How do you think about spiritual growth, and how do your images of spiritual growth reflect the way you approach this with individuals and groups?
I’ve just led a session on youth spirituality at the Uniting Church’s national in-service for workers with children, youth and families. The first part of what I did was look at four metaphors or images of spiritual growth:
- a ladder
- a journey
- a web
- an encounter
The image of a ladder is one of growth taking place through a series of steps or stages, or rising upward and higher. This can be seen in terms of enlightenment, but also in ‘rising above’ the old life or former stage. As such, it is prevalent in a range of spiritualities or faiths, from some eastern faiths, to the kind of Christian evangelicalism that speaks of ‘rising up’, God and heaven being ‘above us’, and sanctification or holiness being cumulative. Classical spirituality spoke of climbing mountains as a metaphor for growth. James Fowler’s stage as of faith also contain this notion of faith as a series of stages through which people must move. With such a metaphor, a person needs a teacher or truth-teller to bring knowledge, wisdom or enlightenment to aid growth. This kind of growth is not only cerebral though, it is about the person or their spirit attaining successive degrees of maturity, holiness or ligthness of being. Of course, the negative side is gnosticism, with the teach holding secret wisdom that can be obtained through other channels.
Where have you experienced this notion of spiritual growth as a series of steps?
Where are you called upon to be a teacher or truth-teller?
