Where we meet God

In the most recent ExploreFaith.org newsletter, they poise the question of where we meet God. Specifically, "what does it mean to lead a spiritual life?" Offering a Jewish perspective, Rabbi Micah D. Greenstein says:

Spirituality - whether you are Christian, Muslim, a Jew or a Hindu - is religion experienced intimately. You might say it's the core, the essence of religion. Spirituality is where you and God meet and what you do about it. It doesn't have to be, as Larry Kushner says, "other worldly," such as in Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus." For most people, spirituality is ordinary and every day. It's a buzzword today. Earlier generations probably called the same idea sacred or holy. One of the great Jewish philosophers of all time, Abraham Joshua Heschel, who is a great mystical theologian, suggested that spirituality is life lived in the continuous presence of the divine. I like Heschel's definition a lot.

He goes on to offer his top ten list of what it means to be a spiritual person today:

• To view the world as an ultimate mystery rather than as a mechanized machine
• To view life as meaningful rather than meaningless
• To view life as a lesson in gratitude
• Giving as a matter of obligation for what you owe, not as something that is nice to do
• To realize that mind, body, and soul are all gifts of God
• To acknowledge life's mysteries, even the questions that have no answers
• To trust in the goodness of life and all the potential this implies
• To always hope and never succumb to despair
• To strive for goodness, not things - to believe that honesty, integrity and dignity matter more than anything else
• The belief that every person carries with them the special signature of God

The question of spirituality is also approached from a Buddhist perspective, Christian perspective, and Muslim perspective - although I haven't had the chance to read them yet.

Independent of these essays, if someone asked me the question "where do you meet God", I would say it's in moments where things seem to make sense - whether that's a moment of clarity or insight at work (with a business or technical problem), a connecting of the dots (see this post), or some new piece of scientific knowledge (see this post). If solving complex problems is my purpose in life (see this post), this would seem a logical meeting place for me and God. In that sense, I guess I do live in the continuous presence of the divine.