The Anatomy of Spiritual Growth

I’ve spent the better portion of today creating workstations for my children. School starts tomorrow and due to COVID their school will be online for the foreseeable future. (You may be wondering why I’m sharing this irrelevant information but be patient, something big is about to download from Spirit! My children consist of a Sophomore and a Senior in high school, so  when I realized I was putting a LOT of detail into the setup, I caught myself (thank you daily mindfulness practice). I stopped and asked myself if I was overdoing it, overthinking it, overcompensating for the lack of in-person school.

Once I could honestly answer those questions with a “no,” I realized what I was doing. I was trying to think like a teenager, a sibling, and a teacher. I found, because I knew these individuals and because I, at least in part, knew what makes up being a teenager, a sibling, and a teacher, I was able to look at my workstation creation from all these perspectives. Was it far enough away from the other sibling not to distract them but within mom’s earshot to ensure they would stay on track? And then, was the environment conducive for learning? Lighting, temp. Environment. Yes, Yes, Yes.  UUUUUhhhhh!!!!

And then came the aha! While it might have seemed I was doing all this at once, there was a method, a familiarity, an anatomy, so to speak. The anatomy of the adolescent, the teacher and the Mom. Anatomy is defined as a “study of the structure or internal workings of something.”  Because I had dissected each aspect at some point in my life, I was then able to bring them all together seamlessly and unconsciously.

My biggest insight was this: all enduring spiritual growth grows out of anatomy. There are particular structural components which come together to create any given person, place, thing, or idea. Yet, it’s not until we understand the breakdown and feel into our lives that we truly begin to know what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and what it means.  This month we’ll be focusing on the U.S.A. (Understanding Spiritual Anatomy).  Don’t you just love acronyms!

I look forward to the journey before us this month.