PEAK EXPERIENCE: If you feel that “spirit,” do you need a building?

cyndibioshot PEAK EXPERIENCE: If you feel that spirit, do you need a building?

GUEST COLUMN: CYNDI INGLE

I work in a very friendly working-class — not world-class — city. What we’ve got happening here is Charles Dickens’ England meets the Wild West. Beautiful and monstrous things can, and do, happen within steps of each other. You can stroll by art galleries, be pulled into bars to hear cranked live music, and then run a gauntlet of street people and addicts who are on crank. Their faces and stories will squeeze the happiness out of your heart, and leave little behind.

Since (on a good day) I’m such a friendly person, and this is such a friendly town, I end up chatting with many people. And a few days ago, during the start of another snow storm, I crossed the road at the same time as an elderly black man with bright blue eyes; what began as a chat turned into him trying to recruit me to his flock.

To me “the spirit” is in everyone and everything. His come-on: the fellowship of going into a structure to be with other like minded individuals to pray and worship helps induce a feeling of The Spirit. But if you already feel that “spirit,” do you need a building?

It seems that the wealth and grandeur that is exhibited in some places of worship seems to be diametrically opposed, even negating, the “spirit” feeling, at least for me.

Do we need opulent dwellings and/or fellowship to feel spiritual? Or do we just need to gaze into the eyes of our fellow travelers in this dimension and existence that we call “life,” and see how we are all the same? Can we revel in nature and animals, and find the spirit there?

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One Response to “PEAK EXPERIENCE: If you feel that “spirit,” do you need a building?”

  1. on 18 Apr 2008 at 1:07 am 1.Andrew said …

    I agree . . . You don’t need an edifice to being in a state of higher awareness, or transmit spirituality.

    Like your Prayer Wall on this site. I think it can do just as good a job in collecting prayers as the bulletin board at our church where people write their requests for healing on little pieces of paper and stick them there with a push pin. You don’t have to be in a building or church to send prayers. You can do it right here and now.

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