The Spiritual Dimension of Life
by Fr.Gus Carter
2/5/06

Recently I ran across a short poem about Jesus Christ: "All his words were one word: "wake up." Certainly, everyone here today knows the beauty and goodness and satisfaction available in life that we often fail to tap into. This is the spiritual dimension of our lives. In many places in the Gospels we read, "Be watchful, stay alert." Especially both John the Baptist and Jesus preached, "Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand." One meaning of "repent" is "change your minds." We might say that we are called by Jesus to change our consciousness, to be more aware of God in our lives.

Jesus calls us to live more fully in the spiritual dimension of our human lives. Our belief is that the Spirit of God embraces all creation. That Spirit is God's love, named in the Holy Trinity the "Holy Spirit." We believe that our Creator fashioned each of us because we have been loved with an everlasting love. We are chosen. We are cherished by our God. Everything in creation has been made to be of benefit in some way for all of us. Our purpose in life is to receive God's love into our hearts and to return that love as a grateful response.

The repeated images in the Gospel of people being asleep, blind, deaf, lost, refer to our lack of attention to the spiritual in our lives. Too often our physical life monopolizes our awareness. Some people go days without a sense of the spiritual dimension of life. Secondly, we know that our minds tend to cling to negative experiences. Not long ago I read about a man who wrote about his father. His father lived his whole life in fear of being cheated. He trusted no one, was always paying attention to how others might take advantage of him. His negative experiences owned him. We have all met angry and bitter persons who act as though they find no good in life. People like this must find some way to stop their run away minds that drag their owners down.

When we start to realize that we are beloved of Go, we begin the road to higher consciousness or spiritual consciousness. The whole aim of the Word of God come among us, the Incarnation, is to convince us that we are loved and that the meaning of our lives is to love in return.
The chief doorway to spiritual consciousness is our Sacred Scripture. Reading Scripture thoughtfully is more like prayer than anything else. Each time we ponder the holy texts, they bring us into the presence of God. When something strikes us, moves our minds or hearts, we should examine these thought and feelings. We need to look from different angles at spiritual themes we find. When we go back to familiar passages, we should come to welcome them as old friends who converse with us and bring us ancient wisdom in a new way.

Spiritual consciousness means that we are often aware of the presence of God in our lives. That is why we try to pray in the morning, before meals and in the evening. We ask for the Lord's help with our daily tasks, we are grateful for the ways the Lord has provided for our needs. If we reflect on it, all nature reminds us of the divine presence, divine beauty and divine graciousness. We advance in spiritual awareness when we realize particularly that natural beauty is one of the ways that God expresses love for us.

One of the signs of God's love for us is that we can trust the processes of life. We believe in a benevolent God who arranges all things for our benefit. Alcoholics Anonymous call their suggestions for living a spiritual program. An essential belief for sobriety is that a higher power, even when things go wrong, is working out all things for our good. This reduced the anxieties that make life so difficult for some people.

An important aspect of the spiritual dimension of life is to appreciate our human nature as a loving gift from God. Studies of the human body lead to a knowledge as awesome as that of astronomy. This helps us to believe that, as the church fathers maintained, each human is of more value in God's eyes than the whole cosmic universe. The mystic, Julian of Norwich, saw her bodily functions as signs of God's inventiveness and bounty. St. Augustine wrote of his fascination with memory. He was in awe of the astonishing powers of our minds. "How can I remember that I have forgotten something," he wondered. St. Hilary marvels at the intricacy of human speech. We should take care of our bodies because they are exquisite gifts from God.

In the psalms we experience the joy of praising God. We can rejoice in the love God grants us for spouses, children, friends. The fruits of the Spirit, living in the love dimension of life, as St. Paul tells us, are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Who would not want a life filled with these gifts? This is why we seek to live in the Spirit of Christ. Jesus promised a hundred fold to those who follow him, and everlasting life as well.