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Friday, March 6, 2015

Considerations of Spirituality

So I work for an organisation that focuses on spiritual care and spiritual health.

These are not easy concepts to explain.

A reflection on spirituality as an aspect of health and wellness. That one of the historical "homes" of spirituality has been in religion and in religious institutions. Of course, many religions and religious institutions these days are unfortunately less homes for spirit and more for homes for myopia, the maintenance of privilege, political regression, and an inability to remain present to evolving global realities.

All that said, some things that religions, religious institutions and religious leaders have done, that have been integral to any evolving definition of "spirituality" per se, have included:

- Ethics (e.g. a consideration of Old Age, Sickness and Death and the implications these considerations have on how we choose to live)
- Hermeneutics (textual interpretation in a community of practitioners)
- Ritual
- Contemplation/Reflection/Meditation

When I think of "spiritual health" in the context of a secular health sector, I think not only of the more esoteric aspects of spirituality (e.g. the "transcendent" or issues of "ultimate concern"), but also of health and medical ethics, hermeneutics in the sense of theological literacy when relating to patients and people living with chronic illness or degenerative disease, including more deliberate and mindful forms of ritual (including a reading of the extent to which a mindless ritual is already implicit in terms of access to health systems, e.g. intake forms, confidentiality statements, the taking of medicines, policies and procedures that delimit what sorts of movement or speech are possible, etc.), and moments of silent contemplation (with all the evidence-based promises of increased work efficacy and neurogenesis), integrated into the practice of health professionals, beyond just contact with patients/clients.

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