Physical age; Emotional age; Mental age; Spiritual age

Four facets of human maturing
- This is probably no new insight to most readers, but we apparently do not grow at the same rate physically as we do mentally and emotionally. There are any number of examples of child geniuses, 40-year old adolescents, and of 18 year-olds calm and wise beyond their years. My thought here concerns an often neglected aspect of ourselves: growing up spiritually.
- For many people faith is a set-it-and-forget-it kind of thing. If they still have belief at all, it may be frozen in time back with their childhood religious education. It is no wonder that many scorn the creeds expressed by others. Those people are still functioning spiritually as youngsters. So of course their convictions do not sound worthy of an adult and predictably one rejects them.
- Why do we allow ourselves to neglect spiritual growth? I guess one answer is: because we don't know any better and nobody tells us!

Precarious place of religion in personal spiritual maturing
- This is my understanding of religion. The founders of the world's sects preached full-fledged systems of belief, matured over many years of contemplation, meditation, and inspiration. But they realized that a start must be made with easy-to-understand representations of their faith for the new adherents. There are methodologies for making abstract concepts more real to new believers including analogy, metaphor and allegory. One famous example is St. Patrick's use of the three-leaf shamrock to represent the Holy Trinity. Another is Jesus's parable of the mustard seed as a stand-in for faith, both its vulnerability and its potential to grow and flourish. (I am not neglecting or denying the possible place of supernatural or psychic interventions for the purpose of initiation. But I have limited personal experience with that and must stick with what I know as of now.)
- However in no case that I know of was it their intention to leave the faithful stuck in the moment when they first received the teachings. Some religions accomplish growth by initiating devotees in a succession of increasingly esoteric "circles." Others accomplish this through a life-long series of rites or sacraments, usually as outward symbols of inner spiritual development. A few have well-developed progressions of lessons and duties leading to greater spiritual maturity, but those that I know of are involved with monasticism or close discipleship with an adept or spiritual director.
- An example of a medium with great potential for help, but where this has failed to operate well is popular American choice in reading material. If the reading public mentions spiritual writings at all it is usually in the same breath with sectarianism. It is unfortunate that religion, or at least the organizational kind, is the only approach to spirituality that seems commonly known. But the really worthy writers are not covering "religion" at all but studying the spiritual aspect of what it means to be human. They share their insights through their writing, just as authors in other fields might do.
- In this essay I am of course addressing myself to the needs of the laity, not clerics and othre religious leadership.

Our privilege and obligation to attend to our spiritual growth
- A while ago I was shocked to hear this verse in a song on one of those popular religious stations: "Oh Jesus, my maker..." Somebody did not do their homework! No Christian denomination preaches that Jesus was the Creator. Christ himself always referred to the Father as the origin of all things and all rules of conduct. Those Christians who believe in the Trinity divide it exactly that way: Father, Son (whom they believe is personified or incarnated as Jesus), and the Holy Spirit.
- In a way I have less of a problem with creationists who claim that dinosaurs were contemporaneous with early humans. At least they have been searching for evidence to bolster their beliefs (though I have yet to see the fossil verification they lay claim to.) But that songwriter is frozen in a baby state of belief. Further, if he is going to write religious songs for the edification of others he has a moral obligation to get it right, rather than to spread his ignorance through bad music.

A case study: "Who is Thomas Merton?"
- It was my turn to suggest the next choice for our book group. My first proposal was a lead balloon, as nobody had heard of Thomas Merton, one of the most important American writers on the spiritual life and the search for God. One group member actually said this "I don't read anything with that little cross and 'Imprimatur' in the front."
- I think they would have found him interesting. But such an author suffers a priori from two things: 1) how persons feel about the religious background of the author (in this case, a Catholic Cistercian monk.) 2) The plethora of miserable stuff pouring out of well-funded religious publishing houses, along with the pamphleteering of annoying ignorant proselytes.
- So writers covering spiritual topics, like Merton, Teilhard de Chardin, Henri Nouwen, Kyriakos Markides and others, never get in the front door, so to speak (a weak pun on the door-to-door religious canvassers!)
- In some Evangelical and Pentacostal denominations there is encouragement that congregants should take steps to grow spiritually. But it is unfortunate that the otherwise promising slogan "born again" has become identified as some kind of final step, rather than a breakthrough to a lifelong maturation of spirit.

Confession (classical sense) of personal belief

- I've spent a lifetime reading, studying, attending lectures and even participating in other religions and in Eastern and New Age sects. Their contradictions and shortcomings have not succeeded in discouraging me. I have gotten past the resulting state of confusion and doubt. At my age, when people might say I am entitled to be cynical, instead I believe that there is something substantial in them all, a common thread. I have found that all spiritual seekers are striving toward the same goal, known by hundreds of names that make them seem disimilar, but they are the same: unity with God.
- I have found that logical discourse and debate about God, divinity, and religion are in the end of no use in the spiritual search. In complete sympathy with the scientific viewpoint I agree that these are matters that are not, cannot, or should not be tackled in the same way as the search for physical truths. I've come around to trusting intuition, inspiration and epiphany as the proper way to proceed for seeking spiritual truth. With eyes open to the fact that these are subject to the same propensity for error as all other human endeavors, I try to find that which has heart, rings true, and resonates with the findings of trusted others who are more advanced.

Further on the obligation to grow spiritually
- Advancing toward unity with God, just for me, so I can enjoy some kind of spiritual ecstasy, in the final analysis is an empty endeavor propelled by a hollow motivation. Gautama Buddha expressed the opposite as the true path to inner peace:

"In the Hinayana teachings Buddha explains how to attain liberation from suffering for oneself alone, and in the Mahayana teaching he explains how to attain full enlightenment, or Buddhahood, for the sake of others."

- But a misunderstanding I had about these teachings is that they preach world-denial or renunciation. That may be characteristic of some sects in Hinduism, but the Buddhist view is apparently more synergistic:

"As long as one clings only to the affairs of one's daily existence in this world one cannot grasp that reality. For this reason, the Buddha taught people to transcend their daily lives, which are uncertain and fleeting, in order to overcome these sufferings. However, to realize the essential life which continues eternally, transcending both birth and death, means to establish the solid foundation of human existence within the harsh realities of this world."

- Although I admire and respect the wisdom of the East, I remain uncomfortable with their

rites and scriptures. Yes, the relationship to me, a Western seeker, feels unnatural.

So I, like many others, appreciate interpreters in our own culture who have achieved this synthesis and shared it in their writings. Here are some authors, and selected works of theirs that I have found helpful:

. Kyriakos C. Markides: Gifts of the desert: the forgotten path of Christian spirituality, and The Mountain Of Silence: A Search For Orthodox Spirituality

. Franklin Merrell-Wolff: Philosophy of consciousness without an object, and Pathways through to space

. Thomas Merton: Mystics and Zen masters, and The Asian journal of Thomas Merton and other works

. Bernadette Roberts: What is self? a study of the spiritual journey in terms of consciousness and The experience of no-self; a contemplative journey

. Alan Watts: Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown; a mountain journal and The wisdom of insecurity; The way of Zen; Tao: the watercourse way and other works