Spirituality for the Spiritually Challenged

What makes you feel fully connected?

I was sitting in a circle with about twenty five men and women in substance abuse and chemical dependency treatment.  “Spirituality,” I said while scanning the room for immediate knee jerk reactions, “what comes to mind, when I say it?”   The room erupted with mild gestures and sounds of discomfort and protest.   I could see that some of the group members were preparing for yet another talk about Higher Power, and they were not in the least interested.  Some responded bluntly with “bullshit, that’s what comes to mind”.  Some took the time to talk about the hypocrisy of the church in which they were brought up, and how it turned them off to anything related to spirituality and religion.   There was some talk about spirits, ghosts, and the supernatural.  A couple of people humbly admitted that they were confused by the word, and didn’t really know what it meant.

I told the group that we were going to put religion aside.