E 242 How Do We Measure Spiritual Health?

 

Hello. It's great to be with you. Today we are talking about how we measure spiritual health. Chris and I have both been in the work of spiritual formation for over 25 years, and one thing that I find challenging as it relates to our spiritual lives is that we don't have the same kind of biomarkers available to us as we do with physical health and wellbeing.

We can look at things like blood pressure, cholesterol, even fevers or rashes as indicators of how we're doing physically. We have access to measurable data that helps paint a picture of what health needs are going well, where we need attention. And then from there we have specific resources. And so for example, if you're low on iron, you can take an iron supplement or eat particular foods, or if you discover that you have diabetes, you can take insulin.

But I often wonder how do we go about doing that with our spiritual lives? For example, if I'm grumpy at my spouse, then does that mean I need to go meditate for 10 minutes? What does an annual wellness check or a follow up look like as it relates to spiritual health? And I think it's hard to measure also, because so much of what happens in this spiritual life is this internal hidden work.

And so today's conversation is one that I would actually love to be having right now with a group of people where we could bounce ideas off one another because I'm actually interested to hear what others have to say or to share. However, since we're in a podcast format, what we'll do is share some ways to at least get the conversation started and put the invitation out there.

If anybody would love to talk further please reach out to us via our website@thecontemplativelife.net, and we'd love to hear some of your thoughts. So with that in mind, I think that the first piece of measuring spiritual health is to actually define it. What does spiritual wellbeing look like?

What are the attributes that we might want to pay attention to? And I don't think that there's necessarily one definition of health or wellness. I find that there are many variables and ways to approach it. And so I'd like to offer a few frameworks that Chris and I have both used or others that we've worked with that have used that have seemed quite helpful.

And so let me just share a story. I remember when I was a brand new lead pastor, we had just moved to Madison to start our church, and I was invited to a meeting of other lead pastors in the Midwest area. And during our  introductions, we were to say our name, where we were from, and then we were asked to share how many people attend our church on Sunday mornings.

And I personally thought that was a strange question. And I watched, as we went around the circle, I was one of the last ones to share. People really struggled to answer that question. I heard people stretching their numbers or justifying their numbers. And maybe because I was brand new, people didn't expect me to have a certain number, so I just answered the question and moved on.

But that experience and the introduction stayed with me. And so I went back home and I thought, all right, I don't really want the number of people on a Sunday to be an indicator of our spiritual viability. Instead, I wanna be asking the questions, are we fostering the greatest two commandments that Jesus gave us?

So Jesus said that we're to love the Lord your God with your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love neighbor self. And so I thought, what if that was our framework? As we are gathering each week, are we seeing growth in those areas of loving God and loving others? And what does that look like as it relates to how we might be spending our time or our money?

What kind of teachings do we need to be studying together? How do we gather that really fosters those two indicators? And I quickly realized that. If that was our focus, that actually the number of people sitting in chairs in a building on a given Sunday was moot because we were living faith each day of the week and the love and goodness of God was happening on a random Tuesday or with a colleague at work, or in a multiple variety of ways that couldn't be contained to the one and a half hour, one day a week kind of frame.

And so that frame that Jesus offered became very wonderful and freeing and expansive to my own faith, and I believe was a wonderful marker of spiritual vitality in that season of life and leadership. And then I remember years later after that gathering talking to some of the other pastors that were in that room that day, and them recounting the stress of striving for certain numbers on a Sunday and how that created burnout.

Fatigue worry. And many of them actually ended up stepping down from ministry years later in ways that were quite painful and difficult. And so I say all that to say, I think that how we define our frameworks or measures is super important in how we approach spiritual health and wellness. And that's not to say, again, that if we're going down a certain path that we can't pivot.

I think absolutely we can get new data and . Change. And I think, again, some of those pastors actually realized that those metrics weren't creating health. They were actually creating separation and stress. And so I think that hopefully this is an invitation where we can gather more data and use that.

But I think that was a really helpful framework for me of this data of people on a Sunday morning wasn't helpful to me, where looking at the two commandments as a framework was super helpful.



I love what you're bringing up and this conversation in general. I love talking about spiritual health, spiritual wellness, physical health, physical wellness, and the holisticness of. The physical and the spiritual. And I think one of the things that came to mind as you were speaking was how a person would end up in aa.

I think AA is a place where people look at physical health and spiritual health. It's, it is a holistic program, but I think there's a rock bottom ness. That a lot of people enter, that cause them to enter into aa. Like you, you know I'm, this is not where I imagined my life to be at this point.

I, I took a wrong turn somewhere. There are these indicators that say I'm definitely not on the right track. One of the things that I love about aa, the step of looking to, to a higher power, and I think aiming up is so important whenever we're looking at spiritual health. And I love that you brought up those two points that Christian teachings talk about, loving the Lord.

Your God with your whole heart and loving your neighbor as yourself. And I think that is aiming up, right? That's looking beyond yourself. You're looking to something higher than yourself. And I think for me, that's one of the mo most important indicators. Am I looking up? Am I looking out? Or am I just totally looking in.

So I appreciate this conversation and those are a couple things that come to mind as we talk about spiritual health. 

Yeah, and I appreciate you naming that. It's not, spiritual health isn't just inward, but I think it's both inward and outward. Again, pointing back to that teaching of Jesus and even your framework of aa.

And again, case in point that there's not one framework that there's. Many different frameworks in which we can approach this idea of spiritual health markers. And I think that's a great example that you bring up of AA and has helped so many people. And for other people it's not their jam and they have another framework.

And so with that in mind, let me offer another framework that. I found helpful in, especially in working with others, is this idea of the fruits of the spirit. And this is a list found in the New Testament that describes characteristics or what we might expect as we're cultivating spiritual wellbeing in cooperation with the spirit.

And again, that's such an elusive term, like how do we cooperate with the spirit and what is. Spirit like the fruits what are outcomes in our lives as we're engaging with the spirit. And so I, I find it helpful that there's this list that we can go back to. And there's nine of them. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness.

Faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And this has been super helpful in my life as I'm maybe discerning things or sorting out things. It's okay, is this choice helping me to lead to more peace in my life? Or does this empower me to be more faithful or kind? And I think I notice if I'm experiencing these things, that's an indicator that things are going.

With my spirituality and the things that I'm doing are working well and causing good fruits in my life, similarly to like, if I change my diet and I'm doing things that give me more energy, that's a helpful sign that things are going well. And so I think that the fruits of the spirit to me are that wellness of yep, you're on the right track, and things are looking really good because we're seeing joy in your life or kindness or whatever it is.

And so I have found this to be another just really helpful frame in my own life and with those that I companion.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, look, looking at this all these words are positive, right? They're, they have a abundance, they have fulfillment. There's, encouragement. There's there's goodness whenever you look at those lists, and I think vice versa, you have to look like, what are the opposite, what is the opposite of joy?

Misery what's the opposite of peace anxiousness, and so I think this is, this really is a very helpful list because all you have to do is say do I have the opposite of. The things these markers going on in my life, and if so. Where do I need to adjust? How do I need to evaluate?

So I love this list. But also I love taking a look at do, do I have the adverse thing going on in my life? Do I have anxiousness? Do I have the, a lack of discipline? I love that self-control as one of the list, if I don't have self-control if I lack discipline, what's going on?

What's going on in my life? So I really appreciate this list as well. 

And maybe it's because I'm a glasses half full type of a person, but I like what you're saying about that. It's positive attributes and I have a friend that does health coaching and she's often talking about, rather than looking at I can't eat these particular foods and I'm eliminating.

What are the abundance of foods that you can eat if you wanna have these particular health goals with this particular nutritional pathway that you're choosing? And as she helps people to do that, it really expands of wow, I've never tried this particular food before, or this grain and it's an expansive thing and really helps people to enter into health in a more positive way versus a restrictive way.

And so when I think about the fruits of the spirit I imagine that of just as I'm cultivating these things that are hidden wow, all the I'm all of a sudden more gentle in my tone with somebody that I'm talking to or can express some faithfulness and something that would otherwise seem to be a chore.

But recognizing, no, I'm just being faithful to what's in front of me. And so it just feels, again, very empowering and expansive. Similar to this lady that's, on a food health nutrition course. And again, I think there's a lot that we can learn and borrow from. The regular physical health world that we can adapt to the spiritual life.

I think another framework that I've seen people have some real traction with is this idea of creating a creed or a faith manifesto. I've had some people that have really written and taken some time to think about what are my statements of faith and one person that I was meeting with was a little bit disturbed by some language that they had growing up with liturgical prayers or some of the doctrines, but didn't wanna throw it all out.

And so decided to rewrite some of those like liturgical apostles, creeds and some of the ancient prayers and to combine things with their own language to provide a guidepost. And it just felt very honoring to them of some of their historical pasts with faith within also recognizing that there's pieces of it that they wanted to nuance a little bit into their language and lives.

And that I thought that was great, and that's something that they would return back to over and over again is their creator faith manifesto. So that's another example of how one might engage in, again, these frameworks to help us to have those biomarkers. 

Yeah, and I think something that comes to mind for me you talked about us being involved in spiritual formation for a number of years.

I think one of the, super beneficial ways that I've engaged in spiritual formation is through a year of Benedictine formation. And, the Benedictines have a formation process and they go, they use it by studying the Rule of St. Benedict. And it's a book that has all the different values that, that you can find in, in, in the Benedictine life.

And you used the word guidepost which I think is so helpful, but I think one of the frames that they used in Benedictine language is like a lattice or a trellis that these values, my, my values are from my study of Benedictine life are deep listening, hospitality ongoing conversion.

My commitment to, to keep growing and learning. And they described a trellis or a lattice as this is the way that you want to grow. This is the path that you want to engage on. And so I think that, yeah, you're right. Looking at faith, creeds, manifestos values are ways that help you grow the way that you want to grow.

So I, I love that you bring up guideposts. 

Yeah. And I like that picture that you're offering us of the trellis and continuing to grow upward and that we do need some so that it doesn't get outta control or whatever. Or that we're focusing on too much too. I think it's helpful to have those values and.

To build off of that, Chris, I think one of the practices that I've appreciated about also the Benedictine formation is that each year you get to revisit those values and to say, do I still ascribe to these? Are there changes that I wanna make in that? And for example, you lifted up hospitality as an example.

That value has probably looked different for you in various seasons of life. And so as you're reevaluating the new season in this offering. What does hospitality look like and how might that value be expressed differently? And I think it's in, in the same way right as I am getting older, what health markers look like for me physically in this season of my life is very different from, for example, when I was pregnant, right?

I had very different health markers and things that I was looking at and having to pay attention to and up this particular type of food intake or vitamin intake or things like that. Because of what I was engaging in or when I was younger, or my kids are in sports and so they may have some different needs or recoup things that someone that's in a different stage of life doesn't need.

And so I think it's really interesting that we can take a look at these markers and I think, again, defining what spiritual health looks like for us ahead of time, to me feels just like a really helpful way that kind of gets us on a path going in a world that doesn't have the automatic.

Wellness checks and people reminding you to go to the dentist and things like that.

Yeah, and I think something that you just brought up just sparked my memory. I think another, you talked about different seasons, I think. Looking at spiritual wellness or even physical wellness, like some of the important indicators are your rhythms.

And I had an experience this morning of I am a substitute bus driver, and so I was helping out in the school district and I, picked up a kid. Today who is on the autistic spectrum and I, I'm just so used to going to the places that I need to go, that sometimes I don't look at the map and I didn't look at the map.

I was just going and so they had labeled the location. One, one place, but he was actually going to a d completely different place. And so it got this student out of a rhythm. And whenever I went to drop him off the aid that was there was like, oh my gosh, this is gonna be the worst day.

'cause he's out of his rhythm. And I think sometimes our rhythms can be like that. If we get out of our rhythms, it could just throw us for a loop. And one of the things that I also appreciate rhythms is because you've dug the trenches that you've you've formed those neural pathways that it's easy to come back to.

But I just thought of, I think looking at our rhythms are really important to spiritual health as well. 

I think that's important that you name that. And so hopefully some of what we offered today feels inspirational to you and not heavy. Again, we're not trying to say you have to do all 20 of these things to be spiritually healthy.

And I think, again, same thing in our physical health. Usually we encourage people just to do one thing, drink more water if that's like an indicator, like we all need more hydration in our lives, and so maybe carrying around a water bottle is that piece of health that you're gonna focus on, and it's not like you have to.

Drink more water and then weightlift three times a week and do cardio. Like you don't do it all at once. You take one step at a time. And I think that's our hope for today's conversation is that we would just begin to think a little bit more about what are our particular definitions of spiritual health and wellness?

What are we aiming for? So again, I'm not aiming to be a marathon runner and to compete in CrossFit or whatever like that. And the way that I approach exercise and movement is much different than I have a friend of mine that she is, she's a professional. Bodybuilder and competes and does wonderfully.

And her approach to movement is much different than mine because we have different goals and different definitions of what that looks like for us. Where on the flip side, I'm probably a little bit more in tuned with, maybe the sourcing of my food and some of that, and that's something that's not as big of a deal for her 'cause her metabolism's different or whatever.

And so again, I think on a spiritual level, just in taking some time to think about what is spiritual health? How do we measure that? And again, would love to hear any thoughts that you all have as we just continue to sit with this and try to put some helpful content out into the world. So thank you so much for joining us.

And now is the part of the podcast where we take a moment to talk about what we're into. So what are we into? 

I am into, an audio listening. Space creating audio listening space. I recently had a birthday and my lovely wife knows that I love records and vinyls and so she got me a vinyl that I have wanted for the longest time.

And it took a little bit to get here. I had a couple of, I have some nice speakers and I busted them out and I created a, an audio listening haven to listen to these LPs. And I'm just really enjoying my audio, visual experience of listening to these LPs. So that's what I've been into recently.

We had these lovely speakers in storage that now have a home on your wall. So it's fun to see. And my kids have corrected me, mom. Nobody calls them LPs. They're vinyls. So anyway okay, I need to switch my language. So anyway, I'm glad you're enjoying them, Chris. I am into, usually this time of year, I'm very much into soups.

I love soups in, in. Where we're at in Wisconsin, it's wintertime here, but lately I've been adding turmeric to my soups and I love turmeric. Like I'm really into that. And that's a spice that I feel like I haven't really gotten into where it seemed like, I don't know, like some granola type thing that really healthy people do.

And I don't know, I thought maybe it would taste weird, but it really is a nice rounding out to my soup journeys and different soups that I'm trying. So I am really into turmeric lately in my soups. Thank you so much for joining us and until next time, make it a great week.