What is spiritual?

As I continue on my life’s spiritual path, I keep talking to God, I keep praying. I keep asking for guidance and getting impatient when I don’t get it. I keep seeking answers and feeling bewildered when I can’t find them. I keep talking to God and straining to hear answers, and I’ve started thinking that it might be because I’m not listening, or that I don’t know what to listen for.

I’ve often thought about and commented that for me, running is not only a physical experience but a spiritual one. As I finished my warmup and headed up a hill to Newton Center this morning - a perfectly clear and cool fall morning - my mind began to wrap itself around the question, what is spiritual? I intended to run three miles, but the fact the I wound up doing 7.5 is probably an indicator of how intently I was pondering this question.

What is the spirit? What does it mean to be spiritual? Is it something simply beyond our physical world and beyond our sensual world, something that can be felt but hardly described? How do our spiritual and religious experiences intertwine, or perhaps diverge? Thinking about those questions, I realize I throw the term ‘ spiritual’ around quite frequently and freely, and though I think about it often, I have a hard time clearly and concisely defining it.

What is it about running that is spiritual to me? Is it the act of not only challenging my physical self but also my mental and emotional self? Is it because when I run, a certain space is created and it is in this space that I allow myself to fully experience some of my deepest emotions, contemplate some of life’s most mundane and most massive topics, and find some previously-elusive answers?

I find myself thinking so intently about this that I trip and go flying across someone’s front lawn. It makes me cringe and laugh at the same time, and I’m not so subtly reminded of the critical role of mindfullness in spiritual practice.

I think about occasions when I’ve felt what I could only describe as being spiritually moved - hiking Mt. Monadnock with a group of friends, working with a nun in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica, listening to a Jesuit priest speak about his experiences of nonviolent protest as a path to peace, or even sharing a good meal with my close friends in the warmth of my home. I’ve also felt a sense of being spiritually alive during more challenging times - at the funeral service for my teacher and mentor, during a particularly trying time at work, and when my car broke down on the Mass Pike. Perhaps it is these occasions that inspire, allow, or force me to stop and acknowledge or rely on the presence of God. Is spirituality simply the awareness of God or a higher power?

I continue my run, breathing in the clean air, feeling the autumn wind in my face, listening to birds and rustling branches and a few cars. I notice the shapes of brown and orange leaves crunching beneath my feet, the Boston skyline in the distance, and the houses and gardens along my route. Where is God in this moment? Perhaps, everywhere.

I run by BC and turn onto Lake Street, savoring my favorite part of a run in my neighborhood - a long, easy downhill. Physically, I feel renewed and strong. I’m happy to have had this time alone with my thoughts and my prayers and questions, and thought I haven’t found any answers, I wonder if that’s part of my answer right there: just questioning, thinking, and contemplating spirituality is a spiritual act in itself.