Everyday spirituality for seekers

 

A sense of uncertainty runs through much of discussion on faith and spirituality these days. Are you settled or seeking?

Most spiritual formation assumes people already have a vocabulary for faith - a settled sense of belief, belonging, and direction. But many of us live somewhere else: seeking something we can't quite name, unsettled by a hunger we don't know what to do with, aware that the old answers don't quite fit anymore but not yet sure what does.

It began in security, the certainty of a spirituality and theology that enveloped all our activities, comings and goings and relationships. It framed and defined our worlds.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, questions arose that did not have easy answers. We felt a restlessness, hunger, a sense that something was missing or deeply desired. This was the honest starting point. We became seekers, on the move.

If we were fortunate, we found someone or something that helped make sense of the search - a person, a community, a text, a moment of insight, a relationship.

We found ourselves on a threshold - a place of decision. What has to be let go of to move forward? Or what must be taken on? What is to be changed?

Decisions are needed – usually a succession of small choices but occasionally a larger decision. It could be a slow realisation of the truth about ourselves or a momentous occasion. Either way it seldom restores the former security. Instead, it leads to further growth. And growth is unpredictable.

Transformation follows. A new person with a new spirit emerges.

The ultimate pattern is clearest in Jesus – preaching, suffering, dying and rising followed by the coming of the Spirit. But transformation is present in all of us.

Transformation is not an ending, but a new way of being present - to God, to others, to yourself - on the far side of that letting go.

This isn't a technique for producing a spiritual experience. It's a way of paying attention to a pattern that may already be unfolding in your life. It doesn't ask you to arrive at certainty. It asks you to notice your own desire - and follow where it leads.

Desire is a word worth sitting with. Many of us grew up with the language of external calling, obligation, or a vocation handed down from outside. Desire is interior: the deep, often quiet, sometimes disruptive longing that is already present within you, waiting to be noticed rather than assigned.

We should take desire seriously as a starting point - not "What are you supposed to want," but "What do you actually desire, and what might that desire be pointing toward?"