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My children have been one of the most significant influences on my spiritual awareness. I remember one day exploring life with my first son who, at that point, was as yet untouched by conventional schooling. We spotted a spider’s web in the early morning dew, and reflected on the wonder of the natural world and its smallest creatures. Later, I recall him asking, ‘Is God at the middle of everything, mummy?’ – a question that challenged my understanding of the supernatural. Then one day I came across a sentence in the work of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard: ‘we live life forwards, and reflect on it backwards’. That was like a light bulb going on for me. It made complete sense. For by now, I had faced the death of my second child, and was beginning to wonder if anything would ever make sense again. But growing through that, and discovering personal wholeness through my exploration of clowning was a big surprise as well as a lot of fun. Such an experience enabled me to discard the unimportant things in life and focus on what was important to me. I began to make intentional connections with the spiritual through the ‘ordinary’ events of everyday life, whether in the changing of the seasons, or a movie, a piece of music, a sacred text, a family meal, or whatever. In the process, I met others with diverse experiences. I learned to listen to people rather than just talking. I discovered the power of other people’s stories and began to understand and value my own. I realized that many people practice their own rituals, often without recognizing that this is what they are doing, and as I reflected on the different stories, some common themes started to emerge. I soon found myself asking people to share their everyday spiritual practices. Some were quite traditional and drawn from major faith traditions, while others were home-grown. Some folk who said they had none often came back a few days later to tell me that, once they started thinking about it, they did indeed have their own regular rituals. This is how the store of stories grew, and as I shared them all more widely I realized that there was something here that was of value to more than just my own network of friends. We have all driven past home-made shrines by the roadside, set there to mark the site of some tragedy – and also challenging us to drive carefully. Some would dismiss such tokens as mere sentimentality, but the reality is that very many people do not find their souls nurtured by what goes on in conventional places of worship. When people ask me why they would connect with the church in order to be spiritual, I find this both disturbing and challenging. Even as a Christian, I can empathize with such questions, because I have asked them myself and am no longer interested in simplistic answers. It was out of all these things that ‘Spirituality to Go’® was born. In the book, and on this website, I explore spirituality that is woven into the fabric of ordinary life. There is a ritual of the season here, and an opportunity for visitors to share their own experiences. Enjoy your spiritual explorations! Olive Fleming Drane | |||||
| _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ++++++++++++++'Be not afraid of growing slowly: be afraid only of standing still.' (Chinese proverb)++++++++++++ | |||||
| Olive M Fleming Drane Based in Aberdeenshire, Scotland Copyright © Olive M Fleming Drane 2012 | |||||
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