No Escape

... just appreciation

Often when people talk about spirituality, there is this sense we are aiming to escape. The idea seems to be that the spiritual path will lead you upwards - away from the mundane realities of ordinary existence in an ordinary human body. The last thing we want, seemingly, is to be dragged down, chained to the specific situation of this body, in this time, in this place.

Theologians and philosophers describe this upwards process of escaping the limitations of ordinary human lives as transcendence. Transcendence seems, at least most of the time, to be one of the main reasons to pursue spirituality.

This can lead to a lot of frustration. For most people, these moments of insight and awareness where we are able to transcend the earthly and shoot for the heavens are short, fleeting and partial. We return with a thud to the earth and hope one day to scale those heights again.

Fortunately, there are less frustrating options when it comes to spirituality. There are traditions that balance out t…