Editorial July 16, 1990 Issue

The spiritual connection

Ann Kenrick

A well-known American magazine recently invited a few people to define what spirituality means to them. The article was entitled "Making the Spiritual Connection."

Among the contributors was Robert Coles, professor of psychiatry at Harvard University. He explained he had been talking to children for more than a decade to learn what they think about "the meaning of life, its purpose, its origins, its moral significance ... [and] what thoughts they have about God ...." He listens to them talk about the stories they have read in the Bible and how they try to connect those stories with their lives. He writes, "I also hear them struggling with the question of 'spirituality': What is it, and how does one find it for oneself?"

Dr. Coles shared some of the thoughts of an eleven-year-old girl, who said: "I think you're spiritual if you can escape from yourself a little and think of what's good for everyone, not just you, and if you can reach out and be a good person—I mean live like a good person. You're not spiritual if you just talk spiritual and there's no action. You're a fake if that's what you do. But if you try to live up to all you hear in church, and if you think of your neighbors and friends, and the people who are in trouble and need help, and if you try to give them some help, then you're on your way to being spiritual, I think."^{Quoted in "Making the Spiritual Connection," Lear's, December 1989.}

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