Spirituality Part 5

'Nothing is quite so absurd or profound as the notion of the Great I AM walking around with dirt between his toes.' RH Evans. (No Relation).

It's always impressive when an article opens with a quote. It implies that the author is well read, erudite, and understands impressive words like erudite. Definitely someone you'd want to read when pondering spirituality. We've been looking for a while now on developing spirituality as reflective practice of teaching meeting experience. How we feel when we experience things which challenge our conventional thought, our teaching. And this is a wonderful thing to do, we'll be coming back to it next time, I think. But sometimes, our own experiences are very small.

For the past few weeks, I've been encouraging you to write down all the things you feel when you encounter Bible verses that might challenge you, or cheer you, and to ask why you feel that way. Now I have to admit, this isn't my idea, I'm only a sub-genius at best. People have been doing this sort of thing for years and years, and some times these writings get published as books. Books are great. I love books. I used to work in a bookshop I love them so much. And I read a bit, usually a book a week. It's wonderful because I get to experience other peoples experiences, and they can often say things so much better than I can. Those people are really erudite (How many of you have reached for your dictionary yet?).

One book I read recently, and the one which I borrowed the quote at the start from, is Faith Unravelled, by Rachel Held Evans (no relation). It's a book which is exactly what we've been looking at these past months. Evans writes about dealing with those troubling verses in the Bible and how they jive or jar with the world around her. And it's so easy to read too. I'd encourage all of you to pick up a copy. Other books are available of course, and I'd encourage you to read those too.

Books give us an insight into the lives of others, in a far better way than when we twitch our net curtains. In books, authors share their process of growth, the small things which have made them who they are today, the challenges in their lives which have developed their character. We may never walk a mile in their shoes and be able to judge them, but we can borrow their shoes for a short while and learn to empathise.

So please don't be afraid to add reading to your spiritual process. You'll learn a lot about other people, and through that, you'll probably learn a lot about yourself. You'll also get great quotes to put in letters and people will think you're erudite. And speaking of letters, that's coming next time.