Category: spirituality

Stages of spiritual development: a comprehensive guide

Most of us are familiar with intelligence quotient (IQ) tests. In 1995 Daniel Goleman published Emotional Intelligence a groundbreaking book based on the idea that how well you did in life depended not on IQ but on EQ, your emotional quotient, that is, how well you got along with others. Perhaps there is also a SQ, a spiritual quotient. Your SQ would be how far along you are on the spiritual journey as mapped out over the centuries by various spiritual thinkers.

    In the sixteenth century, Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross outlined the stages of the spiritual life, from complete union with evil to complete union with God. 

     In the first stage, that of pagan life, one gives into temptation and doubt about God and lives in desolation. Eventually, through the grace of God, one may be converted to belief in God. This can occur rapidly (the “born again” experience) or gradually over time. 

    During the conversion stage, doubt about God disappears but temptation remains strong, so to survive spiritually one must move to the next stage, which is purgation, or “the dark night of the senses.” One must separate from evil by purifying one’s senses and learning virtue, and the best way to do this is through active contemplation, particularly prayer and scripture study.

    Eventually, one gets to the stage of illumination, or spiritual betrothal, where the spiritual life is going well and there is lots of sweet consolation. It’s like being engaged to be married to God.

    The next stage is shocking because it seems as if God has abandoned you. In this stage, temptation is gone, but so is consolation. The thinking here is that God has not actually deserted you; instead, God is trying to move you from a faith based on feelings to a faith based on conscious decision, a much more unshakable faith. In this spiritual desert, which people like Mother Teresa went through, doubt is strong. The only solution is to keep choosing to believe.

    The final stage is divinization, not that you become God, but you are in total union with God. All temptation and doubt are gone. You are fully your beloved’s, in spiritual marriage.

    Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) had a more generalized map. In the aesthetic stage, the sole focus is on self-centered pleasure. Eventually, you realize this is causing yourself and others great pain, and so at this point, you can choose to enter the ethical stage. In this stage, becoming “holier than thou” is easy until you realize you also fall short of your ideals and need God’s help to be truly holy. When you surrender to God’s grace, you enter the religious stage.

     Empirical research on stages of faith has been conducted in the past twenty years. By conducting thousands of interviews, James Fowler of Emory University mapped out six stages.

    Briefly, in magical faith, one thinks of God as a cosmic Santa Claus. In mythical faith, one takes every scriptural story as historical, scientific fact. In group faith, one believes whatever one’s group believes. In personal faith, one starts asking questions like “what do I really believe?” Here, people often feel they are losing their faith, but they are actually going deeper. In paradoxical faith, one accepts paradox, for example: Jesus is the only way to God, and yet there are other ways. In sacrificial faith, one becomes willing to lay down one’s life for principles like justice or freedom for all people, not just those of one’s own religious tradition.   

    SQ, like all spiritual things, cannot be exactly quantified. You cannot say your SQ is 100 or 160. However, if over the years, you have a deeper, more contemplative, loving, ethical, grace-filled and service-oriented spirituality, if you can embrace paradox and all people, and think freely for yourself, you can be assured, given the spiritual maps above, that your spiritual IQ is growing.

Bruce Tallman is a London spiritual director and educator of adults in religion. http://www.brucetallman.com

The Teaching of Oneness: Addressing Global Issues Together

  The central teaching of Jesus was oneness. This idea’s time has surely come. All humans are becoming increasingly tied together in a fragile web with each other and nature. In this time of climate change, worldwide trading, television, and the Internet, we are learning that what affects other humans and the natural world affects all of us.

    Yet lingering ideas of separateness continue to kill us. To the extent we think we are separate from nature, we continue to decimate rainforests, overfish oceans, and pollute everything, believing it won’t impact us. To the extent we think we are separate from other people “out there,” we will continue to wage war on them, believing we can do so with impunity.

    In Spanish, the devil is “el diablo” and we speak of an evil plot as “diabolical.” The “di” at the beginning of these words means “two.” Evil then divides what is one into two, dividing or separating oneness.

    In the mythological Garden of Eden, the devil, disguised as a serpent, tempted Adam and Eve to eat from the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, so they started the endless process of dividing everything up into good and bad. Before that, they were innocent, everything existed in harmony, and they “walked with God in the garden” (Genesis 3:8). No friction existed between them and God, man and woman, or humans and nature. All was one.

    Right after eating the fruit which God forbade, they hid (separated themselves) from God, came into conflict with each other (Adam blamed Eve) and were alienated from nature (driven out of a natural paradise).

    Jesus came to teach oneness and put everything back together. He prayed for his disciples and all people “that they may be one, as you God are in me, and I am in you, that they may also be one in us” (John 17: 21-23). He saw himself as one with the lowliest person on Earth: “As you do to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do it to me” (Matthew 25:40). 

    Jesus was against how society was divided up according to status and privilege. So, he welcomed those of no account in his day: children, women, prostitutes, the sick and the handicapped. His directive to “love your enemies” was all about reconciliation, community, and oneness. Jesus felt so close to God that he said, “God and I are one” (John 10:30).

    If we felt our oneness with nature, we would treat it as part of us. If we felt we were one with other people, we would treat everyone better, particularly our spouses. As it says in Genesis, when a man and woman marry, “the two become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). If we really believed in this oneness, we would realize that whatever we do to our spouses, we do to ourselves. We would “do unto others as we would have them do unto us” (Luke 6:31). In other words, we would obey the Golden Rule.

    If we believed God saw us as united with him, we would trust that God would never punish us because it would be God’s self-punishment. We would have no fear of hell, which is basically separation from God. We would constantly sense God’s presence. We would affirm with St. Paul that “God is in, over, and through us” (Ephesians 4:6) and “I live, yet not I, but God lives within me” (Galatians 2:20). We would treat everyone, regardless of age, gender, nationality, or religion, with the utmost respect, like the temple of the divine they are.   

    The church and all of humanity need to focus on this core teaching of Jesus — oneness. We will only survive if we understand that we are all in this together with God, other people, and nature. This sense of oneness is the key to addressing what ails us.

Bruce Tallman is a London spiritual director and educator of adults in religion. http://www.brucetallman.com

The Power of Detachment in Relationships

    What most people are looking for in a relationship, whether inside or outside of marriage, is someone who is totally attached to them: completely committed and passionately in love. 

    While we tend to think of detachment negatively, as disinterest, aloofness, or lack of feeling, exactly what we would not want in a relationship, if we look at it in a different way, it is an important virtue in any relationship, whether with God or another human being.

    Detachment in most world religions means “inner freedom.” Jesus never used the word but it was implicit in his spirituality: the ability to let go and let God. Detachment is about “not my will, but Thy will be done,” surrendering to the divine, putting your life in God’s hands.

    Detachment is a key Buddhist virtue, and Meister Eckhart, the great Christian mystic, believed that in relationship to God, detachment was more foundational than love. We cannot love God fully and unconditionally as long as we are clinging to our ego. Like the rich young man who chose not to give up his wealth and follow Jesus, our ego-attachments can block our love of God.

    Detachment is likewise crucial with human relationships. You cannot really love someone if you are attached to your agenda, how they should look or how the relationship or marriage should be. Your list of characteristics of the ideal mate: good-looking, healthy, wealthy, sexy, professional, romantic, etc may prevent you from appreciating someone right in front of you.

    The key to any relationship is acceptance, to accept your partner as they are, with all their faults, and to celebrate their differences from you, the things not on your list. Hopefully, they will also be detached from their agenda and accept you as you are with your faults and differences.

    The most important thing is to be attached only to God. The first of the biblical Ten Commandments is that we should put God first in all things, nothing should come before God. It is crucial to put God before everything, including human relationships. Then you can exist in the single life, in a relationship, or in marriage in inner freedom.

    So many people are stressed-out about their relationships. If they are not in a relationship they are obsessed about when they are going to meet the right person. If they are in a relationship they are obsessed about where it is going or if it is going to end in marriage or not. If they are married they often wish their marriage was better, or wish they were not married at all. 

    It is very easy to let your attachment to a relationship or marriage get in the way of your relationship with God. I have known people who stopped attending their place of worship or gave up their spiritual practices or compromised their morals and self-esteem and basically sold their soul, all in an attempt to maintain a relationship. At that point the relationship has become an idol, that is, they have put it above their relationship with God.

    It is important to do your part to make a relationship or marriage work, but it is far more important to put God first, keep your integrity, not make the other person into an idol, and detach from the outcome. If you let go and let God, the outcome will always be better than if you cling to a relationship out of fear of being alone or some ego-need. 

    The relationship is going to end at some point anyway. Even if you get married it may end through separation, divorce, or death of your spouse. Besides that, God has called some people to be single, it is not God’s will that they be with someone. God has something greater in mind, some charitable work, social justice project, or mystical marriage, that is, marriage to God.

Bruce Tallman is a London spiritual director and marriage coach. www.brucetallman.com

Boost Your Spiritual Growth with These Easy Practices

If you adopt any of the following suggestions, it will have a big impact on your spiritual growth.

    Get to know a homeless person and try to find out how they became homeless.

    Read the scriptures of another religion.

    Start the day with prayer, meditation, scripture reading, or any spiritual reading. It will set the tone for the day.

    At the end of the day, keep a spiritual diary and record where you met God that day or what God taught you. Record your prayers and review them later to see if they were answered.

    Use natural breaks in the day, like meals, coffee breaks, or when you shower, drive, exercise or wait in line to think of others in prayer.

    Extend your present daily spiritual practice from 15 to 30 minutes or 30 minutes to an hour.

    Adopt a child or family in a developing nation through World Vision or a local charity like Save-A-Family-Plan and develop a relationship by writing back when they write you.

    Volunteer to visit people in jail, read to the blind, be a friend to the mentally ill, or help prepare meals and clean up at a local church soup kitchen.

    Hire the person on the traffic island with the sign that says they will work for food or money.

    Attend the place of worship of your own faith regularly if you do not do so.

    Prepare yourself before going to your place of worship by praying or reviewing the readings beforehand.

    Visit the place of worship of another denomination. For example, if you are Presbyterian attend a Mennonite service.

    Visit the place of worship of another religion. Christians could attend a local mosque. Muslims could attend a synagogue.

    Get to know someone of a different religion and find out what they believe.

    Check out www.beliefnet.com, a vast website where you can learn about any spiritual or religious tradition and dialogue with those in it.

     Join an online prayer community like that at  www.sacredspace.ie. You can put your prayer requests out there and pray for the requests of others.

    Get to know the writings of a major spiritual thinker like Thich Nhat Hahn or Henri Nouwen.

    Do a “retreat at home.” Take a whole morning, afternoon, or evening once a week or once a month to pray or meditate more deeply.

    Attend a local retreat center like the Michaelite Fathers just outside London, or Five Oaks in Paris, Ontario.

    Get to know the Enneagram, a powerful tool for spiritual growth and awareness at http://www.enneagraminstitute.com.

    Learn new ways of praying, like Centering Prayer, Ignatian Prayer, Taize Prayer, or learn new ways of reading scripture, such as Lectio Divina.

    All these things will help you on your spiritual journey.

Bruce Tallman is a London spiritual director and educator of adults in religion.

http://www.brucetallman.com

Deepening Spirituality: Wisdom from Modern Sages

The ideas below come from my ongoing reflections on the works of some of the greatest sages of the 20th and 21stcenturies, people like Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Thomas Merton, Ken Wilber, Karen Armstrong, and Richard Rohr. I think about their ideas until I make them my own, then rewrite them in my own words. Here are some of my favourites:

    A proof of God everyone can experience: we long for truth, freedom, goodness, and happiness and we long to have all these supreme goods to the max, which is what God is, so what we all long for is God.

    The loyalty of Jesus is not to Catholics or Protestants, Muslims or Buddhists, but to anyone who is suffering, whether believers or non-believers. Jesus is always on the side of the crucified.

    Religion gives wider meaning to our lives. It makes us realize we are children of God, not just producers and consumers.

    It is important to plumb the depths of at least one religious tradition. If you chase ten rabbits you catch none. If you dig ten shallow wells you never reach water.

    Full conversion is intellectual (wisdom), emotional (compassion), and moral (individual and social responsibility). Conversion is many-sided.

    Meaning is the bottom line in life, not money. Money is important, but life without meaning is not worth living.

    The truly religious do not take themselves too seriously. The ability to laugh at yourself is similar to humility. A sense of humour is a sign of spiritual health and holiness. It is the joy of the gospel.

    God does not want suffering. The only cause of suffering, beside human folly, is natural processes which are necessary in an evolving universe. Human folly is inevitable but unnecessary.

    Religion and spirituality are far more about intuition than reason. Theology is very rational, but reason is very limited. It does not understand the ways and reasons of the heart.

    Your relationship with others, particularly your partner, can be part of your spiritual practice.

    Your true self is love, peace, and joy, and so the only real sin is to act contrary to your true nature, to violate who you really are, to not let your own God-given holiness shine forth.

    Wisdom permeates everything, enters into our souls, and urges us to be friends of God. 

    God must be very familiar with letting go, because humans insist on being in control. God very seldom gets what God wants. This explains most of the problems of the world.

    The purpose of evolution is to bring everything to the point where compassion and wisdom can be born through humans, so that the survival of only the fittest no longer applies.

    Humans only live fully if freely joined to God. Therefore, God works by invitation not force.

    Jesus chose a child as the model of discipleship. If we lose the qualities of our inner child: humility, innocence, playfulness, creativity, and genuineness, we have essentially lost our soul.

    Mysticism, the profound experience of God, gives us the courage and energy to do justice.

    Our desires are God-given gifts meant for living life to the full. Contrary to Buddhist teaching, desire is not evil. It is good to desire good things. This is the Holy Spirit working in us.

    Most atheists think religious people are out of touch with reality. Most religious people think God is Reality, and therefore, atheists are out of touch with reality.

    What matters is not so much doctrine as internal transformation. Kindness and goodness are praised by all religions, humanists, and atheists. These virtues are what unite all people.

    Let no one delude themselves that knowledge of the path is an adequate substitute for walking in it. To know spiritual truth is one thing, to live it is quite another.

Bruce Tallman is a spiritual director and an educator of adults in religion. http://www.brucetallman.com

What the world needs now is healthy masculinity

There is a lot of toxic masculinity floating around in the world these days. It most often shows itself socially as violence against women, and politically as dictatorship. People seem enthralled right now with the strong male who claims he will make everything right for their country. Putin and Trump exemplify this.

       Males have been in power for a long time, and in that time, they have done a lot of good – they have been responsible for most of the world’s medical, legal, political, and scientific advances. However, there is no denying they have also done a lot of damage – men have caused most wars and crimes.

       When healthy, every man has four basic instincts: to be a servant-leader, to defend the weak, to be wise, and to be loving. God has given these instincts to men as gifts to be used in the service of others.

       Carl Jung, the great 20th-century psychologist, found that these male instincts manifested in every age and every culture’s history, religion, mythology, and literature. This discovery led Jung to hypothesize that males must participate in a “collective unconscious,” and these instincts, which he called “archetypes,” are the contents of this vast unconscious mind.      

       In the contemporary literature on male spirituality, four archetypes have predominated: the Sovereign, Warrior, Seer, and Lover. These show up in a vast array of ways: the Sovereign manifests as the president, king, CEO, father, or pope; the Warrior is present as the soldier, policeman, sports hero, or prophet; the Seer shows up as the medical doctor, professor, minister, priest, or shaman; the Lover archetype can be seen in the musician, poet, contemplative, or worker for the poor.

    Healthy males keep all four archetypes in balance. When out of balance, the shadow male archetypes start to show up. The anti-Sovereign is the Tyrant, for example, the domineering boss, or the Abdicator – the absent father. The anti-Warrior is the Sadist – the terrorist or bully, or the Masochist – the victim. The anti-Seer is the Manipulator, for example, the negative politician, or the Fool – the men portrayed in television sitcoms and commercials. The anti-Lover is the Addict – to pornography, alcohol, or drugs, or the Frigid – the emotionally dead male.

       The male archetypes are not going to go away, they are hardwired into the male soul. We need the good archetypes to prevent the bad ones from manifesting. Boys need good role models such as Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, and Pope Francis, or the bad archetypes will take over. 

    Jesus had all four archetypes in perfection. Churches refer to him as priest (Seer), prophet (spiritual Warrior), and king (Sovereign), and he is the icon of the loving male (Lover).                      

    The world awaits the coming of males with all four archetypes in this perfect balance. Fortunately, there is an organization that is promoting this, The ManKind Project. It’s goal is to produce  healthy males, men who are kind, thus the “ManKind” name: (see http://www.mkp.org). The Project’s motto is “Changing the world one man at a time.” 

      This is a worldwide men’s liberation movement involving about 100,000 men who train other men in the healthy male archetypes. It is not a specifically religious movement, but it is deeply spiritual. Any man, religious or not, can join. I have been involved for over 25 years, and it has changed my life in numerous positive ways.

Bruce Tallman is the author of Archetypes for Spiritual Direction: Discovering the Heroes Within (Paulist Press, 2005). http://www.brucetallman.com.

Debunking Myths Between Catholicism and Anglicanism

Etiquette in interchurch dialogue nowadays prescribes emphasizing your own church’s weaknesses and the other church’s strengths. However, Connie Woodcock, an Anglican, breached this in attacking the Catholic Church based on stereotypes in “Thanks but no thanks, Pope Benedict.” Bob Ripley, a United Church of Canada minister, was much more balanced in “Rome bends rules in a conservative way,” but even with him, a few stereotypes slipped through.

       In the interests of reconciling Protestants and Catholics, it needs to be said that, while there is some truth in both sides’ stereotypes of the other, the reality is far more complex.

       Before I begin attacking stereotypes on both sides, I want to note “the sudden invitation to become a Roman Catholic while remaining Anglican” was not an “ill-conceived attempt at church poaching” as Woodcock claimed. It was simply the Pope’s response to numerous requests from Anglicans. Also, the format Benedict proposed is not new. Ukrainian Catholics, who are part of the Catholic Church, have their own distinct liturgy, and their priests can marry, but bishops are celibate.

       Woodcock’s first stereotype about “why Catholicism turns us off” is “the Pope’s infallibility.” Ripley likewise said, “The authority of the Pope is, of course, non-negotiable.” The reality is Catholics consider 99.99% of what the Pope says to be “authoritative,” not “infallible,” and we are taught to follow our own informed conscience, not blind obedience.

       Woodcock also complains about Catholicism’s treatment of women with “second-class standing.” The reality is that every priest is aware that most Catholic parishes would not survive without the immense contribution of women.

       Woodcock rails against Catholic teaching on birth control, but the reality is the Catholic church promotes the Billings method of natural family planning which is quite safe and effective in preventing unwanted conception.

       She also derides “top-down imposition,” but the reality is that Catholic lay people regularly give their input to priests and bishops in parish and diocesan councils. Woodcock states that in Anglicanism, there is “lots of room for varying shades of opinion,” whereas she seems to think Catholicism is one monolithic block. The reality is there are social justice people, evangelicals, liberals, conservatives, charismatics, intellectuals, prophets, and mystics of every kind all inside the Catholic Church.

       On the other hand, Catholics often hold the stereotype that the Anglican faith originated with Henry VIII, but the reality is that the Church in England was one of the earliest established, and Henry merely built upon what already existed.

       Catholics also have the stereotype that the United Church of Canada is exceedingly liberal, anything goes, and there is no central authority. The reality is there are many conservative United Churchers, and the church is governed by a central General Council that sets policy for it every three years.

       All Christians would be much more tolerant of each other if we focused on reality rather than stereotypes.

Bruce Tallman is a London spiritual director. www.brucetallman.com

Exploring Atheism in the Context of Progressive Christianity

Gretta Vosper, director of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity, a United Church of Canada minister, and author of the bestselling With Or Without God: Why the Way We Live Is More Important Than What We Believe, declared she was an atheist in 2001. A minister who is an atheist?

       She said in most mainline churches there is a vast gap between what the clergy know and what the laity believe. What she believes most clergy know is that there is no supernatural being called God and even if there was, God does not intervene in human affairs or respond to prayer. God is merely our own human efforts in the world for justice and peace. She also believes the Bible was just written by humans, there is no heaven, and the Christian creeds are irrelevant. I’m sure most clergy were surprised the United Church let her continue in spite of her atheism. 

    Like most atheists, she has no authentically satisfactory explanation of where everything came from. You have to stop the infinite regress of asking “Where did that come from?” at some point. Asking, as atheists do, “Where did God come from?” makes no sense because the concept of God implies eternality. God has always existed. Atheists could say the same about the universe, but at some point, you are forced to give something God-like qualities like eternal existence. You have to make something into God, either God or the universe. 

    Vosper sees religion as an attempt to deal with chaos in the world. However, how does she explain order in the world? The late Bernard Lonergan, a Jesuit theologian, explained through his concept of “emergent probability” how there can be both order and chaos in the universe because God works through “secondary causes,” such as nature, without violating those causes. God is mystery, and just because we don’t understand exactly how God works does not mean God does not exist.

       I like the approach of biblical scholars who say humans wrote the Bible and therefore it has scientific and historical errors in it, because God works through secondary causes like flawed and limited human beings, but underlying it all, the Bible is inspired by God. 

       Also, in my experience, prayer does work, and I regularly hear from my clients how prayer works in their lives. Some things have to be believed to be seen. If you don’t believe in God’s intervention, you won’t see it, but if you do believe in it, you see it everywhere. Coincidences happen that are too coincidental to be mere coincidences. They are “God-incidences.”

       Progressive Christianity can be helpful, but Vosper’s attempt to leave God out does not address our existential angst. Who do you turn to when human effort fails, you fail yourself, people betray you, or you suddenly find you have cancer and are going to die?

       To be fair to Vosper, I think she has a point: we need to look for the positive common values found in all religions, and this is more important than our various creeds. She is right that our beliefs are meaningless if we do not live our faith. Believing the faith is easy, living it is hard. As G. K. Chesterton said, “Christianity has not failed, it has just never been tried.”

       In fact, it has been tried by individuals who Christians call “saints,” who always put more emphasis on living the faith than on doctrine. As one of the most famous, Francis of Assisi, said, “Preach the gospel wherever you go, using words if necessary.” 

       So yes, let’s be progressive and update our faith in the light of contemporary scholarship, but let’s not throw out God with the childhood religion, as atheists do. Let’s have an adult faith. In God, not Gretta Vosper.

Bruce Tallman is a London spiritual director and educator of adults in religion. www.brucetallman.com

Effective Prayer: Seven Key Habits for Spiritual Growth

Most people who believe in God, whether Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Bahais, or Jews, pray at least occasionally. For many, prayer is central to their spiritual journey. However, like anything else we do, prayer can be effective or ineffective. 

       The key to prayer is desire for God. St. Augustine’s classic Christian definition of prayer is “lifting up our hearts and minds to God.” In this sense, whatever we do, whether working, playing, or even just walking the dog, can be prayer if we use it to connect to God.

       Another key to effective prayer is silence, both internal and external. It helps to pray in a quiet environment and to take a moment to still the constant cacophony of thought before beginning. However, God can be found in the midst of noise and chaos as well.

       Having a special designated place and time can be helpful, but where, when, how often and how long you pray depends entirely on your schedule and whatever proves fruitful for you.

       In preparing to pray it helps to get into a comfortable posture, whether sitting or kneeling, and then follow the A.C.T.S. formula: Adoration (instead of starting with requests bring to mind God’s glory: e.g. “Almighty God, source of all being, truth and life…”), Confession (examine your conscience, repent of and surrender to God all negatives such as unforgiveness and deceit), Thanksgiving ( remember all God’s blessings), Supplication (pray for the needs of others). 

       It is also okay to pray for your own needs, as long as this does not become the major focus of your prayer. As well, the Jewish scriptures say that if you pray for someone else’s need and you have a similar need, God will supply your need as well. You don’t even have to ask for it.

       There are seven habits of people who are highly effective at prayer:

       First, their prayer is based on their own experience of God, so they are praying from their heart as well as their head, not just mumbling prayers composed by someone else. 

       Secondly, their prayer is simple and direct. Good prayer is possible for anyone, not just the religious professionals. You don’t have to have a doctorate in theology to pray well.

       Next, their prayer is bold, strong, and durable. They boldly approach God because they know God as a God of compassion. They do not timidly address God as if God’s grace did not outweigh their failings. Also, their prayer gets stronger, not weaker, during the hard times.

       Fourth, their prayer is deep and loving. It involves a radical commitment to God and others, particularly their enemies. For them, prayer is broad and hospitable. It welcomes all human beings, all creatures, and the whole planet into their hearts. It is never just about their own little group.

       Fifth, they listen to God as much as they talk, and they take this listening attitude into their daily life. Throughout their day they are sensitive to the subtle promptings of the Spirit. In this sense, they “pray always” as St. Paul exhorted Christians to do.

       Sixth, their prayer is socially conscious. They are particularly aware of the marginalized, the people the rest of us often forget about because they drop through society’s cracks. Their prayer takes in the social issues of the day. It is never just about “God and me.”

       Lastly, their prayer is integrating. It integrates their faith with their life, their contemplation with their action. After they pray, they do something that addresses what they prayed about. As someone said, the person who is effective at prayer “prays as if it all depended on God and then acts as if it all depended on them.” They know that what the world needs now is effective prayer harnessed to effective social action.

Bruce Tallman is a spiritual director and educator of adults in religion. brucetallman.com

Exploring Dimensions: Angels, Spirits, and Our Quantum Universe

       There is more to the universe than meets the eye: scientists know that 23% of the universe is composed of dark (invisible) matter, and 73% is dark energy. That means only 4% of the universe is visible. Some astrophysicists also believe that our quantum universe is made up of 11 dimensions, not just the three we are used to, or four if you include space-time.          

       Perhaps angels, spirits, ancestors, and ghosts inhabit these other dimensions and have the ability to interact with our dimension. These beings are real, not just the figment of someone’s imagination, and have a real impact. John Geiger in his new book The Third Man Factor, writes about how people in desperate straits are often helped by a mysterious someone who shows them the mountain pass they must go through or steers their boat in a storm when they are too sick to move. 

       Many people believe in guardian angels, and the scriptures of the major religions are full of them. The Jewish and Christian scriptures describe angels guiding people in dreams, protecting them when they are thrown into a furnace or lion’s den, or liberating them from jail.

       It is not always clear what the difference is between angels, spirits, ghosts, and ancestors. 

       Directees (people in spiritual direction) often tell me about spirits appearing at the end of their bed when they wake in the middle of the night. Perhaps our unconscious mind is still open to the seven or eight other dimensions when we are in that hazy state between sleep and waking.

       Some of my Christian directees can see spirits or ghosts when they are fully awake, an ability they usually wish they didn’t have. One woman reported walking into the back kitchen in her old farmhouse and seeing four spirits sitting around a table. Another said she was at a funeral when she saw the spirit of the dead man being led through the chapel by another spirit who apparently wanted the deceased to know the grief he caused his family by committing suicide.

       Others have told me about an invisible someone preventing them from stepping in front of a car or hugging them when they were crying over a deceased spouse. 

       Some friends who immersed themselves in native spirituality were building a sweat lodge when they looked up and found themselves surrounded by spirits. Aboriginals throughout the world believe we are constantly accompanied by our ancestors. This is similar to the “cloud of witnesses” Paul wrote about in the New Testament, which later became the doctrine of “the communion of saints.”

       One of my directees read about a doctor who was driving in the middle of nowhere when a young boy appeared, who then led him to an overturned bus. The doctor was able to save several lives, but one of the deceased was the boy he picked up. When he got back in his car the boy’s baseball cap was still on the passenger’s seat.

       A long time ago I was lost on the prairies when my car broke down. It was January, and I was slowly freezing to death. Even though I was an atheist then, I shouted at the sky “God, please help me!” Out of the blue a car appeared, and a man poured antifreeze into my gas tank. When I asked who he was he said “I’m an angel of the highway.” I followed right behind him until we finally came to a town. He turned to the right and when I looked down the street there wasn’t a car in sight. I don’t know if he was indeed an angel, but in our strange universe I don’t discount any possibility.

Bruce Tallman is a spiritual director and educator of adults in religion. brucetallman.com