
Editor's note: Jan Lundy and Jeanette Banashak will present our new 4-part webinar series "Spiritual Companionship for the Spiritually Independent" starting March 28, 2019. Here, she outlines her own journey to spiritual independence.
In recent years, I have come to claim myself as a “spiritually independent” person, not by birth , but by choice ; someone who has followed her own “yellow brick road” to the divine. This has not been an easy path to walk especially when you’ve been raised and work in a conservatively Christian part of the world. Upon first meeting, a common query from people in my area is “Which church do you go to?”, for one is often identified by church or parish.
In the past when this question was asked, I’d predictably dodge it by saying, “I’m more of an ecumenical type person,” which would leave them nodding but confused. Because my spiritual life became eclectic and did not follow the unspoken “rules of belonging,” I took to hiding it; practicing and believing in a spiritual closet of my own making out of fear of being judged and found lacking.
With spiritual maturity, I became braver, and when asked about my religious identity might say, “I have Christian roots and Buddhist wings.” But I revealed myself hesitantly, only to a select few, and not without anxiety.