Spirituality has always been important to me.
Some years ago, I read an article in Living Spirituality News, the newsletter of the Living Spirituality Network, entitled the Fourfold Grid, written by Jesuit priest – Gerard Hughes. (The description of the Four-Fold Grid can also be found in Gerard Hughes’ book – God in All Things.)
Briefly, the Fourfold Grid offers four essential characteristics for genuine spirituality:
- The Intrapersonal aspect of our spirituality: the way in which we will relate to our own inner selves, to our moods, feelings, emotions and mental states.
- The Interpersonal aspect of our spirituality: understanding our relationships within our own immediate circle of family, friends, relatives, people we know at church and the people with whom we work or volunteer.
- The Social aspect of our spirituality: looking at our attitudes, our values and as Hughes calls them our ‘destructive defences’ which can imprison us in our fears and prejudices – e.g. sexism, racism, consumerism.
- The Environmental aspect of our spirituality: concerns our relationship to the environment. Hughes writes “God made a covenant not only with human beings but with all creation … The spirit of God at work within us must affect the way we related to the rest of creation leading us to become more aware the whole ecosystem on which we and all future generations of living things depend”
Recently the Fourfold Grid has come back to mind especially this fourth section of Environmental spirituality. Hughes wrote his book in 2003. If I’m honest I don’t think the word ‘ecosystem’ was a word in my vocabulary! How times have changed!
But reminding myself of this Four-Fold Grid and the different aspects of our spirituality lives helps me to remember how important it is that I allow the spirit of God to be the spirit of God to me and through me. With God’s grace I will continue to develop my spiritual life so that I become more at one with myself, more at one with God, with my immediate circle and with society.
As we approach Creationtide, I pray with my brothers and sisters on this planet, that my actions however small and my prayers, can help our environment and our eco system, on which future generations of all living things depend.
Adella Pritchard, CRCW Swansea Region of Churches