Defining Spiritual

I spend a lot of time thinking about spiritual things.  I consider myself a very spiritual person.  I long for more time for Spirit work.

I am not religious.  I was not brought up with any religion.  I was only briefly ever part of a religion, for a couple years when I was in high school and college.  I attended a Unitarian Universalist church in Houston.

A lot of people like to describe themselves as, "spiritual, but not religious."  Myself included.

Recently I've been pondering those terms.  What do they actually mean?

Before I go look them up on dictionary.com, I want to attempt to write out my own personal definitions.

Defining "religious" seems easy to me.  Being religious means participating in a particular spiritual path and/or community, which includes certain common beliefs and practices.

But the concept of "spiritual" seems much more vague.  It's the word "spirit," I think.

I would say that being spiritual means having a relationship with Spirit or Divinity or God or The Universe or Whatever Word You Prefer To Capitalize.

And frankly, that could mean all kinds of things.  It's very personal and subjective.

And I think that's what at the heart of people wanting to distance themselves from the word "religion."  They don't want to follow any prescribed path.  They want to discover and create and follow their own path.

To go farther into defining the word spiritual, I'd have to further define that Capitalized Word.  And that's hard.  I mean, that's part of the point of a lot of those religions, right?

I think the most general definition I can come up with is that Capitalized Word is something greater than one's human self.

And from that perspective, even an atheist could be spiritual.  I think it depends on what exactly a person does and does not believe in.

(And as Joel Fleischmann (the main character on my favorite TV show, Northern Exposure) once said, "I've always kind of admired atheists.  I think it takes a lot of faith.")

So to sum up my definition, being spiritual means having a relationship with something greater than one's human self.

Out of curiosity, I checked dictionary.com just now.  "Religious" takes you to "religion," and it's pretty much what I expected.  "Spiritual" takes you to "spirit," and I find that to be a pretty delightful list of things.  What a very difficult concept to define.

Now, I haven't even begun talking about my personal definition of Spirit or Capitalized Etc.  Another post some time.