How should we measure spiritual progress and depth? What concepts and words do we have to describe qualities of spirit? The biblical tradition (as in Galatians 5:22) suggests that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Some may dispute this, I suppose, but on the whole most people would see these qualities as good.
But the problem as always comes with overuse – words losing their meaning. As they become clichéd the potential to experience G-d diminishes. Besides, G-d must be definition be much larger than 9 words. So, let double that – here are 9 more, largely unsung virtues which I would hope will expand our vision of who G-d could be in and through us.
1. Curiosity – The key to knowing and learning, and something we tend to loose as we settle into adult safety.
2. Imagination and creativity – I have felt for some time now that faith and imagination are converging into the same thing. Imagination expands, it generates, and it is key to anyone’s being a co-creator with G-d.
3. Generosity – Not so much to do with giving, but with giving room, opening to those dissimilar to ourselves, and acknowledging that we need each other, and that no one POV has a monopoly. Think Bishop Tutu, Leonard Cohen.
4. Humor – Not just a trivial nice-to-have but a core element of healthy spirituality.
5. Paradox – Appreciation for mystery, ambivalence is a key to understanding the spirit, whose ways are mysterious and who will never be defined by a single point of reference.
6. Subversion – The active and ongoing deconstruction of that which inhibits the spirit, this takes the familiar and twists it forcing rethinking and reevaluation.
7. Play – The mode of being which is freed from goal-orientedness and often resulting in humor and happy accident. To the musician, play is work.
8. Sustainability – This applies not only to economics – long(er) term planetary growth, justice – sharing of resources, but also to righteousness – in right relationship with all that is – a model of spirit which holds true in the short medium and long term.
9. Enthusiasm / Passion – The Key to all creative Human endeavor. Nothing is ever achieved without enthusiasm. The basis for love and compassion, which is a force combining will, awareness, truth, everything.
So go forth, and be ye Curious.
kevin beck said
Love the blog…and love your nine unsung virtues. A Vibran spirituality is far more than simply checking items off a list. Your insights encourage mystery, love, laughter, and others. Great stuff. Thanks for sharing.
dangerousangel said
Great post! You present an expansive view of what it means to be human and to be spiritual as opposed to merely religious. What a breath of fresh air on a topic than can get rather stuffy…thanks!
DA
liquidlight said
i take it that you would apply these unsung virtues to G-d as well. curiousity, humour, subversion – these are things that orthodoxy, especially of the evangelical variety, would have trouble with associating with our Creator. for example, satan is treated as the one who subverts, ignoring the many times where G-d blinds, hardens, causes to fall into a stupor, binds etc.
personally i attribute this sanitization of G-d to christian theology largely breaking away from it’s Judaic roots. the dark, chthonic, underworldliness elements of G-d were projected onto satan by the church, when in fact satan, according to the Torah, is merely a rather boring lawyer in a slick suit who accused & tested – who is ultimately working for G-d, however he might rebel against that fact.
i look forward to seeing how you develop these & other ideas here.
time to add you to my blog links me thinkz.
soundandsilence said
As Robert de Niro is want to say – “You! – you’re good. you’re very good.”
And I add, good but dangerous. Welcome, all ye who would not shy from the danger: kevin, liquid, and angel.
You are bringing out the pet gripes now. There is a scripture which says “Cast down vain imaginations.” (King James Version, yea verily). Now THERE is sanitizing villany of a precept. I am afriad I don’t have the orginal, anyone here who can shed some light on what “imaginations” might mean in that context?
Anyway, I have come to discover that the divine inhabits the imagination. Corollory (its not nice, so look away now) – The Divine vacates the boredom of the bored. Thomas Moore is so very insightful on this.
Oh yeah – Kevin – you’re going to tell us all about Vibran spirituality now, are you not?
liquidlight said
Nic. i did a google search on that scripture and it’s 2 Cor 10:5. the Youngs Literal translation says: “reasonings bringing down, and every high thing lifted up against the knowledge of God”
i sense that it’s talking more about intellectual arrogance that sets itself up against or above G-d. unlike you, i’ve never read one of his books but with his latest, i think Dawkins has strayed into the realm of hubris & crusading against any belief in G-d. his ultra-materialistic gestaldt flies in the face of quantum physics, which embraces & is built upon uncertainty.
maybe i’m judging him harshly. i’m sure G-d isn’t the least bit challenged by people “proving” His non-existence.
soundandsilence said
For years I felt afraid or ashamed of the imagination, based not so much on what that verse says, but on the memes/ideas it represents, the underlying assumptions held by those claiming to be in authority.
I see now that there is complex of assumptions in use, and I call it Orthodoxy. Its purposes are to hem in, create borders, create the binary state in-out, good-bad, sacred-secular, define heresy, to divide and create a false Dualism. BTW, I do love Phillp Pullmans take on the Holy Empire as expressed in the His Dark Materials trilogy.
That which is of the imagination, when infused with a generous spirit, and not forgetting the greatest (and most misunderstood, that is, cliched) virtue, love, is the way to G-d. An expansive G-d, the heterodox ground of our being.
Dawkins? I promise to give him a fair trial.
But from afar, I smell a new Materialist Orthodoxy in his ranting.
naturalhigh said
The fear and supression of creative imagination is one of the things about conservative and fundamentalist Christianity that really fascinates me. As an artist I just can’t imagine shutting down that part of one’s being. I think that the suppressed imagination sneaks out in dark apolcalyptic visions. And maybe a few visits to a meth and male sex purveyor…
Thanks dangerousAngel, for turning me on to this blog! She left a comment on my post on the Network of Spiritual Progressives. I will definately enjoy reading more here.
Chris Ledgerwood said
Wonderful and insightful post! I am glad I finally got around to reading your work! So, your a musician, interesting! What style of music do you write. It sounds to me by reading some of your post that it is some form of instrumental, but I could be wrong! I would love to discuss music and songwriting with you further. God Bless
liquidlight said
Chris. i’m pleased you two have made the connection. i can vouch for the following attributes in relation to Nic: he experiments with facial hair – it has hints of grey-silver, very becoming on such a mage. musically, he loves massive attack, nils petter molvaer, bowie, dylan, bruce cockburn, gabriel and a 100 others. he’s a brian eno of the soul. short on cliche & big on authenticity. oh yes, and he likes underworld. i’m not sure when his next album comes out but i’d imagine it will be in the first half of 2007. his electronic alter-ego, TwinStar, will then reincarnate sometime after that, depending on your interpretation of Revelation. adios, ruZL.
Chris Ledgerwood said
Facial hair, huh! Very new wave!!
nic paton said
This facial hair thing – whats going on there, honey? Let it be known, I have a very quaint and unintrusive bokkie (goatee) about 1 cm sqared, OK maybe 1.5 tops.
You make me sound like a crazed prophet or maybe a C++ programmer or something. Cease and desist with these vain imaginations!
crowth said
I’m working my way through the posts on Worthy Worship, trying to savour and contemplate them.
There was mention of Dawkins. I recently read The G-d Delusion (I’m guessing you guys have a reason for taking the “o” out?) and I was left wondering if there was any room left for spirituality in my life. The nature of the spirituality discussed here, and the spirituality I’ve sought in my life, is ambiguous, not tangible in the way that ‘things’ are tangible. As a scientist, and sceptic, Dawkins’ job is specifically to pay little or no attention to that which is not presented in empirically tangible forms.
So I was a bit lost after reading his book, as I found myself agreeing with everything he says in it. But you must consider that Dawkins is really only mounting a criticism of the Abrahamic model (whether interpreted in a theistic or deistic capacity).
The g-d of Dawkins’ atheism is one laden with the crippling burden of personification, a god of causes, the first mover.
I find the ‘divine ground’ in the phrase ‘more than the sum of its parts’. That ‘more’ is the unaccountable surplus generated by existence, that something else we can’t quite put our finger on because we’re all but confined to perceiving only that sum which can be directly correlated to the component parts. I suppose then I see divinity as a product of the universe, and I try not to concern myself with questions of creation. That I think ties in with Nic’s paradox.
When I found myself questioning whether I had any basis for purporting spirituality I turned to The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley. At the moment that book and The Book of Chuang Tzu are the closest I get to having scriptures to turn to. Both, in my opinion, are pretty essential reading.
Organised religions are inherently bad at what they’re supposed to be doing. I’m not sure of how common the phrase ‘a cop out’ is internationally, but that’s what I see religion in the conventional sense as being. It is a relinquishing of responsibility for your spiritual destiny to others. They have the answers, listen to them and read their books and you’ll be ok. Don’t worry about it. We know. Follow us.
Spiritual enlightenment is harder to achieve unless you take brave and necessary step of going it alone. Finding your own way is an integral part of the process. This is what I think anyway, and this is more or less what Huxley said. I’ve not found him at fault. Yet.
So, it really goes without saying Nic that you are eloquently hitting a lot of nails on the head here and I’ve rambled on a here but I’m already learning a new way of thinking from you, and realising the potential for fresh approaches to knowing ‘the ground’. What is also striking from this blog and these conversations, is the rising demand for a genuine spirituality, and the sentiment that copping out just isn’t good enough anymore.
I’ve said far too much. I shall read on and attempt to contribute to the dialogue in more concise snippets, rather than letting my random thoughts splurge out. I have my own blog for this sort of self-indulgence. My apologies. I’m just engaged by the width and breadth of your spiritual exploration.
nic paton said
Rich
Wow! I do enjoy your passion. Dont apologise about saying too much – what comes across is a deep thinker on a journey. And that, I relate to.
So pleased you are bringing Dawkins to the table. I have both a respect for his thoroughness, and dedication to empiricism – the observable – as well as an unease with his evangelical and almost fundamental approach to his religion, if we are to use Tillich’s definition of religion as “ultimate concern”.
You point to a quandry – is divinity a product of the universe or is it the other way around? Dawk has put a shedload of emphasis on the difficulty of first causes. I cant quite understand why he is sooo adament to explain everything like this. It must be very tiring.
I think you are right in pointing out that we need to go it alone. But I’d not make a rule out of this. I withdrew from acitve church life for 10 or 12 years; it did me the world of good, but am now seeking community – its that season in my life at present. Whatever we affiliate to, we need to think independantly, for we cannot be justified by our membership.
However, belonging is different to this. I am drawn to the ubuntu of Mandela and Tutu, “I am a person through other people.” There is a Descartes imbalance “I think therefore I am” that needs be addressed.
Anyway Rich thanks for your contributions, insights and critiques – it makes it all stronger.
Unsung Virtues 2 - The dangers of orthodoxy. « Sound and Silence said
[...] And so in conclusion, I would like to evaluate the effect of Orthodoxy such as that of Michael Green’s, on the Unsung Virtues. [...]
Idetrorce said
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce