SPIRITS AND SPIRITUALITY

“Spirits and spirituality. For many these two have been at odds for their entire history, but I’d suggest that is a short view of the history of the curious relationship between the two.”

Both spirits and spirituality can be used, meaning not appreciated for their own value, but only viewed as means to an end. And too often those ends, being the bottom of a bottle or the front row of the church, have been abused. They have been used to ignore the reality, dismiss the darkness, and repress the pain. We have a funny way of seeing all the ways that alcohol is abused, and rightfully so. But we often miss that anything, including spiritually, can be abused and used to hide from the shadows and in the shadows. 

I found ways to hide from knowing myself and my pain not through sitting at a bar, but sitting in the pews. While being instructed on all the dangers of drinking I was concocting a serious cocktail of being scared and self righteous, with a dash not of aromatic bitters, but of being bitter, because it seemed this drink was “good medicine” even if it tasted too often nothing like light and life, but only darkness and death. 

The meaningful moments, at either the alter or bar, are when we allow the sacred space to remind us that we are seen and known and loved. Where the songs and sounds draw out the un-inhibited and un-habited places within us. Where our hearts are lightened and we trust that the words of Julian of Norwich are true, “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” We have but brief moments of  intimacy where we are fully who we were created to be. 

The invitation to consider the curious space between spirits and spirituality is to question if one can recognize the pub is as sacred as the sanctuary. Within both there are patrons and parishioners who are filled with holy faith and human doubt. If we can recognize the holy in the shaken and stirred, then we may be able to see the sacred everywhere and in everyone.

Jared Ray Mackey