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Sounds Like Spirit

by Kathy Szaj

I want to tell you a story about spirit and spirituality...and the music that carried me to them.

My first encounter with Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" was more of a kidnapping than a listening. It happened this way.

One day, my friend and colleague, Bob, insists that he share a recording of Barber's "Adagio for Strings" with me. Since Bob and I shared many musical preferences in the past, I am prepared to listen and probably even to like the piece.

Instead, I find myself falling into the music.

Before I know it, I feel myself gently sliding into the music, taken by the hand, led into and yet buffeted by a sweet/sad spiral movement of acute humanness: sorrow, loneliness and aloneness, serenity, woundedness, compassion, reaching and yearning -- oh, such incredible yearning!  The musical spiral winds around me, climbing, carrying me inside it, lifting higher and higher towards something it seeks, something it knows, something that is home.  We arrive -- the music and I -- balancing delicately on a single point of feeling and knowing and being.  I am wordlessly yet totally sure: the universe is wholly good, intrinsically complete, beautiful, on purpose.  In this music I know all this, and in this music I am completely known.  The music plateaus; gently I am returned to the threshold and released.  The "Adagio" slips away.

To this day, I still travel a similar journey whenever I listen deeply -- which means surrender -- to Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings."  Each time the music scoops up the "me of me" and brings me face to face with the luminous, the sacred, the solid heartbeat and filigree soul of itself.  Each time I let myself fall into the music again, my spirit soars ... and I am more.  I believe the "more" that I am seeing is Spirit; and the practice of seeing and acting on that More is spirituality.

I feel my spirit (from a Latin word that means "breath") soar when I witness a sunrise or sunset as if I were personally assisting its birth or death ... when I've nestled a newborn child in my arms as she slept in total trust ... when I watch snow fall, stars appear, gardens flourish ... when I listen to music, the ocean, the silence ... when I exchange glances or giggles with someone significant ... when I hear myself say exactly the right words to someone, even though I was sure I didn't know what to say.  I deliberately remember these, for these daily ordinary moments awaken the power of being connected to Something More ... something I recognize as spirit.

Spirit is ... wonder breath ... breadth ... depth.

Spirit is the primary impulse to admire all life -- with curiosity and awe -- as a guided project in progress.

Spirit is a universal bellows, tending the individual spark in each
ensouled hearth.

Spirit is the "still, small voice" that always says, "It's okay."

Spirit is feeling the whisper of wings after falling beyond hope.

Spirituality is ... wonderbuilt frame of reverence.

Spirituality is the habit of heading for the innerness of people, places and things, and after visiting, leaving some small token of gratitude there.

Spirituality is the vision that remembers that several billion earth creatures originate from and unite at one center.

Spirituality is the practice of purposefully acting as if all thinking/feeling/being matters. And so it does ... in-deed.

And spirituality is consciously tending to all of the above so often that it becomes as natural and necessary as breathing.

Like many of us, I was raised within a specific religious tradition.  At its best, religion (which means "to bind back") hears and honors its spiritual heartbeat.  Through symbol, ritual, story and belief, religion offers a lifeline connection, linking individual daily doings with larger, intrinsic
meaning.  At its source religion brings together our separate selves, creating a nourishing sense of belonging together in common-unity. However, I also know too many stories of people who experience formalized religion as alienating, disconnected from their daily selves.

For me, spirit and spirituality are deeply rooted within the everyday nitty-gritty, yet remain intact even when relationships or worlds crumble.  Living spiritually, then, is an earthy enterprise, asking and responding to questions intimately related to depth, belonging, connectedness and purpose.

1. What does life mean?
2. Where am I going?  Is there a special purpose for my life?  Something I'm supposed to do with my life?  If so, how wilI I know what it is?
3. What's really important in life?  In my life?  How do I know?
4. Are there forces of good and evil in the universe?  If so, how will I recognize them?  What should I do?
5. Does good win over evil?
6. Why is there suffering?  Do I have to suffer to be a good person?
7. Is there anything real beyond our five senses?  What proof do we have?
8. What is the strongest power in the universe?  Am I connected to this power?
9. Does an ultimate life principle – God – really exist? If so, how do we know?  Is it just a matter of faith?  What if I don't have faith?

In the process of asking the questions – and listening for responses – I've received gifts: a sense of belonging, worth and acceptance not limited by any creed; a recognition that true power is internal, and creativity is its truest expression; a reclaiming of wonder, awe, curiosity, gratitude and celebration as daily habit; a gradual increase in patience for the unknown and anticipation of the future with hope, despite uncertainty; and experience of darkness, confusion and chaos as purposeful and powerful tools of human growth.

I am lucky.  My education and the people I've known pointed me toward spirituality as internal power, helping me to name it, cherish it, celebrate it, and recognize its voice.  They've given me a "frame of reverence" to live my life as I "grow my soul."  They've rooted my imagination, inspired my creativity, and given wing to my spirit.

My creative spirit soars as I dream of empowering children and adults to create desirable futures; as I write children's books; as I teach children how to create and perform their own stories; and as I write these words today.

May the music of your spirit lift you high, carry you far, and gently take you home.

Kathy Szaj is a writer living in New York City.  Her email is kszaj1107@aol.com.  Ms. Szaj's unique books for and about children are found at Amazon.com.

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