Who We Are

Spirituality & Community was founded in late 2003 to provide a forum for spiritual writers and artists to share their thoughts, images, and appreciation for spirituality. The site publishes a bimonthly online magazine and encompasses a community. The magazine is comprised primarily of reader submitted material. Please see the Submit Material! link on the Home page for information on how to submit spiritual writings or art.

A New Age of Light
The word spirituality means different things to different people. To us, spirituality refers to the development of the spirit or heart, and this means focusing on the Light within. We hold most closely these truths:

-We believe in an energy called the Light, also known as the Lord, God, and many other names.
-We believe that the Light lies inside each of us and that one must open one's heart to the Light within to attain spiritual fulfillment, true happiness, and mental wellness.

We view spirituality as a search for happiness and fulfillment by finding the Light within our hearts. The Light is the essence of humanity. Ultimately, we find our way by casting our gaze inward. We will search this inner world over until we find our home:

        We shall not cease from exploration
        And the end of all our exploring
        Will be to arrive where we started
        And know the place for the first time.
                           T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding

The Four Horsemen and the Quartet of Angels
A Note from the Founder
My kids like to play a game in the kitchen while my wife and I are washing dishes. If you squeeze the plastic bottle of dishwashing liquid while it is upright, loads of tiny bubbles come shooting out. I tell the kids that the bubbles are little angels, and the kids like to try to catch them. They’re tough to catch; the faster you try to grab one, the faster it will move around your hand. To catch one, you have to move slowly and deliberately. Spirituality is kind of like that.

I believe that mental wellness, true happiness, only comes from spiritual fulfillment and that spiritual wholeness only comes from opening one’s heart to the Light. I perceive four principal limitations that one need overcome to allow the love of the Light to completely fill the heart. These limitations, which I call the Four Horsemen, are: Close-mindedness and Misplaced Values, Selfishness, Arrogance, and Negativity and Stress. The first horseman, “know it all” Close-mindedness, is like a gate through which one must pass in order to make any spiritual progress. One cannot progress if one refuses to learn. Related problems include self-deception and misplaced values, such as materialism. The second horseman, Selfishness, is marked by the almost exclusive concern for oneself at the expense of others, which leads to alienation of others. This problem includes a general sense of alienation in our society. The third horseman, Arrogance, is an obsessive desire to be “better” than others, a desire to think of oneself as of a higher status than others. A form of self-deception, it functions as a perverse justification for selfishness. Finally, the fourth horseman, Negativity, is a problem of poor mental outlook and unrealistic expectations. Negativity leads to stress, which also arises from unnecessarily adversarial interactions with others and inadequate coping with the demands of daily life.

The antithesis, the antidote, to the Four Horsemen is what I call the Quartet of Angels: Truth, Love, Humility, and Optimism. Spiritual progress can only come from an open-minded search for truth. A commitment to truth also includes understanding and focusing on values that truly bring happiness. The second angel, Love, refers to loving all others without the usual boundaries, such as loving only one’s family, friends, etc. Love is the key to spirituality; the Light is pure love. True love brings true happiness. The third angel, Humility, means understanding that we are all morally equal, or equally worthy of love. Finally, the fourth angel, Optimism, refers to a positive outlook on life. As the Light fills the heart, it sanctifies the ordinary, and one can more easily see the beauty and wonder in oneself and the world.

By working within to overcome limitations and cultivate the right kind of feelings, we can become spiritually healthy as individuals. By working without, in our world, we can help to bring spiritual progress to our collective culture. I do believe that we are entering a new Age of Light in which genuine spiritual progress is being made. Disconcertingly, however, I also see the four principal maladies discussed becoming increasingly manifest in our society. Those contracting these modern plagues are marked by hollowness, a lack of true joy. If a person is unhappy at best, it is not difficult for adversity to push him or her into periods of depression. While I do accept that genuine hormonal and neurochemical imbalances do exist, I truly believe that a large portion of the mental health problems in our society are the result of spiritual discord. If humanity cannot overcome the problems represented by the Four Horsemen, rather than entering a new Age of Light, we run the risk of entering a new Age of Spiritual Apocalypse. I do, however, see strong forces for good in this world, and we must work diligently to strengthen these forces. Cultivating a spirit defined by the Quartet of Angels is difficult. Spirituality is a lifelong process, both for individuals and the human race. Grasping angels is a tricky business, one achieved only by slow, deliberate progress.

    -Kurt Venables (For more on the Four Horsemen and the Quartet of Angels,
    see Spiritual Soup on the Home page)

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