287. Living: People Drifting Away

Spirituality means giving up your time for others

My closing words on my last blog were:

where there are no flowers, weeds will grow.

Spirituality means closeness to one another

If in our lives, in our minds, in our hearts, there are no flowers of beauty, of generosity, of kindness, of thoughtfulness; the weeds of anger, meanness, cruelty and selfishness will grow.  That’s how empires of misery are created and make our lives on this earth unbearable.

Spirituality means wearing God on your sleeve

If to the tiresome weeds we substitute “indifference” and to the “flowers of beauty” we substitute “spirituality” maybe the concept that the West has emptied itself of spirituality, becomes more clear.

Spirituality means passing it on

The word “spirituality”, for the Christian, may also be substituted by “evangelization” because evangelization means to know and live according to the gospels- now, don’t tell me there is no spirituality in the gospels.

Spirituality means showing you care

What I found in the backstreets of India, among extreme poverty and abandon of care on behalf of any institution, was the ability the people had to be joyful. Without spirituality, there can be no joy.  That’s why psychology and psychiatry are booming in the West... The people in India, often destitute of daily substance to live on, have never met a psychologist- yet they are joyful from within.  Western people are in and out of psychological sittings- and they remain miserable.

Spirituality means protecting the weak

I am not saying that all people in India are spiritual.  Among those that have no spirituality there are those who are cut-throats, steal and commit corruption of all kinds... but those patches are limited, like I said, to those who have no spirituality within them.  Even so there are vastly far more spiritual people in India than the West when you consider that there are 7 billion people in the world and about 1.4 billion of them alone live in India.

Spirituality means the ability to be simple

So, how can one know if there is or there isn’t any spirituality in this or that area of the world?  Fairly simple: 

when you get someone who charges you more than expected because you urgently need something;

when someone will ignore another who is struggling with a case, a push chair, a baby;

when someone gives you a grumpy look because they have to shift their paper so you can sit next to them on the train or bus;

when someone gets irritated because you ask a question;

when instead of giving you a straight answer someone piles you off to this or that desk aimlessly;

when you pay someone to do a job and they cut corners;
when you use people on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ as numbers...

Spirituality means the ability to have joy

In effect the list is endless, when someone is thoughtless and couldn’t care a dam about anyone else except themselves, that’s when we can safely say there is no spirituality, no evangelization.  When, in spite of looking out exclusively for no 1 they are nevertheless miserable, that’s when we can see there is no spirituality or evangelization.  When we see faces incapable of joy... that’s a sure sign there is no spirituality or evangelization. 

Spirituality means knocking each other about- but not for real

So now you know why the West is so much in need of evangelization.

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