The Search for Spirituality: Our Global Quest for a Spiritual Life
by Ursula King, New York: BlueBridge 2008
In this book, Ursula King gathers together the global threads of the elusive term ‘spirituality,’ saying that it can be ‘linked to almost any longing of the human heart for the permanent, eternal, everlasting—for wholeness, peace, joy and bliss ... It has a particularly close connection with the imagination, with human creativity and resourcefulness, with relationships—whether with ourselves, with others, or with a transcendent reality, named or unnamed, but often called the Divine, God, or Spirit.’
It is connected to religion but not exclusively contained by it; all religious life is presumed spiritual but not everything spiritual must be religious. King talks of ‘spiritualities,’ given the variety around the world, and sees two main types—the ascetic model of renunciation of the world and ‘householder spirituality’ where spiritual growth is sought through living as an ordinary person doing day-to-day things. Spirituality relates to the whole of life, ‘so that we can foster a tangible sense of the spiritual and a sense of moral solidarity within one single earth community.’ Rather than try and describe what spirituality is, it is better to ask what it does for people, how it works in different contexts. King includes psychotherapy and psychoanalysis as ‘secular spirituality’; eco-feminist spirituality, nature spirituality—anything that unfolds the deeper dimensions of everything.
King urges inter-spirituality dialogue among people who are not only world citizens but ‘world believers,’ with deep roots in one faith, yet able to relate to faiths other than their own—spiritually multi-lingual and multi-focused people. She mentions Thomas Merton, Bede Griffith and Thich Nhat Hanh as such people.
A good book in an easy, expressive and readable style for anyone interested in spirituality’s global scope, it leaves the reader with a broader and more enriching understanding of what might be called spiritualities.