SPIRITUALITY

To be spiritual is to attend to and cultivate a kind of consciousness or awareness that gives a person solace, comfort, clarity, illumination, direction, determination, conviction and strength.

While it is conventional and poetic to personify Spirit as a godly or angelic being that visits and uplifts the downcast and oppressed, more exactly spirit is a mental and emotional state of being—that of being inspired and elevated, joyful and elated—spirited.

To be in an elevated spiritual state is to be loving, caring and joyful, filled with good will toward others, wishing for them to share the happiness delighting you.  Such a spirit is personified for children as that jolly old elf, Saint Nicholas.

To be religious means literally to be tied back or bound—as to a creed or set of metaphysical convictions.  But in terms of spirituality, to be religious would mean to bind oneself to principles of behavior and to practices that cultivate a spirited state of being in oneself and others.

That which brings comfort and joy, clarity and inspiration, courage and fortitude to lead us in a Good Orderly Direction is the wind of grace that we call spirit.

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