The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-dayUnderhill, Evelyn
Religion
The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day
Underhill, Evelyn
Spiritual life
Now let us look at the emergence of this life which we have been
considering, and at the typical path which it will or may follow, in an
ordinary man or woman of our own day. Not a saint or genius, reaching
heroic levels; but a member of that solid wholesome spiritual population
which ought to fill the streets of the City of God. We noticed when we
were studying its appearance in history, that often this life begins in
a sort of restlessness, a feeling that there is something more in
existence, some absolute meaning, some more searching obligation, that
we have not reached. This dissatisfaction, this uncertainty and hunger,
may show itself in many different forms. It may speak first to the
intellect, to the moral nature, to the social conscience, even to the
artistic faculty; or, directly, to the heart. Anyhow, its abiding
quality is a sense of contraction, of limitation; a feeling of something
more that we could stretch out to, and achieve, and be. Its impulsion is
always in one direction; to a finding of some wider and more enduring
reality, some objective for the self's life and love. It is a seeking of
the Eternal, in some form. I allow that thanks to the fog in which we
live muffled, such a first seeking, and above all such a finding of the
Eternal is not for us a very easy thing. The sense of quest, of
disillusion, of something lacking, is more common among modern men than
its resolution in discovery. Nevertheless the quest does mean that there
is a solution: and that those who are persevering must find it in the
end. The world into which our desire is truly turned, is somehow
revealed to us. The revelation, always partial and relative, is of
course conditioned by our capacity, the character of our longing and the
experiences of our past. In spiritual matters we behold that which we
are: here following, on higher levels, the laws which govern aesthetic
apprehension.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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