Editorial

As I began to write this Editorial, I received the welcome news that my two daughters had successfully completed a marathon-length (26.2 miles) sponsored hike across the South Downs of England to raise money for the charity Cancer Research UK. Their team of five was called ‘Trail Magic’, a nod towards one daughter having walked the entire length of the Appalachian Trail in the USA some years ago, accompanied and spurred on by her sister for the first 500 of the 2000+ miles of the trail. They have often spoken of the ‘trail magic’ that occurred on many occasions during that gruelling American trek: of times when, exhausted and hungry, they would come across a box of cookies left in one of the shelters by an anonymous well-wisher; or a signposted invitation to a remote homestead just off the Trail where the owners would offer refreshing drinks and a comfortable respite from the hike.¹

In a good luck message for the South Downs Way event, I sent the team an image of a footpath on which were superimposed the words: ‘Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.’ It seemed an apt sentiment to apply not only to a day devoted to hiking for a good cause on one of England’s most ancient and scenic pathways;² but to a day that would inevitably contain some rough, hard-going moments as, with the journey’s end still nowhere in sight, weary legs would have to be coaxed up yet another tough uphill path in order to experience the joys of reaching the finishing line.

While I was searching for the provenance of the quotation, it struck me that its sentiment might be applied equally well to the study of spirituality, and especially to the particular mix of studies included in this issue, as I shall outline in a moment. I had thought the words were those of John Muir (1838-1914),³ the writer, conservationist and ‘founding father’ of the National Parks movement. I have long appreciated his holistic perspective and, when trying to explain the difficulty of ‘getting hold’ of what spirituality ‘is’, I have sometimes drawn on his much-quoted observation: ‘When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe’ (Muir 1911/1988, 110). Recording this in his diary on one of his first expeditions in the Sierra Nevada mountains, Muir continued:

One fancies a heart like our own must be beating in every crystal and cell, and we feel like stopping to speak to the plants and animals as friendly fellow-mountaineers. Nature as a poet, … becomes more and more visible the farther and higher we go; for the mountains are fountains - beginning places, however related to sources beyond mortal ken (1911/1988).

In a recent John Muir Award Newsletter, Alastair Humphreys (2017, 2) echoed Muir’s enthusiasm by pointing out that:

Mountains and moorlands – and urban greenspaces or local woods, even – are where exercise, exploration and endeavour can mix seamlessly with refreshing the mind, escaping the tyranny of emails, and thinking a little bigger and bolder about life and the world.

He went on to recommend ‘making sure a few of the paths [we] take in life are dirt, in amongst all those paths that are rushing madly around to pass exams, pay mortgages, raise kids, and get promoted’. Humphreys concluded:

It’s important that we remind ourselves not just to preach to the converted, but to live adventurously, to seek new audiences. For the more people we can convince to care, the more potential we create for lasting action and change. (Humphreys 2017)

Although Humphreys was referring primarily to outdoor and conservation activities, his reminder is also salient for those of us involved in the study of spirituality. It seems to me that we, too, need to ‘convince [people] to care’ about such studies and their ‘potential … for lasting action and change’.

In many ways, the notion of ‘dirt paths’ – in the sense of those that are difficult, those that lead into an apparent wilderness and/or, in Muir’s words, those that cause us to contemplate ‘sources beyond mortal ken’ – is the very stuff of spirituality. Indeed, albeit from very different perspectives, all the main articles in this issue are concerned with how to cope with, learn from - and find pleasure and/or comfort in - following such paths.

First, Janet Groen writes from a very personal perspective of her quest as an academic in a university school of education in Canada ‘to find spiritual wellness and health’. Like Humphreys, she alludes to following a path in her workplace that involves ‘rushing madly around’. In terms that will be familiar not only to academics but to those in many other professions, she describes ‘feeling buffeted’ in a ‘rapidly-changing world … where pace and expectations have heightened, where competition for income is increasing, and the stability previously offered … is gone’. In consequence, Groen says: ‘I felt the need to revisit the deeper questions of meaning and purpose in my work.’ In her search for what she calls ‘inner and outer congruence’, Groen engaged in a number of meditative practices, including a silent retreat. Her article explores some of the personal highs and lows of following this particular path and draws attention to implications for professional practice.

Evidently, spiritual explorations may both arise from, and themselves involve, different forms of unease and suffering. In a contribution from Australia, Robyn Wrigley-Carr addresses the issue of ‘Suffering Well’. This concept was central to the work of religious philosopher, Baron Friedrich von Hügel and his spiritual director, Abbé Henri Huvelin. Comparing and contrasting the work of the two scholars, Wrigley-Carr points out that, whilst acknowledging there is no beauty in suffering per se, they both recognized how it can lead to transformation. Drawing also on the voices of poets who have spoken about joy in the midst of suffering, she raises questions about how spiritual directors today can best accompany their directees on their individual spiritual pathways and provide the kind of care that will help them, where needed, to ‘suffer well’.

Richard Egan, Anna Graham-DeMello, Sande Ramage and Barry Keane examine the qualities of spiritual care in a medical context. They report on a novel co-design project in New Zealand which asked directly: ‘What do cancer patients and their family members want?’ Through the active involvement of patients and families who were coming to terms with finding themselves on the difficult and uncertain path that underpins the so-called ‘cancer journey’, Egan and his colleagues explored understandings of spirituality and how these might play out, and be supported through, care systems. Participants understood spiritualty to be characterized by core values; expressions of love and kindness; and connectedness with others and/or with the environment. They felt that documentation of spiritual beliefs had the potential to inform others about their needs and wishes and to foster respect for their choices; and recommended that opportunities should be purposefully created for people to engage in conversation about spirituality.

Understandings of spirituality identified in the Egan et al study are echoed in a second contribution from Canada. Drawing on her autoethnographic research into ‘How travel might become more like spiritual pilgrimage’, Laura Béres describes her own experience of spirituality in terms of encountering the love and kindness of friends, members of spiritual communities, and even complete strangers, on her travels; and of sometimes feeling a deep connection with her physical environment. Of one occasion when she was resting during a long day’s walk, she says: ‘I could feel the grass, the heat of the sun … and the wind. It was totally wonderful – spiritual. I felt connected.’ Using the literature of Christian pilgrimage, Béres compares aspects of some of her own journeys with stages and themes of pilgrimage and concludes: ‘even everyday travel in our local communities can involve mindfulness and a spiritual openness to learning and engaging with others’.

Perhaps some of our ‘rushing around madly’ paths need us only to take a different perspective in order to convert them into the ‘dirt paths’ of spiritual development – and to recognize the magic rather than the madness in our lives!

In addition to these articles, this issue contains two contributions to the Forum. As a reminder, the purpose of this popular section of the journal is to:

…  invite the submission of ‘Think Pieces’, short articles that are specifically designed to raise new issues and questions relating to spirituality; engage with significant on-going debates and/or controversial aspects of theory, practice or policy; respond to articles previously published in JSS; outline plans and ideas for new research; and/or address matters that are consistent with the aims of JSS, using forms of writing other than a full-length academic journal article.

In the first ‘Think Piece’, from the USA, Glauco Frizzera reflects on the notion of what he calls a ‘non-personal Universe of Being’. He considers, in particular, its implications ‘for the daily life of any person who believes in a higher power acting in the world, but does not understand it as a personal God or Father’. Frizzera suggests that the ‘Universe of Being’ involves ‘deep respect for nature and … the need to reach out to the inner life of fellow humans … to create being/good in daily life’. He invites further discussion on this important topic.

In the second Forum item, in which he presents a summary of his on-going research into how religion and spirituality relate to schooling, Julian Stern similarly invites discussion, and possible research collaboration. Based in the UK, Stern explains that he began researching spirituality because, in this country, ‘spiritual development’ is a statutory requirement for all state schools. Exploring whether this is appropriate, and what it might therefore mean, led him to research the concept of relational spirituality, from which the idea of the ‘spirit of the school’ emerged. Building on this, Stern describes a novel approach to researching the ‘spirit of religious education’ and suggests that it might also be applied within other professions, such as nursing and healthcare.

The final item in this issue is a Report on the Fifth International Conference of the British Association for the Study of Spirituality (BASS) which was held in conjunction with the Sixth European Conference on Religion, Spirituality and Health (ECRSH) in Coventry, UK, in May of this year. Plans for the 2020 BASS Conference are currently in their preliminary stages. Watch this space – and the BASS and JSS websites – for further information!

All being well, the 2020 conference will include a celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of JSS. Following initial discussions with Janet Joyce, Director of Equinox, the journal’s original publisher, the impending launch of the journal was announced at the very first BASS conference, Spirituality in a Changing World, in 2010. Since that time, not only has the world continued to change but BASS and JSS have also done so as they have sought to find a pathway through an uncertain social, political and financial landscape. That pathway has often manifested all the characteristics of a ‘dirt path’ that I mentioned above: difficult, sometimes seeming to be lost in a wilderness – and always requiring contemplation of ‘sources beyond mortal ken’. Nevertheless, the journey goes on and you are warmly invited to participate through readership and contributions to JSS, and membership of BASS. We hope you will join the celebrations in 2020 – and in the on-going endeavour in the study of spirituality to ‘Make the Road by Walking’ (Bell et al. 1990).⁴

As part of the celebrations we are hoping to produce a special online issue of JSS which will include readers’ ‘Top Ten’ articles from all previous issues. I should be delighted to know which articles would get your personal vote – and why. Do get in touch – you have the power to shape the issue!

None of the issues would have appeared without the dedicated work of the journal’s Editorial Board and, as always, I acknowledge and thank them for their on-going support. I am delighted to announce that Robyn Wrigley-Carr has recently joined the Board as Book Reviews Editor. She is currently Senior Lecturer in Theology and Spirituality at Alphacrucis College, Sydney, Australia. Having previously worked in the Religious Books Department of Hodder & Stoughton Publishers in London before embarking on her studies in Spiritual Theology at Regent College, Vancouver, Canada, and subsequently undertaking her Ph.D. at the University of St Andrews in Scotland on aspects of spiritual direction, Robyn is eminently well-suited to the job. It is a pleasure to welcome her to the team. Further information about Robyn’s work is available at https://www.ac.edu.au/faculty-and-staff/robyn-wrigley-carr/. Coincidentally, this issue also provides an introduction to Robyn’s research interests via her article ‘Suffering Well’ which was selected for publication several months before she joined the Board. If you have any suggestions about books for review, do get in touch with Robyn: [email protected]. She’s ready and waiting to hear from you!

Acknowledgements

My grateful thanks are due to the following colleagues who have acted as guest reviewers for this volume: Alison Gray, Andrew Louth, Themesa Neckles, Jacki Thomas and Joan Walton.

ORCID

Cheryl Hunt http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3171-1617

Notes

1 Such selfless acts of generosity might be construed not simply as ‘magic’ but as evidence of spirituality in action. In William James’s (1907/1975) pragmatic epistemology, for example, the meaning of ideas and the truth of beliefs lie in the practical difference they make in people’s lives.

2 Details at: https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/south-downs-way/information [Accessed 03/09/2018].

3 It is often mis-attributed to John Muir, as noted at: http://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/misquotes.aspx [Accessed 03/09/2018].

4 The phrase comes from the title of a book based on conversations between two influential educationalists and activists, Myles Horton and Paulo Freire. It therefore seems particularly apt in relation to my earlier suggestion that the study of spirituality can provide ‘potential … for lasting action and change.’