Why did I sign on to participate in this conversation about spirituality? I promised Rappi Kipnes a couple of years ago that I would get more involved in Or Ami when I wrapped up a huge volunteer commitment I had at my children's school. That gig is a wrap, and now I have time for a new type of exploring.
When have I ever felt spiritual? I feel a little shy about confessing this, but usually I know I am feeling spiritual when so much joy or love or awe or pure emotion wells up inside of me that a few drops of this feeling leak out my eyes (some people call this crying, but to me that term applies to the more whole-body experience associated with pain and grief). Beauty, really, seems to be the common factor for these leaks I spring. The beauty and power that comes from connections among people: voices joined together in song, people joined together to help or create, shared milestones that mark a passage from one phase of life to the next.
The beauty in these human connections fills me with so much awe that I think this must be what has inspired others throughout history to feel "faith" and to codify ideas about spirituality that can be shared with others, ideas that we call religion. To me, springing leaks helps me glimpse something greater than myself, and these glimpses are how I experience G-d.
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4 comments:
It is amazing how big and powerful one single "glimpse" can be.
I really related to your post! Never really put it together until reading your description. Thanks for sharing. I'm overwhelming happiness leaker, too!
Welcome, Debbie, to the conversation. I love the image of "springing leaks". It is a physical manifestation of an internal experience. Soul and body.
Often, when we experience the transcendent/immanent connection - the spiritual - it is so overwhelmingly wonderful that we are moved to tears.
I can relate to that, too. Perhaps the temple could have a "wet" section" with tissue boxes mounted to the backs of the chairs of the next row forward?
By Stacy Mook
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