Spiritual Inquiry Research Articles

An Exploratory Study of HIV+ Adolescents’ Spirituality: Will You Pray with Me?

The aims of the study were (1) to determine whether adolescents find it acceptable to have physicians explore their spiritual beliefs as part of their medical care, (2) to characterize the role of spirituality and religious beliefs in adolescents with and without HIV, and (3) to examine associations between spirituality/religion and quality of life. Adolescents receiving their medical care at an urban Adolescent Health Clinic completed a study-specific questionnaire about spiritual inquiry by their physician, the Brief Multidimensional Measurement of Religiousness/Spirituality, and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0. Chi-squared analysis, Fischer's exact test, and t tests were used to assess associations. A total of 45 participants enrolled: 19 HIV+ (53% vertical transmission) and 26 HIV-; mean age 17.2years; 80% African American. Four out of 45 (9%) had ever been asked by their doctor about their spiritual/religious beliefs, and only 8 (18%) had ever shared these beliefs with their healthcare provider. Most teens wanted their provider to ask them about their spiritual beliefs during some visits, especially when dealing with death/dying or chronic illness (67%). Those with HIV were more likely to endorse wanting their doctors to pray with them (42% vs. 15%), feeling "God's presence" (Mean=3.95 vs. 2.83), being "part of a larger force" (Mean=2.58 vs. 1.69), and feeling "God had abandoned them" (Mean=1.63 vs. 1.15). There are certain circumstances in which healthcare providers should include a spiritual history with teenage patients. Few differences emerged in the teens studied with and without HIV.

On 'The Problem of the Religious Novel': Christopher Isherwood and A Single Man

Dating from his conversion to Vedanta in 1939, the writings of British expatriate Christopher Isherwood’s California period offer testimony of a life engaged with spiritual inquiry and praxis pursued over more than four decades, yet texts from this period are either ignored or dismissed by critics intent on maintaining the standard view of the writer. Isherwood theorised the writing of religion in his essay ‘The Problem of the Religious Novel’, yet it is in the least overtly religious text, A Single Man,1 where the influence of his training in the Ramakrishna Vedanta tradition is seamlessly integrated. Moreover, the impact of Vedanta teaching (particularly in its Advaitist formulation) on Isherwood’s textual personae, his experiments with first-person point of view, his interrogation of the problematics of writing religion and a sustained engagement with a religious praxis not based on a repudiation of his sexuality, are all contributing to a third wave of interest in this controversial writer today.© The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press 2010

Playing with Post-Secular Performance

Bringing the concept of the post-secular together with contemporary performance might seem an odd thing to do, especially as the term is more generally associated with Catholic theologians. Mike King, of the Centre for Post-secular Studies in London, however, uses post-secularism in a way that may be more helpful in understanding some contemporary trends in art and the wider culture. King sees the post-secular as involving a renewed interest in questions of spirituality, combined with recognition of the importance of the rights and freedoms that resulted from the process of secularization in Europe. Post-secularism in this sense isn’t an attempt to return to a pre-secular religious worldview, which would be a fundamentalist approach, but a relaxed and open approach to spiritual inquiry. In the spirit of such an inquiry I discussed questions of spiritual and artistic practice, individually, with four British artists: Julia Lee Barclay, Ansuman Biswas, Traci Kelly, and Kira O’Reilly.

An Instinct for Spiritual Quests: Quiet Religion

John Dewey notes the following in his book A Common Faith: Any activity pursued in behalf of an against obstacles and in spite of threats of per sonal loss because of conviction of its general and enduring value is religious in quality (1934, 27). By ideal end he is suggesting something of importance to us, something fundamentally worthy of enhancing the human condition. Dewey certainly captures what I have in mind by spiritual quests as they are natural ized and linked to human needs, cognitive capacity, and neural structures; these qualifications are consistent with Dewey's orientation, along with self-corrective inquiry, nonviolence, and humility. Spiritual quests are not an aberration or a pathological state. They are, rather, a fundamental human need. Moreover, conversions to seeing events in a certain way are at the basis of scientific and other forms of human experience, as well as spiritual quests. The pursuit of knowledge has conversion-like experiences associated with it (Bloom 2007; Heelan 1994). Religious quests are vital human activities and cut across the sciences and humanities. Religious sensibility is one thing; religious tyranny, quite another. Religious sensibility, at its normative best, is humble and pluralistic. The approach that I suggest avoids dismissive positivism and dogmatic theological fundamental ism and replaces them with a pious naturalism. What underlie spiritual quests are (1) heightened vigilance and some discomfort or unrest about human existence, (2) a search to come to terms with this fact, and (3) the much-appreciated moments of peace and quietude that are necessary for human well-being. What is important is to bring ideas to the lifeblood of experience, to the everyday, to bring the conception of vulnerability and hypothesis-testing inquiry to cover the whole range of human experience, including spiritual inquiry. Thus, in what follows, I suggest, first, that spiritual quests are fundamental to the human condition and then that certain cognitive categories and a basic instinctive response predispose us to express this human need. Diverse brain

Spiritual Inquiry and Well-Being in Life-Limiting Illness

ABSTRACT Introduction: End of life, as a developmental phase, is accompanied by inner resources as well as losses. Spirituality is a potential inner resource for integrating illness that often occurs during this time. Despite the increase in spirituality research, how spiritual perspectives are used in life-limiting illness remains under-investigated. Better knowledge about this process may be useful for health care providers, family caregivers and patients themselves to enhance well-being at end of life. This study describes the process of how patients and family care-givers use their spiritual resources to facilitate well-being at the end of life. Method: A qualitative study was designed, based upon the grounded theory method, that entails theoretical sampling of concepts (not sampling of people as in quantitative designs), and the analytic technique of constant comparison of the data until conceptual categories are saturated with supporting data and a theory can be identified. The sample consisted of 12 respondents: 6 dyads of elderly patients with a life-limiting illness and family caregivers. Interviews occurred over a 2-year period. Results: Data analysis generated a theory about a process called “transcending life-limiting illness,” which derived from two related themes: spiritual inquiry and end-of-life dimensions. Conclusion: The results expand existing knowledge about how people, either as patients or as family caregivers of persons facing end of life, live with life-limiting illness. The process of transcending life-limiting illness goes beyond merely coping to tap resources for well-being. This resource is expressed through an ongoing dialectic process of spiritual inquiry about life and death as supported by six critical life dimensions.

Participatory Fruits: Spiritual Inquiry

This contribution to the cartography of spiritual inquiry explores its grounding in three interdepedent kinds of inquiry – personal, collaborative and cultural – and makes a brief evaluation of the relevance of the perennial philosophy. It then outlines a dipolar theology of the divine as the manifest and the spiritual, the manifest in terms of the phenomenal and the subtle, and the spiritual in terms of its three modes the situational, the immanent and the transcendent. It considers the validity of spiritual insights, the nature of human mediation between the divine poles, explores the nature of spiritual inquiry as a form of collaborative action research – the divine-human process of co-creative inquiry here in this place where we are. It culminates in describing a broad range of practices of engagement, enlivenment and enlightenment which inquire, respectively, into spirit as situational, immanent and transcendent. It concludes with an overview of the presuppositions of spiritual inquiry. The participatory fruits of spiritual inquiry explored in this paper are an enacted set of working principles and practices, grounded in three kinds of inquiry which are interdependent and mutually involved in each other. First, they are co-created in a personal participatory relation with being, a relation which is rooted in the human capacity for feeling the presence of what there is. This radical capacity I explore in depth in Feeling and Personhood (Heron, 1992). Ferrer gives a related account of participatory knowing as presential, enactive and transformative (Ferrer, 2002: 122-3). Second, they are generated in a context of a variety of collaborative spiritual inquiries, including an ongoing relationship inquiry (Langton and Heron, 2003), a current long-term co-operative inquiry now (2006) into its twelfth year (Heron and Lahood, forthcoming), and over twenty short-term co-operative inquiries since 1978 several of which are reported in Sacred Science (Heron, 1998). Third, they are influenced by acquaintance with, reflection on, and discussions within, the wider personal, cultural and historical context, including the great legacy of religious beliefs and experiential data from spiritual schools ancient and modern, western and eastern. These three kinds of inquiry provide a qualified warrant for my text. On the one hand it present ideas that are clarified and critically refined in personal and interpersonal enactions of what there is, and are thus one modestly valid perspective on, and revelation of, the mystery of being. On the other hand Participatory Fruits of Spiritual Inquiry 2 they are relative to the cultural and historical contexts within which they are framed, and thus are fallible and non-perennial, an invitation to dialogue and further inquiry. To say that a theological vision is co-created in a personal and an interpersonal participative relation with being, and in the qualifying contexts stated, means neither that it is universally absolute, nor that it is an entirely relativistic construction. It means that it is one relative perspective brought forth with what is universal, and calls for other diverse perspectives, grounded in inquiry, to honour the fullness of the mystery. I will make a few points here about the role of past spiritual traditions in making contemporary spiritual distinctions. They have an important secondary and contributory role, via their massive heritage of spiritual lore. This lore is the indispensable loam which nourishes present growth. However, the primary role is for the contemporary voice of innovative divine becoming, surfacing now through the constraints of what is today outmoded in this great inheritance from the aspirations of our forbears. The idea that there is a perennial (lasting-forever) philosophy which can be extracted from past religions and which lays down the basic structure of spiritual practice far off into the distant future, seems to me as fanciful as the idea of a perennial natural science. To restrict postmodern spirituality by principles derived from premodern spirituality is like constraining the future of chemistry by the precepts of alchemy. Perennial philosophy prescriptions strike me as a rearguard action to defend established centres of spiritual authority from having to deal with radical change. See Sacred Science (Heron, 1998: 43-46). Past belief-systems and practices reflect past contexts. Current contexts call both for respect for past traditions and for a radical revisionary overhaul of some of their most fundamental beliefs, attitudes and behaviours.

Moral and Spiritual Inquiry in the Academic Classroom: A Featured Lecture for the 2006 Institute on College Student Values

College and university professors can provide many opportunities for students to search for meaning and purpose in their own lives. This lecture addresses how faculty can promote examination of students’ own values and beliefs in the academic classroom.

Moral and Spiritual Inquiry in the Academic Classroom

College and university professors can provide many opportunities for students to search for meaning and purpose in their own lives.

On Buddhist-Christian Studies in Relation to Dialogue

On Buddhist-Christian Studies in Relation to Dialogue Francis V. Tiso In taking on the task of co-editing Buddhist-Christian Studies, it would seem appropriate to provide some background by way of introduction. Being a disciple of Brother David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B., a man who refuses to sign his name with capital letters, since the late 1960s, it goes against my grain to write too much about myself. Therefore, the following comments are meant also to serve as a foreword to the current issue. My own background in Buddhist-Christian studies has its roots in ongoing collaboration with Br. David, who will be remembered for his decades-long study of Zen and his affectionate rapport with the San Francisco Zen Center community, among others. I later studied interreligious dialogue and its theological implications with George Rupp and Harvey Cox at Harvard Divinity School. In order to let my studies sink their roots into contemplative soil, I served as Br. David's assistant at the Benedictine Grange and then went on to edit theological books at the Seabury Press in New York. Thanks to the kindness of the late and revered Alex Wayman, I was able to complete a doctorate in Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary, where I gained some ability to work with Pali, Sanskrit, and Tibetan. I sought additional tutorial guidance from José Pereira of Fordham University, a polymath scholar deeply appreciated for his extraordinary ability to introduce students to the intricacies of Sanskrit literature. Our lengthy conversations about the Baroque Scholastic Catholic theologians formed my eagerness to welcome at least three of the articles in the current issue of BCS. After the doctorate, I continued to pursue study and contemplative practice in Europe and Asia, developing collegial friendships, especially with members of the International Association for Tibetan Studies. In 2003, M. R. John C. Wester, auxiliary bishop of San Francisco, asked me to participate in the Northern California Zen/Ch'an–Catholic Dialogue that had arisen from earlier dialogue programs in various monastic milieux such as Gethsemane and New Camaldoli. In the context of that dialogue, I was asked to serve the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumencial and Interreligious Affairs in Washington, DC, in 2004. Given this ongoing interplay in my own life between scholarly research and contemplative [End Page iii] practice, it is my hope that BCS will continue to nurture the same interests in its readership. Good scholarship and commitment to the goals of spiritual inquiry should also enrich the dialogue between Buddhists and Christians in various parts of the world. In a recent publication,1 Taigen Dan Leighton describes Dogen's methods with regard to reading: "So in addition to just reading through this material, the student of Zen may likely want to chew slowly at times, find pieces that are especially provocative, stimulating, or unsettlingly challenging, and take a while to consider, reflect, and digest." This is exactly what the Christian contemplative does in lectio divina. Moreover, to persons inclined to this kind of inquiry, even scholarly research gives rise to creative and, at times, truly contemplative insight. Thus even a journal committed to scholarship might find comfort in the "apophatic" methods of Buddhist or Christian contemplatives. Taigen reminds us that Zen sitting practice (zazen) is not the suppression of content. In fact, understanding is expected: Dogen is clearly not recommending zazen as mere blank, mindless sitting. Although he frequently criticizes practice concerned with achievement, or with reaching for particular schematized stages of development, Dogen regularly asks his monks if they thoroughly understand. He is suggesting a practice that is informed by intense inquiry into the ancient teachings, sayings, and dialogues, as well as into our present immediate experience. Throughout formal meditation as well as in our everyday activity, Dogen encourages vivid attention and awareness. In practice, this is nothing less than the interactive application of the principles of the great teachings on emptiness. As a method, the philosophical analysis of emptiness came to have an enormous impact on the Ch'an and Zen traditions; it was a method of "negation" in the sense that it could be...

Toward a Sacred Discourse: Reconceptualizing the Heart Through Metaphor

In this article, the author takes as her subject the lived experience of the heart. She presents an autoethnographic case to examine the regions of spiritual inquiry and discourses of the sacred. In mystical traditions, the heart is often conceptualized as a site of liberation or enlightenment. Entering this inner territory of the heart through the tacit knowledge of poetics and the body, the author explores how a metaphoric turn in her research illumined a heart practice and discourse, how somatic images became a bridge to lived experience. She discusses how mining three concrete metaphors, evoked by a set of experiences in the field, moved her study of the heart. The field in which this project is situated has three dimensions: the author’s poetry, lived experience, and images and conversations arising in her teaching practice.

Spirituality in Patient Care: Why, How, When, and What.

Spirituality in Patient Care: Why, How, When, and What.

Spirituality and psychiatry in Canada: psychiatric practice compared with patient expectations.

This study compares psychiatrists' and psychiatric patients' practice, attitudes, and expectations regarding spirituality and religion. We mailed surveys to all Canadian psychiatrists registered with the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (n = 2890). The response rate was 42% (n = 1204). We recruited patients from a Canadian on-line survey (n = 67) and from a local mental health clinic (n = 90). Psychiatrists had lower levels of beliefs and practices than did patients and the general population. In both groups, 47% felt there was "often or always" a place to include spirituality in psychiatric assessment, although the perceived importance differed. Among patients, 53% felt it important to have this issue addressed, and 24% considered the psychiatrist's spiritual interest important in their choice of psychiatrist. Barriers to addressing the issue of spirituality and mental health related to psychiatrists' concern regarding its appropriateness and patients' perception that interest is lacking. Psychiatrists' own beliefs and practices were strong predictors of spiritual inquiry. Although psychiatrists report lower levels of spiritual and religious belief than do patients, they acknowledge that it is important to include this topic in patient care. Increased discussion and education may lower reported barriers to including spirituality and religion in routine psychiatric assessment.

Making nature culture's other: Nineteenth-century American landscape painting and critical discourse

Nature has long figured prominently in our understanding of nineteenth-century American culture. As physical presence, political actor, subject of spiritual, philosophical, and artistic inquiry, nature — both object and idea — has pervaded both popular and scholarly constructions of the American past. Scholars of American landscape painting (whether celebratory or critical) have for decades sought and explicated the meaning and prominence of the landscape within this putative context.1

Iron Working as Spiritual Inquiry in the Indonesian Archipelago

Iron Working as Spiritual Inquiry in the Indonesian Archipelago