spirituality as a web

Tn the 1980’s several scholars critiqued developmental ideas about faith, and also the focus on defining adolescence as being about independence. In short, some of this critique was about the male tendency to always see the spiritual as the “other”, as external, or something to be attained. Thanks to Erikson and other theorists, identity became about separation from one’s parents and the forging of independence.

These people including, Carol Gilligan and Gabriel Moran, I think quite rightly suggested that spiritual growth might be just as much about interdependence and integration. To see spiritual growth as a web is to see it not about as going somewhere else, or becoming more independent, or even about becoming someone other than who we are. The web as a metaphor is about the divine being with and within us, and about deepening interconnectedness. It is about an inner journey of discovery the sacred in who we are being directly connected to an outward journey of discovering the sacred in others.

spirituality as a journey

The metaphor of journey or pilgrimage is a familiar one across a range of religions and spiritualities. Unlike a ladder, which has discrete steps and a direct destination, a journey is more fluid and uncertain. Of course, the focus is more on the travel itself than the destination, which may be known, but one’s state of being at the point of arrival is undetermined. In other words, how you travel shapes who you are when you arrive. The journey itself is (almost) everything – a pilgrimage is NOT directionless or purposeless, even though both of these might not be entirely clear until one is on the journey.

A pilgrimage is about moving forward, not upward. The new places to which you go might not be qualitatively ‘upward’ by any means. In fact the journey can often take you to dark places and through deserts of doubt. Nevertheless, the call is to go on through whatever comes ahead.