A Soul with Size: Bernard Loomer

A Soul with Size

Bernard Loomer's Classic Paragraph
Inviting a Spirituality of Embrace

Mary Southard, Dance of the Seasons, Ministry of the Arts, used with permission

Horizontal Spirituality as
Embracing the World

In the words below, the early process theologian, Bernard Loomer (1912-1985), does not use the word spirituality. But if by spirituality we mean something like embodied wisdom and emotional maturity in daily life, then he is speaking of "spirituality" when he describes a spacious soul. The spirituality at issue is not an ascent to God but an embrace of the world. It is, as it were, horizontal spirituality not vertical spirituality. In the broader horizons of process-relational thinking, there is room for both kinds, and the two can easily be combined. For example, we can think of the ascent of the soul to God as an openness to God's lure to embrace the world, thus partaking of the love of which Loomer speaks, even as it (the soul) is simultaneously immersed in aspects of God that are beyond the world. A person might participate in God's immanence and transcendence at the same time, as is the case with so many sages and mystics the world over. But Loomer's focus is on the world, not God. He offers words that have inspired many. Here they are:

Bernard Loomer

Why it Matters

Before Bernard Loomer, I used to think of spiritual growth as a process of growing closer to God in a vertical kind of way. I took the image from “Jack and the Beanstalk”: We’re here on the earth, God is up in heaven, and spiritual growth means growing like that beanstalk, higher and higher, ever closer to God. But in that model, we end up with our head in the clouds. Another recipe for retreat.

Loomer showed me that spiritual growth isn’t about a vertical ascent to heaven but about growth in every dimension at once. It’s spirituality in 3-D. Growth in spirit doesn’t measure one’s proximity to a God above, but rather the spaciousness of one’s own soul—its volume, its capacity, its size. We need to grow souls that can encounter the other as a unique subject, not an object—in the words of Martin Buber, a “Thou,” not an “it.” We need souls that can take in the world in all its complexity and diversity, yet still maintain our integrity. And we need souls that can love and be in relationship with all of this complexity. Instead of fight or flight, we need a spiritual posture of embrace.

- Robert Hardies, UU World, 7/23/2007