Re: Defining "spirituality"
Michael, the link you supplied me with is a start. But there are three different definitions there, and they do not coincide. (Besides, they all sound a bit too New-Agey to me.)
So, I set out on a web search too. And this is one of the things I found (from a Protestant minister's sermon):
We hear more and more talk about “spirituality” these days. Sometimes it is within a context of “new age” notions accompanied by free form music, crystals and astrological charts. Sometimes it is within a context of conversation about the body's own healing powers in the face of diseases like cancer. Sometimes it is within a context of pentecostalism and “speaking in tongues.” Sometimes it is within the context of a call for renewal in mainline churches like the Disciples of Christ. Recently, we have heard the word “spirituality” used in a context of ecological concerns and in the men's movement. Whatever the context, we are hearing more and more references to “spirituality” and to matters of the spirit.
These days, "spirituality" is a word used by all sorts of people from all sorts of perspectives so that, by itself, it has little practical meaning.
Here are some interesting observations on the proliferation of "spirituality" specifically on the net:
For those of us who are "online" there is empirical evidence to be accessed via our computers that vast numbers of people are involved with "things spiritual." The term "spirituality" has a number of loosely connected connotations and is difficult to define clearly, but whatever its meaning, it is certainly a much used term on the Internet14 -- from 4 to 25 times more popular than the term "materialism." On 29 March, 1997, I consulted several major WWW search engines to locate sites or documents on the web containing the word "spirituality" and -- for the sake of comparison -- sites or documents on the web containing the words "materialism" and "religion." The numbers varied widely by type of search engine but remained fairly stable in terms of the spirituality/materialism/ religion ratio.
spirituality materialism religion
64,707 11,111 669,686 (Alta Vista)
33,299 7,176 278,469 (Excite)
29,894 6,810 263,038 (Infoseek)
12,965 2,481 20,077 (Lycos)
3,777 510 28,713 (Open Text)
2,862 370 16,107 (Webcrawler)
199 4 809 (Yahoo)
To me these numbers confirm three suspicions I already harbored when I began the searches : (a) that human beings -- no matter how supposedly "secular" -- yearn for some sort of relationship with whatever it is they consider "transcendent" or "a-temporal" or "immaterial," (b) that neither God nor religiousness is dead, and (c) that the term "spirituality" is so general as to have very little concrete
meaning unless it is further defined..
astro.ocis.temple.edu
By the way, the article from which this passage is taken is well worth reading in its entirety, IMO.
Sometimes the attempt is made to define a particular type of "spirituality." For example, here are a whole string of definitions of Catholic "spirituality":
op.org
And here is a stab at defining "humanistic spirituality":
ethicalsociety.org
And so on.
Nowhere, in my net ramblings, did I encounter a definition of "spirituality" corresponding to the meaning you appeared to be giving it. As I understood (or misunderstood) you, you were using the word "spirituality" to designate all the higher faculties of man -- his reason, his emotions, his capacity for belief, his various pursuits -- in other words, everything that distinguishes him from the mere animal. His "higher nature," in short.
Well, you have a perfect right to use the term to mean anything you want it to. Everybody else does. But don't be surprised if the people you are talking to understand the word in a completely different way, which will end up with both of you talking at cross-purposes.
I'd suggest using the terms "higher nature" and "lower nature" rather than "spirituality" and "physicality." They are certainly traditional enough, and folks will know right away what you mean. :-)
Joan
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