A New Spirituality?

Friday afternoon, I sat down with my spiritual director to talk about the future of our relationship. We had been meeting for over a year when I decided to walk away from the Christian faith, and I wanted to let him know about what had taken place. I knew things wouldn't really be the same, and had pretty much decided that participating in spiritual direction wasn't really a live option any more. But, at his request, I decided to see whether it was something I could still incorporate into my life.


Prior to the meeting, I understood "spirituality" as referring to one of two things: 1) dependence upon some variety of supernatural being(s) who give meaning and purpose to life, and the cultivating of that relationship; or 2) glorified navel-gazing and positive self-talk (à la Oprah). Since I'm not terribly interested in either of these—I no longer believe in the existence of a supernatural being, and I'm already battling enough self-interested thinking in my life—I assumed that spiritual direction would be out of the picture. After all, if I called the game of the spiritual journey a hoax, then why would I want someone to guide me on it?


The result of the conversation, however, surprised me. (More after the jump...)