November 3, 2026
 

Grace, Not Self-Realization: Where My Understanding of Spirituality Differs from New Age Thinking

I have become increasingly aware of how easily Christian contemplative language can be separated from the faith that gave it meaning. Words such as mysticism, surrender, awakening, oneness, and the divine within appear frequently in contemporary spiritual writing. They can describe profoundly different understandings of our relationship with the divine, however. Sometimes the language sounds familiar, even beautiful, while the underlying theology has changed considerably.

I have no objection to contemplation, silence, meditation, or the desire to experience a deeper spiritual life. Nor do I believe that God is confined to the boundaries of our understanding or that we should be suspicious of every spiritual insight that comes from outside our own tradition. I am, however, increasingly concerned about the ways some forms of New Age spirituality have appropriated Christian mystical language while changing its meaning.

The distinction is not merely semantic. It concerns who God is, who we are, and what it means to be transformed.

God is not an energy. God is in relationship with us.

One of the most fundamental differences between my understanding of spirituality and much New Age thinking is the nature of God.

In some expressions of New Age spirituality, God is understood as a universal consciousness, an impersonal energy, or an underlying force permeating all things. Spiritual growth becomes a matter of awakening to this energy, recognizing our inherent divinity, or aligning ourselves with the greater consciousness of the universe.

My understanding is different. God is not an impersonal force that we learn to access or manipulate. God is personal, relational, and loving. He is the Creator, not simply another name for creation or the energy that animates it.

I believe God is intimately present in our lives, closer than we often recognize, but that intimacy does not erase the distinction between Creator and creation. We are not God. We are created by God, loved by God, and invited into relationship with him.

This distinction matters because it changes the direction of our spiritual journey. We are not trying to discover that we are divine or that we possess some hidden spiritual power. We are learning to receive the love of the One who created us.

Transformation is received, not manufactured.

Another important difference concerns how we understand personal transformation.

New Age spirituality frequently emphasizes self-realization, raising consciousness, releasing the ego, or becoming the person we are meant to be. Some of these ideas may sound compatible with Christian teachings about conversion and spiritual growth. But the emphasis can shift toward something we accomplish through our own awareness, intention, or spiritual practice.

I believe transformation is fundamentally a work of grace.

We certainly have a part to play. We can become more attentive, more willing, and more receptive. We can recognize the attachments, fears, and expectations that keep us from responding to God's invitation. But we do not create the grace that transforms us. We cannot make ourselves worthy of God's love, nor can we earn his presence through spiritual achievement.

This is particularly important to my understanding of surrender.

Surrender is not a technique for reaching a higher state of consciousness. It is not a way of controlling the universe or ensuring that life unfolds according to our desires. It is a turning toward God, a willingness to entrust ourselves to the One who loves us, even when we cannot see where that trust will lead.

We do not have to earn God's presence. He is with us already, including when we struggle, resist, doubt, or turn away. Our surrender does not cause him to arrive. It allows us to become more receptive to the grace that is already being offered.

Suffering is not a spiritual achievement.

Perhaps nowhere is the difference more important than in our understanding of suffering.

Some contemporary spiritual approaches interpret suffering primarily as an opportunity for awakening, a consequence of our thoughts or attachments, or a necessary passage toward a higher level of consciousness. There can be an implicit suggestion that if we understand our suffering correctly, change our perspective, or raise our awareness, we can transcend it.

I am uncomfortable with interpretations that make suffering into a spiritual accomplishment or imply that people are somehow responsible for the painful circumstances of their lives because they have not achieved sufficient awareness.

I do not believe God causes, sends, or plans our suffering. I do not believe every painful experience has a hidden lesson that we are expected to discover. Suffering by itself is not holy, and we do not need to find a spiritual justification for every loss.

But I do believe God is present in our suffering.

This is central to my Christian understanding of the Cross. In Jesus, we encounter a God who does not stand apart from human suffering but enters into it. The Cross does not reveal a God who requires suffering as the price of transformation. It reveals a God who loves us enough to accompany us into the darkest places of human experience.

Grace may meet us there. It may sustain us, change our understanding, deepen our compassion, or reveal something about God's love that we had not previously recognized. But these are gifts, not explanations for why the suffering happened.

We do not have to call suffering good to recognize that love can meet us within it.

Surrender is relational, not impersonal.

I find the language of surrender particularly meaningful, but I also think it is easily misunderstood.

In some New Age approaches, surrender means releasing resistance, trusting the universe, or allowing ourselves to move with the flow of energy and circumstances. There may be value in recognizing what we cannot control, but Christian surrender involves something more personal.

We surrender to God.

This does not mean becoming passive, abandoning discernment, or accepting injustice. It does not mean that we stop advocating for healing, seeking help, or working to change painful circumstances. Nor does it mean that everything that happens is God's will.

It means that even as we act, struggle, grieve, and hope, we can entrust what we cannot control to a loving God.

Surrender is not something we accomplish by becoming spiritually proficient. It often emerges gradually, sometimes reluctantly, as we recognize the limits of our own efforts and become willing to receive what we cannot provide for ourselves.

It is less about mastering the spiritual life than allowing ourselves to be loved within it.

Mysticism is communion, not self-deification.

I have become particularly attentive to the way the word mysticism is used. Christian mysticism has a long and beautiful history, but the word is now sometimes used so broadly that it encompasses experiences and beliefs that have little in common.

Christian mysticism is not about discovering that we are God, dissolving our individual identities into universal consciousness, or acquiring secret spiritual knowledge. At its heart, it concerns the mystery of communion with God.

The contemplative tradition invites us beyond our limited ideas and expectations. It reminds us that God exceeds our understanding and that no collection of words or theological explanations can contain the fullness of divine love.

But mystery does not mean that all beliefs are interchangeable. The Christian understanding of God is rooted in the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. These are not incidental details that can be removed while retaining an otherwise unchanged spirituality.

I am drawn to the Christian mystics precisely because their writings invite us into a deeper relationship with God, not because they offer a way to transcend the need for God.

Grace is not a reward for getting it right.

Perhaps the most important distinction for me is the understanding of grace.

I believe grace is a gift, freely offered, not a reward for spiritual progress or evidence of our worthiness. We do not have to become sufficiently peaceful, enlightened, detached, or virtuous before God will be present to us.

Indeed, some of the most profound encounters with grace may occur when we have very little to offer: when we are exhausted, confused, frightened, grieving, or unable to find our way forward.

This is why I resist spiritual formulas. I do not believe that if we follow a particular sequence of practices, change our thinking, or surrender sufficiently, we will necessarily arrive at a particular outcome.

Our lives do not unfold according to a spiritual recipe.

Instead, I have come to recognize three movements through which we may become increasingly aware of God's loving work in us: refining, shaping, and revealing.

Sometimes grace helps loosen our attachment to what we thought we needed. Sometimes it shapes us through the ways we respond to life's circumstances. And sometimes it reveals something about God that we had not previously understood.

These are not steps we master or stages we complete. They are ways of recognizing what grace may be doing as we turn toward God. We do not control these movements, and we cannot always recognize them while they are unfolding.

The important thing is not that we become spiritually accomplished, but that we become receptive.

A spirituality rooted in love

I don't want to reject everything that might be called mystical, contemplative, or transformative simply because some of the same language appears in New Age spirituality. Nor do I want to suggest that people who explore other spiritual traditions are necessarily misguided. There is much we can learn through listening, discernment, and genuine dialogue.

But I do believe we need to be attentive to the foundations beneath the language.

For me, spirituality is not ultimately about discovering our own divinity, mastering our consciousness, or learning to direct the energy of the universe. It is about discovering that we are already known and loved by God, and learning to live in response to that love.

It is about allowing grace to meet us in suffering, in joy, and in the ordinary moments of our lives. It is about becoming more aware of a presence that does not depend on our ability to earn it or even recognize it.

We do not have to transcend our humanity to encounter God. We encounter him within it.

And perhaps this is the deepest invitation of the Christian spiritual life: not to become something other than ourselves, but to become more fully who we were created to be through the love and grace of God.

It is not self-realization that brings us home.

It is love.

October 29, 2026

Sacred Presence is now available for purchase on Amazon in e-book, paperback and hardcover formats. Through lyrical reflections, contemplative prayers, Scripture, and sacred art, Sacred Presence invites you to enter the Gospel stories with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene. 


September 29, 2026

Looking Through the Lens of Love

Suffering has a way of changing what we see. When we are in pain—or when we stand beside someone who is—we can easily become focused on the wound itself. We ask why this happened. We wonder how long it will last. We may look for something to fix, something to explain, or someone to blame.

But there is another way of looking. I have come to call it the Lens of Love.

To look through the lens of love is not to pretend that suffering is good. It is not to tell ourselves that everything happens for a reason, or that God planned the painful thing that has happened to us. I don't believe that God authors suffering. But I do believe that God can be found within it.

God is present.

That distinction matters.

Everyone suffers

Over the years, I have spent a great deal of time reading about the lives of people whose faith has deeply influenced others—people we might call holy. I began to notice something striking. Suffering was always there. Sometimes it was physical illness. Sometimes grief. Sometimes rejection, loneliness, poverty, addiction, failure, persecution, disappointment, or the loss of someone they loved. Some carried wounds that remained with them for years. Others lived with questions that were never fully processed, let alone answered.

And yet, suffering itself was not what made these lives holy. Everyone suffers. It's a part of being human. It comes to the devout and the doubtful, the generous and the selfish, the successful and the forgotten. Pain does not automatically make us wiser, kinder, or closer to God.

So what was different in the lives I was reading about? I began to see something like an alchemy—not an alchemy that transforms suffering into something good, but one in which God's grace can transform what suffering touches.

The suffering remains real. The wound may remain a wound or perhaps transform into a scar. But something else can begin to happen within the person who carries it. A heart can soften. A false certainty can fall away. A person can become more compassionate because they know what it means to hurt.

Someone who once needed to control everything may gradually learn to surrender. Someone who felt abandoned may begin to notice God's quiet presence. Someone who could not see beyond the immediate pain may, years later, recognize that grace was present in places they could not see at the time.

This didn't always happen every time the holy person suffered. And it is not something for which there is a formula or that they even deliberately manufactured.

The lens of love

The Lens of Love changes the question.Instead of asking only, Why is this happening? we might begin to ask, Where is God in this? Not because we expect an easy answer because much of the time there isn't one.

Rather, we begin to look for the traces of God's presence: the person who shows up at exactly the right moment, and we may never see again, the unexpected kindness, the strength we did not know we had, the capacity to forgive that seemed impossible, the quiet movement toward surrender, the grace to endure one more day. Sometimes, often, God's presence is not dramatic at all.

It may be found in silence. In a hand held. In tears. In a decision not to give up. In the ability to sit beside another person's suffering without trying to explain it away.

Looking through the lens of love also changes how we look at another person's suffering. When someone we love is hurting, our instinct is often to make the suffering stop. We may find ourselves wanting to run away, or blame the one who is suffering We want to offer an answer, a solution, an explanation. And sometimes practical help is exactly what love requires. But there are moments when love asks something different of us.

It asks us to remain. To listen. To resist the temptation to explain what we cannot explain. To recognize that the person in front of us is not a problem to be solved or to be run away from. Suffering is not contagious. The person who is suffering is a person whose life is still being held by God, as is ours.

Suffering is not the destination

I don't believe God sends suffering in order to make us holy. But I do believe that when suffering enters our lives, God can meet us there. And sometimes, when we become willing to notice that presence, something begins to change. It's necessarily the circumstances that change, or the pain that goes away.  Very often, it's us. This is where I have come to understand the spirituality of suffering less as an explanation of why suffering happens and more as an invitation to notice what happens when God's love meets us in the middle of it.

There may be a long time when we see nothing but darkness. There may be no immediate lesson, no satisfying meaning, no beautiful resolution. That is part of being human, too. Grace does not always announce itself while we are suffering. Sometimes we recognize it only much later. Looking back at the lives of people who have gone before us, I often see this clearly. Their suffering did not disappear. Their wounds were not necessarily erased. In fact, there were usually were new wounds heaped upon their old ones. Their lives were not tidy.

But somehow, through their response to what they had been given to carry—and through God's persistent presence within it—their lives became places where love could be seen. Perhaps that is the alchemy: Not that suffering becomes holy, but that love can enter suffering, and grace can emerge from places we never would have chosen to go.

And sometimes, years, even decades later, we can look back and realize that God was there all along, not as the author of the wound, but as the One who never left us in it.

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September 23, 2026

Seems worth sharing today; no additional words necessary...

My Salvation History
St. Ignatius

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve.

I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.

I asked for health, that I might do greater things.

I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.

I asked for riches, that I might be happy.

I was given poverty, that I might be wise.

I asked for power, that I might have the praise of others.

I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life.

I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.

Almost despite myself my unspoken prayers were answered.

I am most richly blessed.