Politics and the Spiritual Life

I am blessed to be part of a small group which meets every month for fellowship and "to solve all the world's problems" (well, mostly those in our own back yard). During Advent and Lent, in particular, we enjoy the writings of 20th century Christian mystic Evelyn Underhill.

Evelyn (we're on a first-name basis) writes with uncompromising urgency about how important it is that we pay attention to God in all aspects of life and not allow ourselves be swallowed up by worldly concerns that are turned away from God and toward selfish pursuits. A passage from last week in Advent with Evelyn Underhill almost jumped off the page. She is talking about how important it is that the spiritual life be integrated with the world around us - not "above" it, but centered in its very midst:

"It is far easier, though not very easy, to develop and preserve a spiritual outlook on life, than it is to make our everyday actions harmonise with that spiritual outlook. That means trying to see things, persons and choices from the angle of eternity; and dealing with them as part of the material in which the Spirit works."

In other words, we don't judge people and actions based on whether they conform to our own personal piety or agenda. Instead, we simply ask: Where is the Triune God? In what ways is God present and active through those people and the things they say and do?

Adopting this perspective opens two welcome pathways. One is that we are relieved of the burden, the anxiety, of being judgmental, something which saps a lot of our energy and is really God's arena, anyway. The other is that we will be able to easily discern, as Evelyn puts it, "the papers we read, the movements we support, the kind of administrators we vote for."

And once we discern those, we will undoubtedly become more passionate about them because God's truth will become increasingly apparent to us. "Once it is accepted in a realistic sense," Evelyn writes, "the spiritual life has everything to do with politics."