Snail in a Puddle in a Gutter ~ Over-spiritualizing vs. Misunderstanding the Spiritual

This morning I read a fascinating paper from a group of researchers in Paris. The scientists wanted to figure out what sorts of creatures were living in the gutters of the city. They sampled 90 puddles across twenty districts of Paris and came back with astonishing results. Apparently, each of these little puddles harbors their own unique ecosystem. Each one contains “an extremely diverse community” of creatures[1]. Among the animals found were Ephydatia (a fresh-water sponge) and Dreissena (a mollusk, a mussel to be precise). It made me marvel to think of these tiny aqueous worlds, and I imagined what it might feel like to live inside one of them.

If I were a freshwater snail, going about my day at the bottom of a Parisian puddle, how aware might I be of the bustling city around me? Would I perhaps feel the vibrations of the passing cars, or hear the murmuring voices of passers-by? In springtime, would the petals of blooming trees sink down into my world, and what would I think of their sudden appearance?

It strikes me as interesting that so many of my Christian brothers and sisters often say, 'I don’t want to over-spiritualize'. This caveat often comes before a remarkable story about God’s providence, or they might blurt it out mid-sentence while regaling me about their observations of the supernatural. In my mind, it’s not the spiritual realm that is the thin, transient space, but our own. This reality, physical and concrete as it may be, is nothing more than a puddle. The apostle Paul explained in his letter to the Corinthian church how we only see and know in part. He writes, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully.” (1 Corinthians 13v12) The spiritual reality was here long before our immanent reality was, and it will remain long after. Why do we worry so much about making it too ‘real’? Is it perhaps because we do not understand it? Dallas Willard expounds on this thought in his work Divine Conspiracy. Willard writes, “‘Spiritual’ is not just something we ought to be. It is something we are and cannot escape, regardless of how we may think or feel about it. It is our nature and our destiny…Each of these dimensions or aspects of the…spiritual is something we find in ourselves, even though not by sight, hearing, smell or other physical senses. And we find them flowing there so richly that it is impossible for us to describe our own existence in anything like its actual fullness of detail.”[2] Thus, simply because we do not understand something doesn’t mean we grant too much meaning to it. Indeed, many ancient thinkers believed that a full grasp of the mysteriousness of the cosmos led to a deepening of our love and appreciation of God, not a lessening of it. This is known as the mysterium fascinosum, or the ‘attracting mystery’. It is a force by which we are irresistibly drawn to the glory, beauty, and power of God.[3]

Let’s come back to the Xandra-snail at the bottom of the puddle. Imagine that I see a pink flower petal descend in front of me. I might give any manner of responses. I could, for instance, say, ‘Here is something I hadn’t noticed before, but I’m sure it was here all along.’ Or perhaps I could say ‘This is an attack from extra-dimensional magical snails who are trying to destroy me!’ Neither of these responses are correct. The former fails because it makes no account of the outside realm. The latter fails because, while it acknowledges the outside realm, it has grossly misinterpreted the observed phenomenon. A third, more proper response might be, ‘Here is something that reminds me that my world is not all there is. I don’t fully understand it, but it reminds me of the transience of my immediate space and inspires me to ponder the mysteries of a glorious God.’ The spiritual realm is not always discernable, but neither is it inaccessible. To deny that the flower petal came from outside the puddle’s ecosystem is to deny the fullness of reality.

The spiritual is all around us and part of us (as Willard so eloquently explained), though we are oftentimes totally unaware of it or have a propensity to misinterpret it. Therefore, our fear should not be over-spiritualizing, rather we should be wary of misinterpretation. The mysterium fascinosum allows us to be drawn closer to God through the mysteries of reality without the need to totally understand them. Thus, we don’t always need complete comprehension of what we observe spiritually in order to acknowledge its reality. Indeed, the fact that the spiritual is more ‘real’ than the immediate is grounds for comfort. As Robert Browning wrote, “God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world.” 

After all, what is faith but being convinced of what we do not see? “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the world of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” (Hebrews 11v3). Is it possible to over-spiritualize our faith? No, but we can have a poor understanding of the spiritual, and we can certainly have faith in the wrong things! Faith is a widening of our plane of vision, as Buechner explains, “Faith is not sui generis. It is a response to the givenness of grace. Faith is given a glimpse of something, however dimly. Men and women of faith know they are strangers and exiles on the earth because somehow and somewhere along the line they have been given a glimpse of home.”[4]

The spiritual realm is our home, not the transient puddle we are living at the bottom of. We are eternal beings trapped in a temporal shell, but our souls long for more. When we have a spiritual experience, our spirit might respond in a way we do not fully understand. That is not grounds for rejection of the experience, but grounds for a deepening of our love for the God who reveals Himself. Karl Barth explained this responsiveness of the soul as a sort of glass that sings when touched.[5] When the Spirit moves upon us, when the veil thins to reveal the transcendent, the soul makes music. Let us not quench the singing of the soul for fear of ‘over-spiritualizing’. Rather, let us humbly embrace the mysterium fascinosum pointing to the majesty of God.

1. Hervé, V., Leroy, B., Da, S. P. A., & Lopez, P. J. (January 01, 2018). Aquatic urban ecology at the scale of a capital: community structure and interactions in street gutters. The Isme Journal, 12, 1, 263.

2. Willard, D. (2018). The divine conspiracy: Rediscovering our hidden life in God. 91-2

3. Encyclopedia Britannica. (2002). Encyclopedia britannica. Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica.

4. Buechner, F. (2007). Secrets in the dark - a life in sermons. 178

5. Barth, K. (1900). The Epistle to the Romans, by Karl Barth; translated from the 6th edition by Edwyn C. Hoskyns. London, Oxford University Press.157