The Questions about Spirit of Interest to Me

These are the questions about spirit that are of most interest to me:

1. What is spirit?

Over the past couple of years I've had the privilege of training groups of physicians going through a nationally recognized Palliative Care Immersion experience in the basics of spiritual care. One of the exercises I give them is to take five minutes to write their definition of spirit. I have yet to have two physicians give the same definition of spirit. The range of definitions is broad. I get the same results when I ask them to define spiritual or spirituality.

But it's not just physicians. I've also been the Director of the Spiritual Care department of the same nationally recognized hospice that hosts the above mentioned Palliative Care Immersion experience. The Spiritual Care Professionals I directed were all highly trained in their clinical discipline and had many years of experience providing spiritual care to hospice patients. Even these professionals had different definitions of spirit, spiritual, and spirituality.

I've asked the same questions in countless other formal presentations and informal conversations. I've also read countless books and articles on the subjects. Not yet have I found a consensus on what the words spirit, spiritual, and spirituality mean. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that there are as many definitions as there are individuals to give them.

It seems to me that if we are going to make significant progress in being mindful of spirit we need to come to some consensus on what we're talking about. We need a common definition of spirit. In an upcoming post I will share working definitions of spirit, spiritual, and spirituality and welcome feedback on my proposals.

2. Why be mindful of spirit?

After presenting a working definition of spirit I want to explore why it is important to be mindful of spirit.

3. What is being mindful if spirit about and how do we do it?

I think it's also important to explore the questions about what being mindful of spirit is and how we practice being mindful of spirit.

4. What are the benefits of being mindful of spirit?

I have found a lot of value in identifying some of the benefits I have found in being mindful of spirit and want to address this question throughout this blog.

So, these are the core questions I ask and respond to in this blog. I find value in the process itself of asking the questions and answering them from different perspectives, including the perspectives of others who have wrestled with these questions. I hope the you will find value in wrestling with these questions too and share your comments in this blog.