> I've always been troubled by the word "spiritual".  To me, "spiritual" means
> faith -- belief without knowledge.  If you don't know the answer,
> then just make it up.
>
> I can't accept that.  I can live with question marks.
>
> Norm
>
The magic of a sunrise = the mere refraction of light through
atmospheric particals, yet we still experience a feeling of awe at the
beauty.  Why?  Native Americans and other cultures thought in animist
terms about things such as "the river spirit", "the spirit of the oak"
or "the spirit of this mountain", but perhaps they knew that those
spirits were really projections of their emotional reactions from within
themselves onto/into the inanimate object.  I like to think--or
"believe", if you will--in animist terms, yet I know that it's just my
body chemistry's intricate hormonal interplay that causes me to respond
to the sunrise with a feeling of peace and security.  I know that the
sunrise itself has no spirit.

What a miracle to be blessed with color vision!  Yet I could find books
and books on chemical reactions within the brain that allow us to see in
color, and why our species evolved to see in color.  But, I find more
pleasure, or "believe in" watching a sunrise, taking in with all of my
senses the color, the birdsong, herbal fragrances that rise in the mist
from the valley floor, more so than dissecting each component of those
brief "spiritual" moments.  There are those of us who would take more
pleasure in the books, and those of us who would take more pleasure in
experiencing the "spiritualism".  I suppose it doesn't hurt to do a
little of each though, does it?  I'll admit it does gives me more of a
sense of wonder to be aware of the atomic dramatics behind a sunrise,
but to dwell on that, as opposed to just "feeling" the sunrise, detracts
from the sensual, spiritual experience (for me, anyway).

Ironically, I  "believe" now that a low-fat vegan left me bereft of that
spiritualism for a while, because the fats needed to make the hormones
that allow me to "feel" were depleted, and the organs that make those
hormones were damaged. But I have no way of knowing that for sure.  I
just made up that answer out of faith in whatever knowledge I found so
far on the subject ;-)  We can put those question marks to rest for a
time with our beliefs, so that we can put our minds to rest to move on
to something else, even if a different answer to our beliefs turns up
later, can't we?

Questionably wond'ring aloud,
Lois