Lucy, I feel pleased as well as privileged to have broadened your appreciation of an aspect of yourself that was latent but was awaiting clarity to be realized. How rare an occurrence! I am sending you an email that relates to this essay, if you are interested and have the patience. Thanks for your interest in my writing. I am trying to reach out to people who may share my interests and are willing to engage me in conversation.
As an atheist, I have long wondered what it would mean to also define myself as spiritual. My husband, Richard Lettis, author of “A-Theism: Believe It or Not,” was passionately aesthetic yet described himself as being spiritual. I did not understand. Now I do, thanks to your essay. You describe spiritualism in several senses, one of them being a feeling of being in communion with humanity. So, yes, I now know I am indeed a spiritual person and can explain why. Thank you for writing and posting this.
Of course, you grabbed me with the literary references. As a student of literature, I’ve studied and closely analyzed all of the poems you cite. (At the tender age of 19, years before I formally studied literature or became an atheist, I was so moved by noticing Blake’s “to see a world in a grain of sand” etched on the wall on the staircase to the crypt underneath Westminster Abbey that I stopped to write it down.) Thank you for all of these references as well!
Lucy, I feel pleased as well as privileged to have broadened your appreciation of an aspect of yourself that was latent but was awaiting clarity to be realized. How rare an occurrence! I am sending you an email that relates to this essay, if you are interested and have the patience. Thanks for your interest in my writing. I am trying to reach out to people who may share my interests and are willing to engage me in conversation.
You write so beautifully!
Thank you for these words of wisdom. I so identify with this essay since I'm always challenged about my belief in spirituality as opposed to religion.
Thank you Joe for the "peace" you bring.
You are most welcome!
As an atheist, I have long wondered what it would mean to also define myself as spiritual. My husband, Richard Lettis, author of “A-Theism: Believe It or Not,” was passionately aesthetic yet described himself as being spiritual. I did not understand. Now I do, thanks to your essay. You describe spiritualism in several senses, one of them being a feeling of being in communion with humanity. So, yes, I now know I am indeed a spiritual person and can explain why. Thank you for writing and posting this.
Of course, you grabbed me with the literary references. As a student of literature, I’ve studied and closely analyzed all of the poems you cite. (At the tender age of 19, years before I formally studied literature or became an atheist, I was so moved by noticing Blake’s “to see a world in a grain of sand” etched on the wall on the staircase to the crypt underneath Westminster Abbey that I stopped to write it down.) Thank you for all of these references as well!
Thanks so much, Alice. Your thought is much appreciated!
You are most welcome, Marilyn. Many thanks for your interest.