Three Ways Healthy Spirituality Is Inherently Relational

The Tiger and the Fox An old Sufi story* tells about a man walking through the forest who saw a fox that had lost its legs and the man wondered how it lived.  Then he saw a tiger come up with game in its mouth.  The tiger ate its fill and left the rest of the meat for the fox.

The next day God fed the fox by means of the same tiger.  The man began to wonder at God's greatness and said to himself, "I too shall rest in a corner with full trust in the Lord and he will provide me with all that I need."

He did this for many days but nothing happened.  He was almost at death's door from starvation when he heard a voice say, "O you who are in the path of error, open your eyes to the truth!  Stop imitating the disabled fox and follow the example of the tiger."

Three Nonnegotiables for Healthy Spiritual Living

This ancient story reveals several secrets to effective spiritual living and why we need people to become truly self actualized.

One, spirituality is deeply relational.

The fabric of our being is communal and relational.  We thrive the most when we learn how to live effectively within the context of our relationships.

There's no such thing as a Lone Ranger spirituality.

There's this myth about spirituality in contrast to religion that says that spirituality is personal and private, while religion is communal.  Not true!

Effective, transformational spirituality is not about living up on the mountaintop in direct communication with the Universe, like the stereotypical picture of the monk or guru who sits up on the peak alone receiving and dispensing the wisdom of life to intrepid and interested mountain climbers or spiritual seekers.

Effective spirituality is like the tiger in our story---taking what feeds us and sharing it with hungry people.  And the truth is, everyone in our circles of relationships are hungry in various ways.

Spirituality is essentially relational because our growth as people is directly impacted by our ability to relate to people.  It's in our relationships where the rubs of life so often take place.  So unless we learn how to navigate those "rubs" - our journey toward becoming more actualized humans on this planet of people by living life well among people - we isolate our spirituality and it eventually withers into ineffectiveness.

Two, relational spirituality reframes faith and trust.

The man in our story was rebuked by God for trying to imitate the passiveness of the fox rather than the active sharing of the tiger.

Many people have the view of spirituality as mostly sitting and waiting on God.  "It's just you and me, God," they say.  "God will provide.  I just need to have enough faith in order to experience God's intervention."  It's the "monk in the cave" or "guru on the mountaintop" approach.

The problem with this kind of spiritual paradigm is that it leads to isolationism.  If God only acted directly, why would you need others?  If you could become completely self-actualized in a vacuum, why would you need others?  God could simply put each of us in a sealed off vacuum chamber until we finalized achieved perfection, and then let us free.

Trust in God or the Universe is not just sitting in a corner trying to convince yourself that you will be provided for if you simply have enough faith.

I've discovered in my life that most often the way God has provided for me is through other people who have shared their love, generosity, and support with me.  God has used "the tigers" in my life to bless me time and time again.

My willingness to open myself up to other people, to be willing to receive from them, is an act of radical trust in God and the humanity that God chooses to work through.  My willingness to stop trying to be "superman," mister omnicompetent superhero in life who can go it alone very well, thank you, and instead realize my need for other people to help me grow into the man I'm meant to be, is an act of radical trust in God and the people God chooses to use in my life.

Three, spirituality demands a relational environment because at the heart of spirituality is forgiveness and love.

All spiritual traditions describe the fundamental nature of God with the word love.  God is love.

Here's the way the Christian scriptures state this reality:

"Since God loved us that much [Jesus giving his life to forgive us], we surely ought to love each other.  No one has ever seen God.  But if we love each other, God lives in us, and God's love has been brought to full expression through us...God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them."  1 John 4:11-12

In the one of the most concise descriptions of the divine nature, we are reminded that God is love.  And notice that central to the attribute of divine love is forgiveness.  And the natural progression of that spiritual experience is that we are then people who love and therefore who forgive others.

Our spiritual development, the process of becoming more and more self actualized as human beings, is to learn how to love more deeply and more completely.  We learn to love ourselves.  And we learn to love others.  Spiritual growth is about growing in the process of loving well.

But you and I cannot truly love either ourselves or others without learning how to forgive.  The point is, it is only within the context of relationships---where we experience the bumps and bruises of life---that we learn how to love and forgive.  That's where healthy spirituality is developed.

Loving and Forgiving Without Judgment

One of the obstacles we often face with loving and forgiving is our tendency to judge people.  Notice in our story, the tiger gives food to the disabled fox without condemning or judging the fox.  The tiger refuses to interrogate the fox about how it lost its legs.  Was it being irresponsible?  Who's fault was it?  Did the fox make bad or unwise choices that led to this tragic loss?

No, the tiger saw the need and without judgment gave of its own abundance.

Divine love and forgiveness are always without conditions.  They are simply given, no strings attached.  That's why those actions and predispositions with God are called grace.

The truth is, you and I as human beings simply cannot grow spiritually to our most actualized selves outside the context of our relationships.  Why?  Because it is in our relationships where we are forced to rub up against others and they with us in a way that prompts and teaches us what it means to really love and forgive in every context of our lives.

So which do you find yourself modeling or identifying more with in your spiritual life?  The man who tried to be like the fox, or the tiger?

* Adapted from Anthony de Mello, The Song of the Bird, p. 79.

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Healthy Friendship, Undistorted Mirrors, and Spiritual Growth

During a time of great crisis in my life, my therapist said to me,

"Remember Greg, other people's reactions to you say more about their story than about yours."

I've never forgotten that advice.  I've certainly seen it to be true over and over again.  And it's helped me stay focused and centered and grounded on my truth ... most of the time.

You need to remember this, too, whenever people choose to respond to you in judgmental or critical ways because you've done something or said something they disagree with or oppose.  One of the lessons we learn in life is that people tend to see us through the lens of their own self concept.  They actually are judging themselves vicariously through us.

We are often loved and admired for who people choose to think we are or need us to be rather than who we really are.  And conversely, we are often rejected or snubbed not for who we really are but for who they see us to be and whether we've lived up or not to their projected image of us.

Either way, we are being responded to from their own personal needs not our own.  It's a false self and image.  They're not holding up an undistorted mirror for us to see ourselves as we really are.  They're holding up a picture they've painted of us.  And it's destructive to us if we base our self worth on an illusion.

I love the way Richard Rohr, in his book Falling Upward, puts it:

"Beauty or ugliness really is first of all in the eye of the beholder.  Good people will mirror goodness in us, which is why we love them so much.  Not-so-mature people will mirror their own unlived and confused life onto us, which is why they confuse and confound us so much, and why they are so hard to love."  (p. 153)

For this reason, as Rohr emphasizes, it is a necessity for us to find at least one undistorted mirror that reveals our inner, deepest, and yes, divine image:  a loving, honest friend to help ground us by how they see us in our truth and accept us for our truth.

A Spiritual Dimension of Friendship

This is truly one of the deep spiritual dimensions of friendship and human relationship.  Healthy friendship holds a mirror in front of us so we can see ourselves undistorted, the way we truly are, who we really are.  And that friend who holds the mirror for us says to us, "Whatever you see in this mirror, I love.  I accept you the way you truly are---the real you, not some false image of you that either I or others might project, or even you might project on yourself.  I love and accept You."

I have a friend just like that.  He and I have been on our friendship journey for 15 years or so.  We have talked on the phone or in person whenever we can be together almost every week of those 15 years.  He has held the mirror in front of me through the highs and lows of my life, reminding me of who I really am, no matter how others have responded to me.  That mirror has revealed some ugly things that I tend to shrink away from, as well as some beautiful things I'm drawn to.  But through it all, he has loved, accepted, and affirmed me for who I really am beyond all the externals I and others tend to fixate on.  And that has helped empower my own growth into the person I truly am and want to be.

Rohr makes the observation that

"it is only whose who respond to the real you, good or bad, that help you in the long run" (p. 153).  This is the only kind of love that ever redeems.

That's why my friend Paul has been so empowering and transforming to me through all these years.  Together, we have learned and practiced how to see each other through the lens of our deepest core truth.  And this authentic sight has been instrumental in growing us both spiritually, relationally, and individually.

This is the way God has modeled friendship with us.

"Like any true mirror, the gaze of God receives us exactly as we are, without judgment or distortion, subtraction or addition.  Such perfect receiving is what transforms us.  Being totally received as we truly are is what we wait and long for all our lives.  All we can do is receive and return the loving gaze of God every day, and afterwards we will be internally free and deeply happy at the same time.  The One who knows all has no trouble including, accepting, and forgiving all.  Soon we who are gazed upon so perfectly can pass on the same accepting gaze to all others who need it.  There is no longer any question 'Does he or she deserve it?'"  (Ibid., pp. 159-60)

My friend Paul continues to give God's gift of perfect receiving to me time and again.  I hope I can do the same for him.  After all, it's our deepest human longing and desire---to be loved, accepted, and perfectly received no matter what.  Isn't it?

Are you that kind of friend to someone else?  Do you have this kind of undistorted mirror in your own life?  Is your view of God/the Universe one of perfect receiving of you, who you really are, with no judgment, only acceptance---that you belong here in this world in all of your authentic being---that you truly matter?