Almost any time I do a speaking engagement or workshop these days I am asked the same question: "So where is the spirituality in progressive Christianity?"  It does appear that people are more comfortable today, talking about something they think of as spirituality. According to the polls more and more people report that they are not "religious" but they consider themselves "spiritual." I would suggest this indicates that there is a growing hunger for spiritual expressions that local churches are not satisfying.

To me one of the most important aspects of spirituality within the Progressive Christian realm is understanding that all human beings are interconnected. You cannot love and serve with a compassionate heart without eventually seeing those whom you are serving as your brother, your sister, your mother, your father, or eventually as yourself, even when it is "the least of these" who you serve. But if we do our serving because we feel that it something we are supposed to do "because the Bible says we should" or "because that is what Jesus did according to scripture," or because it is our "duty," we only separate ourselves more from the others. On the other hand, if we see our compassionate service as an opportunity to experience the "Realm of God" or "Sacred Unity" then our compassionate actions or practices become golden opportunities.

Felix Adler the Jewish philosopher once wrote: "The unique personality which is the real life in me, I can not gain unless I search for the real life, the spiritual quality, in others. I am myself spiritually dead unless I reach out to the fine quality dormant in others. For it is only with the god enthroned in the innermost shrine of the other, that the god hidden in me, will consent to appear."

May your days be filled with laughter, light, and delight.