
Spirituality defined
Adapted from The Holy Longing by Ron Rolheiser
section 01
5. 5
What is spirituality?
Before describing what
spirituality is, let’s be clear
about what it is not.
Spirituality is not:
Something on the fringes
Optional
About rationally choosing
certain spiritual activities
like going to church,
praying, meditating,
reading spiritual books, or
setting off on a spiritual
quest.
It’s far more basic than that.
Spirituality defined
Adapted from The Holy Longing by Ron Rolheiser
section 01
We all have a spirituality whether we want
one or not, whether we are religious or not.
Integrated or Falling apart
Within community or Lonely
A life-giving force or Destructive
Loving or Bitter
Spirituality is about being:
6. 6
Our spirituality is shaped by our response to the
restlessness, energy and desire within us.
There is within each of us a fundamental dis-
ease, an unquenchable fire that renders us
incapable, in this life, of ever coming to full
peace. This desire lies at the center of our lives,
in the marrow of our bones, and in the deep
recesses of the soul.
We are not serene human beings who
occasionally get restless. The reverse is true.
We are driven persons, living lives, as Thoreau
once suggested, of quiet desperation, only
occasionally experiencing peace.
How spirituality is created
section 02
Who is restless? We all are.
This dis-ease is universal. No one is exempt.
Adapted from The Holy Longing by Ron Rolheiser
7. 7
Spirituality is what we do with desire.
When we act, what we do will either lead to more
integrationor disintegration
within our personalities, minds and bodies.
How spirituality is created
section 02
Desire makes us act.
And it will lead to either the strengthening or deterioration
of our relationship to others and to God.
Adapted from The Holy Longing by Ron Rolheiser
8. 8
Spirituality is the manifestation of our choices.
How spirituality is created
section 02
Sound easy?
Not exactly, because every choice is a thousand renunciations.
To choose one thing is to turn one’s back on many others.
To marry one person is to not marry all others.
To have a child means to give up many other things.
To pray means to miss watching TV or meeting up with
friends.
This makes choosing hard.
It’s not that we don’t want certain things, it’s just that we
know that if we choose them, we close off so many other
things.
Yet not to choose is also a choice.
Adapted from The Holy Longing by Ron Rolheiser
9. 9
Choices can create very different spiritualties.
Some striking examples
To offer a striking example of how spirituality can
manifest itself, let’s compare the lives of two very famous
women: Mother Teresa and Janis Joplin.
Most people would consider Mother Teresa a spiritual
woman, but not an erotic one. Yet she was a very erotic
woman, but not in the Freudian sense of the word. She
was erotic because she was a dynamo of energy. She was
a human bulldozer with incredible discipline. Her powerful
energy was dedicated to one thing: to God and the poor.
This singular focus was her signature, her spirituality. It
made her what she was.
section 03
Adapted from The Holy Longing by Ron Rolheiser
10. 10
Choices can create very different spiritualties.
Some striking examples
Janis Joplin was a rock star who died from an overdose at
age 27. People think of her as the opposite of Mother
Teresa, erotic, but not spiritual, yet she was a very spiritual
woman. Janis Joplin was not so different from Mother
Teresa, at least not in raw makeup and character. Like
Mother Teresa, Janis Joplin was an exceptional woman, a
person of fiery eros, a great lover, a person with rare
energy.
However, unlike Mother Teresa, who directed her powerful
energy to one thing, Janis Joplin’s energy went out in all
directions – to creativity, performance, drugs, alcohol, sex,
and neglect of rest. That was her spirituality. It was how
she channeled her energy. Rather than integrating her
energy, she dissipated it, and eventually she broke apart
due to too much pressure.
Adapted from The Holy Longing by Ron Rolheiser
section 03
11. 11
Most of us have a complex spirituality.
Some striking examples
Most of us do not have the discipline of Mother Teresa;
and thankfully, most of us don’t die from lack of rest at
age 27 like Janis Joplin.
section 03
Most of us may be more
like another famous
woman, Princess Diana.
Adapted from The Holy Longing by Ron Rolheiser
12. 12
Most of us have a complex spirituality.
Some striking examples
Adapted from The Holy Longing by Ron Rolheiser
Unlike in the case of Mother Teresa or Janis Joplin, most
people consider Princess Diana to be both erotic and spiritual.
And like Mother Teresa and Janis Joplin, Princess Diana
obviously had great energy and fire within her. People,
whether they recognized it or not, were drawn to her because
of her great energy.
In Princess Diana’s attempts to channel the energy within her,
we see something most of us can identify with: a tremendous
complexity, a painful struggle for choice and commitment, and
an oh-so-human combination of sins and virtues. She chose a
mixed road. She chose some things, her causes, which left her
more integrated in body and soul, and others, like
Mediterranean vacations with playboys, which tore at her body
and soul. Such was her spirituality.
Our spirituality is most likely the reflection of
conflicting choices as well.
section 03
13. 13
A healthy spirituality must perform dual roles.
Maintain Our Vitality
The first role of a healthy spirituality is to give
us energy, maintain our vitality and ensure our
joy for living. In this sense, the opposite of
being spiritual is to have no energy, to have
lost all zest for living – lying on a couch,
endlessly watching TV or surfing the internet
is an example of this.
Keep Us Glued Together
The other role of a healthy spirituality is to
keep us glued together, integrated, so we do
not fall apart. Under this aspect, the opposite
of being spiritual is to have lost your identify,
to not know who you are anymore, to fall
apart. When I feel my inner world hopelessly
crumpling, when I don’t know who I am
anymore, and when I am trying to rush off in
all directions at the same time but do not know
where I am going, I lack a healthy spirituality.
Characteristics of a healthy spirituality
Adapted from The Holy Longing by Ron Rolheiser
section 04
14. 14
A healthy spirituality balances the principles of
order and chaos.
Too much order and you
die of suffocation; too
much chaos and you die
of dissipation.
A creative tension results
from trying to balance these
two competing principles,
which is why we sometimes
experience such intense
struggles within ourselves.
The question of what
contributes to a healthy
spirituality is very complex
because, on any given day,
we might need more energy
rather than integration, or
vice versa. For example, if I
am feeling dissipated,
unsure of who I am and what
my life means, I may need to
spend more time in solitude
rather than socializing.
Conversely, if I feel dead
inside and cannot find any
enthusiasm for living, I might
want the reverse.
Characteristics of a healthy spirituality
Adapted from The Holy Longing by Ron Rolheiser
section 04
15. 15
Difficult questions arise in trying to achieve a
spiritual balance.
Am I being too hard or easy on myself?
Am I unhappy because I am missing out
on life or because I am not being true to
myself?
Where is the fine line between discipline
and enjoyment?
What is real growth and what is simply
my ego demanding more?
Why do I always feel so guilty?
What do I do when I feel I have betrayed a
trust?
These are perennial questions that every
generation has to answer for itself. However,
they pose themselves quite differently from
generation to generation.
Past societies were more overtly religious, but
they had their own religious problems. They
believed in God easily, but then struggled with
superstition, slavery, sexism, unhealthy
notions of fate and predestination, and
excessive fears of eternal punishment.
Every generation has struggled spiritually.
There has been no golden age.
Like generations past, our generation
struggles spiritually.
Some spiritual struggles
Adapted from The Holy Longing by Ron Rolheiser
section 05
16. 16
Our generation struggles spiritually:
It is naïve about the nature of spiritual energy.
One of the major spiritual
stumbling blocks of our
time is that we believe
we understand our
energy, that we control it,
and that we need little, if
any, external help in
coping with it.
We dislike any external
force, religious or
secular, that in any way
censors or restricts an
absolute freedom to let
energy flow through us.
We are not unlike an
adolescent boy or girl
whose body is bursting
with hormonal energy and
who feels that he or she is
up to the task of coping
with that tension without
any rules or guidance
from elders.
Such naiveté is, as we
know, both arrogant and
dangerous.
Some spiritual challenges
Adapted from The Holy Longing by Ron Rolheiser
section 05
Problems arise when we
attempt to handle the
energy within us without
the proper reverence,
safeguards, taboos and
mediation.
We find ourselves
stripped of all joy and
delight (depression),
or so full of ourselves
(inflation) that we are a
menace to our families,
friends, communities and
ourselves.
17. 17
Our generation struggles spiritually:
It is prone to lack interior depth.
Some spiritual challenges
Adapted from The Holy Longing by Ron Rolheiser
section 05
We are distracting
ourselves into spiritual
oblivion.
It is not that we have
anything against God, depth
and spirit. We would like
these, it is just that we are
habitually too preoccupied to
have any of these show up
on our radar screens.
We are more busy than bad,
more distracted than non-
spiritual, and more interested
in the social media, sports
and shopping, and the
fantasy life they produce,
than we are in our faith.
18. 18
Our generation struggles spiritually:
It struggles to find a healthy balance in anything.
Religion and secularity are
often pitted against one
another. Religion is
perceived as being anti-sex,
anti-creative, anti-enjoyment,
and anti-this world. The
secular world is seen as the
champion of sex, creativity
and enjoyment, but is seen
as anti-God and anti-church.
How do we find balance
between the two?
Private and social morality
are too rarely found in the
same individual, the same
group, the same ideology, or
the same church. How do
we simultaneously lead the
prayer group and the protest,
take action for family values
and against poverty in the
inner cities, and balance
contemplation with action?
Some spiritual challenges
Adapted from The Holy Longing by Ron Rolheiser
section 05
We struggle with true
selflessness. We are all too
familiar with the situation
where one sacrifices for a
friend but ends up being
bitter about it and feeling
used. Anyone who is
sensitive and good is
burdened by duty. How do
we become a person
burdened by duty who is not
resentful about it?
A balanced rather than an “either-or” approach is needed for us
to healthily channel our spiritual energies. For example:
19. 19
Sincerity is not the issue, but lack of direction is.
Direction to move forward
No one doubts our generation’s sincerity. In terms of
spirituality, our struggle is not with sincerity, but with
direction. Our hearts are good, but it is our minds and
feet that do not know which way to go.
There are many perspectives that can be used to
formulate a healthy spirituality. There are valuable
insights that can be drawn from secular, humanistic
thought, and even more obviously, from various world
religions. God still speaks in many and diverse ways
and no one person or religion has a monopoly on truth.
That being said, in another digital mini-book, similar to
this one, a specifically Christian framework will be used
to show how a healthy spirituality can be created and
sustained.
Adapted from The Holy Longing by Ron Roleiser
section 06
