Episode 179 (Transcript): Am I Spiritual?

Many thanks to listener, Kayla Howell, for her work in transcribing this episode!

This episode can be found on any podcast app, or can be listened to here on Substack.

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SH: Hi, I'm Susan Hinckley.

CW: And I am Cynthia Winward. 

SH: And this is At Last She Said It. We are women of faith discussing complicated things. And the title of today's episode is, ‘Am I Spiritual?’ 

CW: Am I Spiritual— Are we gonna come to any kind of conclusion on this? Are you? Am I? Are we just discussing it? Is there an answer?

SH: Absolutely no idea. 

CW: I don't really know. But I'm excited to have this conversation with you because I feel like we're on the heels of a really monumental episode that we had last week with Brittney Hartley. And so we just kind of wanted to dissect that idea a little bit more. And this came from a devotional, from Richard Rohr's daily devotional that lands in my inbox and your inbox each day.

And there's a line in there. We're going to be quoting a lot of lines from it and we'll link to it in our show notes. Don't worry. But the line we're going to start out with today is: “The greatest teacher of God's presence in our life, is our life.” And that's by James Finley. And that just seemed to dovetail perfectly, I think, with what Brittney was talking about last week about finding spirituality in everyday things.

So, I mean, my life is pretty mundane. How's yours, Susan?  I mean, pretty nondescript. Yes. Yes. And so I love that idea that maybe the greatest teacher of God in my life is going to be my life. Like God's presence in my life is going to be in those mundane things. So when Brittney shared with us that women's lives, which mostly, not all women are often caring for others, children or parents or spouses or whoever, that caring for other humans is like the great ego dissolver.

And I loved it when she said that, because like she said, yeah, when you're taking care of a sick child at two o'clock in the morning. 

SH: Your ego is not the problem at that point. 

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CW: That is not the problem in that moment. If anything, that was dissolving your ego, because of course we would all rather be in bed where it's warm and comfortable instead.

And so that just was a real light bulb moment for me. And it reminded me that living and accepting our reality doesn't really feel very spiritual, which is maybe why it was such an aha moment to me. It feels like we're kind of— and this is from the devotional, it feels like we're on the edges rather than dealing with the essence.

So that's what we want to talk about today is, maybe being a spiritual person is just redefining what it means to be a spiritual person. 

SH: Yes. 

CW: So let's dive into that. 

SH: That's what we need to talk about. At least I do. 

CW: Well, I do, too, and we're not that unique. So is it just us, Susan? Has everyone else figured this out?

SH: It's never just us, Cynthia. That's the starting rule of this podcast. 

CW: Okay, good. 

SH: It's never just us. You and I were talking about this episode the other day, or the way our individual approaches would be. And you were saying, you might title this episode, Am I a Spiritual Person?

CW: Mm hmm. 

SH: And from my experience, I might be more likely to title it, Am I a Woman of Faith? Which I've talked about on the podcast before, but I could see from that we both had a little bit of a different disconnect, but as we talked about it and worked through it, it seemed like the fix was the same.

Like you were thinking, I'm not sure God talks to me, so I must be defective. 

CW: Yeah. 

SH: And I was thinking, I have this highly developed inner life that must have something to do with God. Like I've always had a sense of that, but I don't find connection in the places that the church says that I should.

So I must be defective. So they're like a slightly different twist on the same thing. But I think the fix is the same, and that's what we're going to try and get to today in this conversation. So let's just kind of start with a little bit of a definition. What is spirituality? I looked around a little, well, I mean, I think it could be a lot of things.

CW: I know, I'm just like, how are you going to define it in a sentence? Come on, go for it. 

SH: I'm not, [00:05:00] going to. So, I'm going to ask Dr. Maya Spencer of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. What is spirituality? And here's what she says: 

Spirituality involves the recognition of a feeling or sense or belief that there is something greater than myself, something more to being human than sensory experience, and that the greater whole of which we are part is cosmic or divine in nature.

Does that sound right to you? 

CW: Mmm, I like that.

SH: I like it too. Spirituality means knowing that our lives have significance in a context beyond a mundane everyday existence. It means knowing that we are a significant part of a purposeful unfolding of life, capital L, in our universe. 

CW: That's a pretty meaty definition.

SH: It's a very meaty definition. But a few simple words that come to mind for me based on that meaty definition are connection, relationship, and a greater whole. So sort of a sense of those things are what I think of with spirituality. I think of spirituality as an inward gaze. That connects me to everyone and everything beyond myself.

Is that too woo woo? I don't know. Does that make sense? 

CW: It is pretty woo woo, but I love it. 

SH: Sue Monk Kidd describes it as attention of the heart. And she says, “I wonder sometimes if we haven't banished the way of the heart in favor of the way of the mind, if we emphasize learning about God over being with God.”

CW: Yeah. 

SH: And I feel like spirituality is the being with God part. 

CW: Yeah, that's good.

SH: So that's just how I think of it as I approach this conversation. 

CW: Well and I like that you said maybe in your definition, an inward gaze. Because it's kind of like what I just read a minute ago, the edge is not the essence.

Like so often we think, oh, that's just the edge of my life. Like that's not really the essence of it. But when, in reality, isn't 90 percent of my life lived, kind of in the mundane? Yes. So maybe it's about repurposing what we think spirituality is, like Sue Monk Kidd says, attention of the heart.

So maybe shifting the definition solves the problem, most of the problem, some of the problem, I don't know. 

SH: Well, I think it does. When I said I think the fix is the same for both of us. I think that's the fix. I think it's shifting the way that we think about this thing or relate to it or approach it.

So I don't know. Let's dive in. Let's talk more about it. 

CW: Let's dive in. 

SH: Okay. So we've broken this conversation down into a few headings, each of which are taken directly from the CAC meditation that we spoke about at the beginning. And the first one is, how do we find what is supposedly already there? And here's the quote from the meditation:

Why should we need to awaken our deepest and most profound selves? How do we do it? By praying and meditating? By more silence, solitude, and sacraments? Yes, to all of the above. But, the most important way is to live and fully acknowledge our present reality.

CW: Aha. 

SH: Aha. That edge you were talking about. 

CW: Yeah, the edge for sure.

Let's jump into that by also highlighting one of the phrases, and this is the phrase that you and I started texting each other about because we had both read the meditation that day. And then we were like, this is it. This would be another great anchor to this season if we're talking about women's spirituality.

And it was the phrase, “the cross of the present moment.” So we were both going back and forth and we kind of wrote down some of our thoughts here. So let's go ahead and share some of those thinky thoughts from our text message in this conversation today, because how often have I said to myself throughout my life, like I'll be more spiritual when whatever happens, when I'm able to go to the temple once a week or something, or I would say I used to be spiritual when I read my scriptures every day, or I went to all three hours of church back in the old days when we had three hours of church. I feel like I was always maybe looking forward or comparing myself, looking backward instead of accepting the cross of the present moment, accepting where I am right now, today.

And that actually kind of reminds me of something that I heard Nadia Bolz-Weber say. I remember hearing her say in a podcast recently that she used to do CrossFit and now she wishes, cause she doesn't do CrossFit anymore, she wishes now that she had never done that because she just can't be in this moment.

SH: Oh my gosh. I relate to this.