Reflection

The objectives of Spirituality Research

Three years ago we started the project Spirituality International. It was an initiative of Kees Waaijman. Already in the nineties he understood that for the study of Spirituality it was necessary to join forces. The journal Studies in Spirituality was a result of this need to develop a kind of international platform. Now the Titus Brandsma Institute is willing to enter the field of communication technology. To understand this initiative we have to take into account that spirituality is not only a field of study within theology, but is studied in different scholarly disciplines like religious studies, psychology, philosophy, sociology, history, anthropology, natural sciences and literary science. A recent study of Kees Waaijman tries to map out this interdisciplinary research in Spirituality (Spirituality - a multifaceted phenomenon, Interdisciplinary explorations).
The research in spirituality promoted by the Titus Brandsma Instituut is focused at one hand on the traditional sources of religious experience (the Bible, mystics, spiritual traditions) and at the other hand is reaching out to all different forms of expression and spiritual consciousness. For this reason this research is hermeneutical, but the texts studied may be classical in written form, but also oral, musical or pictorial as in many other cultural contexts is the case. We call a text also an interview, a dialogue of spiritual accompaniment, a novel, a film or a painting. In all cases we will ‘read the text’ and try to discover layers and processes of spirituality lived and expressed. Therefore, the research is phenomenological (describing all different forms, the material object) and dialogical (looking for processes of transformation, the formal object). Traditionally there was a question of spirituality if the lived and described form was embedded in a theological and ecclesial context, (e.g. the spirituality of prayer, of religious life, priesthood etc.). Limiting spirituality to these objects, most of lived spirituality was not observed. For this reason the spirituality research of the Titus Brandsma Instituut is above all inter- and pluridisciplinary. Many disciplines that traditionally have nothing to do with theology or Church, study forms of spirituality and spiritual processes although the word spirituality will be unknown for them, e.g. spirituality and healthcare, spirituality and management, spirituality of leadership, spirituality and economics, peace, ecology, farmers, atheist spirituality, etc., etc. etc.
SPIRIN wants to contribute to the reframing of spirituality opening the discourse of the spirituality research, articulating the lived spirituality in different contexts in often hidden and unconscious forms. Specialists of spirituality may be found in many different disciplines, even if they do not use the name spirituality. SPIRIN wants to promote the dialogue and interactions between all these people in a creative process of discovering what might be ‘spirituality’ in all these forms of expression. More than the forms, we focus on the spiritual processes of transformation which are lived in persons, groups or even societies. SPIRIN ENCYCLOPEDIA will be the platform where these people meet each other in reflection and dialogue searching in a creative way ‘what could be called spirituality’. This dialogue is a permanent interaction between tradition and modernity. Spirin must be considered as an integral project, that encompasses expert meetings, communication, research, publications, internationally organized education. The website Spirin is a part of this whole project.
In this phenomenological-dialogical approach of the institute it is essential not to limit ourselves to the description of forms of spirituality or of the content of texts, but to analyse and describe the processes of transformation that these forms might want to promote in the persons confronted by them. Although the content of the forms or texts mediates the implied mystagogy, the question is how these mystagogic intentions are perceived by the persons who encounter them and how they might work in them provoking the inner transformation of the whole person. In lived spirituality the human person becomes conscious of his/her own essence perceived as a divine-human relationship. However, this consciousness of our dependence on a trancendent reality is often in tension with our desire of autonomous existence. Human sciences focus primarily on the human person as an autonomous being. Spirituality studies the growing consciousness of what goes beyond the construction of a world which we may inhabit as autonomous beings. Nevertheless, this consciousness of a spiritual and divine reality is always in dialogue with a host of cultural constructions. These constructions may be partly implicit and unconscious like our human language, the society, work and workrelations, media communication, housing, architecture, etc. Lived spirituality is always the result of this dialogical interaction of the human person who becomes conscious of this fundamental reality of his dependence from God and who inevitably engages in the construction of a habitable world in order to create order in the chaos of events, impressions and relations. As human beings we are unable to sustain at length the crisis provoked by unforeseen, disturbing and incomprehensible events. As a result we are forced to construct a world which might enable us to cope with them.
While the mystic consciousness faces and articulates the breakthrough of the divine reality in human life, schools of spirituality map this dialogical interaction in forms, liturgies, texts, communities, regulations and practices etc. In that sense authentic spiritualities are always creative, because they enable the spiritual journey of the person in this concrete world and culture. An important aspect of spirituality in the modern world is that schools of spirituality are not longer enclosed and stable systems but rather specific groups that engage in the dialogue of tradition and modernity, of subjectivity and objective structures of regulations.

Points of special interest for the implementation of Spirituality International (Spirin)

1. It is important to concentrate Spirin on specific groups or disciplines that are central for the development of Spirin. Keep it small!! (Juan Carlos Henríquez & Adan Medrano)
2. Researchers in the field of spirituality are often isolated in their own disciplines. It is important that researchers present themselves and their researchprojects in such a way that it helps them to find partners and interlocutors for their reseachquestions. (Steward M. Hoover)
3. The last decennia spirituality has become a phenomenon studied in different disciplines. It is necessary to promote dialogues between this different approaches. See article of Kees Waaijman: Spirituality – a multifaceted phenomenon, Interdisciplinary explorations.
4. In the scholarly approach of the Titus Brandsma Institute, art in all its different forms of expression constitutes an essential aspect of the discipline of Spirituality. Art is a creative space where lived spirituality is invented and expressed. See article of Kees Waaijman: Spirituality – a multifaceted phenomenon, Interdisciplinary explorations.

Implementation of a strategy concerning Spirituality International

1. The Titus Brandsma Institute in collaboration with the faculty of Theology started to devise a plan for a new Master in Spirituality. The core of this Master is Spirin as the work and learning environment of the student.
2. An important aspect of this Master is the yearly expertmeeting in which students and researchers come together. It is the purpose that several disciplines are given a chance to enter into a dialogue with spirituality (psychology, sociology, history, philosophy, anthropology, sciences etc.). The discussion taken place in this context forms the starting point for the ongoing discussion on the website spirin.
3. As a result of the ongoing discussion during the trip the website will be devised differently:
a. The encyclopedia. This is a more static environment were articles can be published approved by the board. The articles can be discussed, but can not be changed. Only the author can make changes as a result of the discussion and further research.
b. The research environment. This is a dynamic environment were researchers and students have their workspace and collaborate. Students can be accompanied in their research on distance. At the moment there is a pilot of a PhD research that seems promising. We are planning that in the same way Spirin will be the central work environment of the students who are inscribed in the Master of Spirituality. This is important, because it concerns an international education partly on campus and partly on line.
4. Soon will be established a Dutch association for spiritual accompanists. The nucleus will be formed by about 40 students of the training in spiritual accompaniment of the Titus Brandsma Instituut. The idea is to bring together in this way the practice of spiritual accompaniment and research. A possibility will be to start a website as Spirin in order to offer people receiving spiritual direction the possibility to present their spiritual autobiography or parts of it. This material may function subsequently as research object for spiritual accompanists, both researchers and students. This reflection takes place in Spirin. Eventually this can be material fot PhD thesis’s.