Ep 93 Measuring Spiritual Growth

Measuring “spiritual growth” can be tricky. Many of us have been taught to explore metrics that are easily quantifiable, which makes sense. Numbers help us feel like we have a solid answer. They help us set goals. But as you can probably guess, on this week’s podcast, we’re taking time to look at alternative ways to “measure” our spiritual growth. Join us as we talk about the different sorts of questions we’ve found helpful when considering spiritual maturation. 

#SpiritualGrowth #SpiritualPractices #SpiritualDirection #SpiritualGuidance #Oneness #RelationalConnection #InnerCritic #ThirdWay

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Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

spiritual growth, belonging, reacting,metrics,formation

Dominic Kaiser  00:06

Welcome to The Contemplative Life. Three pastors, friends and spiritual companions help us explore spirituality through a contemplative lens.

I'm Christina Roberts.
I'm Chris Roberts.
I'm Kristina Kaiser. We're glad you joined us.  

Kristina Kaiser

Hello, it's great to be with you. Today we're taking some time to talk about spiritual growth. And specifically, what does spiritual growth look like? This isn't something we necessarily think about every day. But every now and again, we tend to ask ourselves something along the lines of how's my spiritual life? And so that may look like asking ourselves about our spiritual practices, what do I need to do in order to grow spiritually? Do I need to spend five minutes a day, 30 minutes a day? Or maybe it's something else, some sort of behavior? Like, am I losing my patience with my kids too much? Or am I cranky at work? And these are all fine questions. And we tend to ask them because they offer us metrics, and they lend themselves to being able to set goals, and we like stuff like that. But then also, maybe on the other side of that, are there questions that we might find even more helpful? For example, what causes me to react and what helps me move out of reaction? And so as we begin our conversation today, Chris, and Christina, are there questions that you use to help you think about spiritual growth? Or what is it that you have found helpful on your own spiritual journeys?

Christina Roberts  01:43

Interestingly, I was in a conversation with someone last week, and this person was talking about a colleague describing what they said was the metrics that you're talking about Kristina. This person is a Christian. However, I don't think they go to church. I don't think they read their Bible. And so it was really striking to me that those were the things that they were talking about. And in my mind, I was thinking, Oh, how's this person's anxiety levels? In the scriptures it talks about the fruits of the Spirit. And so is there evidence of increased love or peace or patience in this person's life? What does kindness look like? And so it was really interesting to me that what she was describing as the metrics of what she considers a strong person of faith, a Christian, and in this particular context, was like, completely opposite from what I would consider. And so for me, I tend to look more at heart than particular practices that we're doing. So I think that's what immediately comes to mind. 

Chris Roberts  02:36

I can relate to some of the things that you're saying, in your introduction, Kristina Kaiser. I think sometimes we can become panicky. Am I growing enough? Again, we're looking at measurement growth as measurement. And I don't know if thinking of growth as measurement is the most helpful in our spiritual lives. That's why I really appreciate going to a spiritual director because they really can challenge these notions of things that are coming out of our mouth, the things that we think of as growth, I think I've learned to look at what some people would say are reactions, or reacting to things in my life as a negative thing, as a downward graph. But actually, those things can be an upward spike. If you're reacting, then you actually notice something going on in your life, you're discovering an emotion that's deep. That is what one person might say is there needs to be wholeness, or there needs to be healing to a certain emotion or memory. And if your reaction causes you to look at this memory, or this emotion, then that's a measured growth, even though this is like a negative thing that you perceived to happen, it's actually movement in the right direction. So that's one thing I think of is number one, I think a spiritual director helps us with these sort of panicky notions of am I doing enough? And they're like, why don't we look at being how you are being, rather than the whole doing notion? So that's what comes up for me.

Kristina Kaiser  04:14

These are great observations. And they're causing me to think about a lot of times, maybe some of the first messages that were passed down, at least I think this is true in my life. How do you be a good little whatever, whatever your faith background is, and it comes into these did I read enough? And reading is great. And I, in a crisis, there have been times where I've literally picked up a scripture and held it in my hands and cried over it, and allowed it to hit my soul in a certain kind of way. So I'm not anti-scripture by any means. But there are so many moments in a day where it's reaction based. It's that heart.  How's my heart, which both of you are talking about.  And yeah, I'm afraid this didn't go the way I wanted it to go. And I don't think I often name it as fear. But ultimately, when you get to the root of it, you're afraid of something. And so what helps me is that question of, What am I reacting to? How do I deal with all that reaction in my life that feels like a really big piece of the puzzle? And scripture reading as much as I love it, as much as I have allowed it to feed my soul and inspire me, it’s sometimes not the thing that's going to stop my reaction at that moment. So there's that.  Yeah. So I like what you're saying. It causes me to think about, oh, there were these early formation things. And then there is this spiritual maturing, this moving forward,

Christina Roberts  05:44

As we consider the context of the relationship, right, faith, being a relationship and just thinking of my other relationships that I have with people. I rarely think, Oh, I've had 3000 dinners with this family member.  You don't really measure things in that sort of a way, but reflecting back on maybe different historical moments that you've had with this person, or opportunities that you've shared, or anticipating future times with this individual. And so even as I think about my faith journey, in a relational context, my spiritual growth, it's Oh, wow, there's such beauty reflecting in who I was, in my former years as a person of faith and who I hope to be in future years as a person of faith and bringing it all together. And so I think relational context also brings a different, “metric”, if you will.

Chris Roberts  06:27

Yeah, I like that. Thinking of measurement, or I don't know that there's a different word, but thinking of growth as relational fullness, I think is something that we're saying. Am I relationally full? And I think that's super helpful for me to think about, am I relationally full? Am I relationally connected? We talk a lot about the contemplative life leading us to a oneness with God.  It’s not so much about ticking off the list, but am I achieving oneness? Is God with me? Am I with God, in my life, in all the things that I'm working through? I think that's so much more. There's so much more depth to that thinking in that way. Am I achieving oneness than sid I check off the right boxes? And I absolutely agree with you, Kristina Kaiser, there have been times in my life where the other day, we've talked a little bit about the inner critic, and I was one of the things in my earlier formation was scripture memorization. And that's been so helpful to me. Like one of the things that came to me, in this time of listening to the inner critic was put on the mind of Christ. That's the scriptures, and then thinking about what does that mean to put on the mind of Christ? And so I think there are times where scripture can serve. But again, I agree with you, maybe that isn't what some necessarily needed in some moments to help get us through.

Christina Roberts  07:54

I like what you're saying about relational fullness. And it reminds me of recently, our family went apple picking. And it's been a tradition that we've done every year since the kids were little. We might have missed once in COVID, because it was shut down. We were looking back at pictures from all of the years going apple picking. And again, and this year calendars are full as the kids are older, their sports and all the things and so there's an effort like okay, when is the weather going to be warm enough? Do we have a chunk of time that we can do this? And so it's become now where there's such a tradition that I want to make sure we're doing it again.  The spiritual practices, some of them, maybe it is an effort to, “get it on the calendar” or to do whatever the practice is. And yet when you look back, and it's not necessarily to your point, Chris, of checking things off, but just noticing, Oh, in this picture, how are the kids reacting with their baby brother?  And here, he's in the stroller because he's too little to be held. And the next year, one of the older ones can prop him on the hip and those sorts of things. And so just watching the dynamics, again, it's been like a lovely journey. And so I think even I love what you're saying, Chris, about putting on the mind of Christ. Maybe in your earlier formations that had a difference, you've memorized it, and maybe there was a song that went with it. And now as an adult, you're going back to that practice, but it's in this sort of deeper way of how this relates to my present moment of inner criticism. And so I think it's really beautiful in our spiritual growth, that we can come back to things with not only the fresh eyes, but with a combination of all the things that we've experienced up to that point.

Kristina Kaiser  09:21

It's true. And when I think about, oh, how would I look at spiritual growth in my life, or maybe in another's life? I wonder if some of it too, is Oh, I can see the wholeness. We're talking a little bit about oneness before which reminded me of this word wholeness, where like darkness and light both belong.  They are together, they are at the same time there is struggle and love and compassion is all mixed in there together. Can we hold those tensions? And actually, it's funny because I talk about this a lot with some of the children in our household that are approaching their teenage years.  Yeah, there's these difficult things that come up. And as we live in them, some of them become less difficult to walk through. Because I go, I've been in this before and so I don't have that same heightened level of stress as I necessarily had at an earlier time. So it gets easier when you hold tension, a little bit better over time. I don't know, I guess that living in the gray, maybe is part of it, too.

Chris Roberts  10:29

Yeah, I think to your point living in the gray might be part of it. And I think it's all what is coming to us now, like living in the gray could be super helpful for a certain moment. But maybe at other times in our lives, we lean into other things.  We talked a little bit about the practice of taking up and the practice of letting go. Living in the gray space or living in the middle is often a practice of letting go, just letting go of that thing that's coming to you. But there are times in our life where we need to apply the spiritual practice of taking up where we actually apply something. And so that's what comes to mind. Sometimes it's not letting go, sometimes it's taking up. And sometimes it's doing both letting go of one thing and then taking up another thing again, duality and getting rid of it. And all the ways that it's infiltrated us and through our spiritual traditions. It's infiltrated our spirituality, for good or bad, I think leaning into what's most helpful in your current journey.

Kristina Kaiser  11:34

Yeah, I think even as you're talking, I'm reminded of a conversation I had recently. All paradigms tend to come with rules, right? And so maybe sometimes the rule is you do all the things through this one organization, and to this person I was talking to was like, that's not happening. For me. I'm feeling like I want to do social justice work over here with this organization. But I want to have formation over here with this organization. That's against the rules, right? That's not supposed to happen. And this is an interesting tension, right? Because we live in this world where now we're asking the question, does it have to be the way that somebody told me it has to be am I allowed to forge my own path? My own journey? Can I listen to inner wisdom and follow that spirit within what is allowed?  I think an important question is, are we allowed to do that? Do we feel permission to do that? Because those reactions are happening in our body. Can we be sensitive to them? Are we given the permission to do that?

Chris Roberts  12:34

I think the answer can be it depends on who you're around. I think some people use the word Cafeteria Christian or Cafeteria Spiritual Person with some of the things that you're bringing up. So I think it depends on who you're around. I think I understand what people are talking about when they say Cafeteria Christian, I think they're saying about belonging to a community, their belonging, rather than like, being a consumer, where you go to this and you get what you need, or you go to this and you get what you need, you pick and choose. I think, for your spiritual life, maybe sometimes that's needed to find what you want in one location, and to find something different in a different location. I think that's different from belonging to a spiritual community. So again, I think it's who you're around, and what judgments they have to offer.

Christina Roberts  13:20

Going back to the original topic of the podcast of our spiritual growth, I think we've touched on the idea that growth happens, like sometimes there's growth spurts physically and spiritually, emotionally, all the things or sometimes there are the challenges.  When we're going into maybe adolescence, or maybe going into menopause, these major transitions in life where there's a lot of changes going on at once and trying to assimilate all of that. And so I think being mindful that sometimes there's slow and steady growth, and we're showing up and doing the practices and spending time with God in whatever way makes sense in that season. And then other times, there's skewed towards that, where there's an intensity towards one thing or a lack of intensity towards the other. And that's, I think, just part of the journey. 

Kristina Kaiser  13:59

There was a moment not too long ago, somebody asked me a very direct question about where and how I experienced God. And I had to pause, I think, because the original answers to that were things like when you're at church, or when you're doing your spiritual practice.  But I answered in this very weird way. I don't know, I feel like God's always with me when I'm doing this or when I'm doing that, and then I just paid attention to that for a year. What does it look like for me to act and live and know that God is with me in all of this, even the moments where I am less aware that God was still there?  It was different and it is to us old structures like daily abiding, right? It's like daily living, daily walking, and then this observation of it which I just think is part of the spiritual growth models. That's part of it that first we get to name it. And then maybe sometimes we can follow what we send or take. So while it gets to that point where we walk actively, oh, I felt it and I moved towards it or let go as Chris was bringing out.  I was able to do the thing that I felt in my spirit that I could see. 

Thank you for talking today a little bit about spiritual growth and what it looks like to “measure” it in our lives.

And now is the point in the podcast where we take a moment to talk about what we are into. So tell me, what are you into these days?

Christina Roberts  15:38

I am into scented markers. So my kids are really into the store Five Below and I went with them the other day, and they have these scented markers, which was like a throwback to me. I just remember when I was younger, we had these nice smelling markers that we would use at school and scratch and sniff stickers back in the day. It's like this lovely pack of markers. And I got a new journal and so it's fun today. I was journaling and there was some aroma coming out from my marker. And so that is what I am into.

Chris Roberts  16:03

Aromas. I think I could go with that theme.  By the time this podcast releases, it'll probably still be fall and all things pumpkin will be a part of your world as well. And Trader Joe's has this amazing spice called Pumpkin spice and we put it in our coffee. We put it in our oatmeal. I just added this to the kids' applesauce and yogurt after school and it has just a delightful smell to it. So I'm going with aroma as well. Pumpkin Spice.

Kristina Kaiser  16:37

I love all of these things. That's so great. I don't know how to say this right but I guess my youngest recently really got into hot wheel tracks and he is super excited about it. He builds them in all kinds of ways and he figures out even non hot wheel cars in which will go and which won't. And so I'm not specifically into building the tracks. I think that is a skill that is uniquely not mine. But I really enjoy watching him do it and his delight. I'm into watching his delight. 

Thank you so much for being with us today.

Dominic Kaiser 17:15

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