There and Back Again

The Importance of Spiritual Stages (whether you're religious or not)

De: James Stroud

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

From the wilderness of the Ozarks, to Wall Street, and back again...

While at 45 years old, I have begun to mistrust words more and more every day in properly conveying anything spiritual, they are unfortunately needed to communicate in some way, no matter how limited. First of all, let me get out of the way the normal questions when someone glances at the back of the book or preface to determine who (or what) this person’s perspective is. I am Christian, and as historically orthodox as they come in my theology. I have over 200 hours of university credits, a bachelor and two masters degrees, I have written four books on the subject of Christian apologetics (why Christianity is true), my wife (m. 2008) and I run a coffee-shop with an art gallery downstairs, I operate a biblical history museum in partnership with the Great Passion Play of the Ozarks, and I have worked at Walmart’s Corporate office now for over 20 years. Oh yes, I have also been knighted, have a 2nd degree black belt, and recently professed as a Third Order Franciscan of the Anglican tradition. None of this is to brag in the slightest; instead, it is to provide a mere glimpse at what I have had to wade through to get to this point. Now that I have burnt the degrees and honors, I am starting to perhaps wake-up now that I am coming to the realization of what Socrates meant when he said: “the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing”.
All of this has I believe, been a type of testing ground for me to simply “wake-up” from the stupor of life, to see and taste the glorious reality that we are blessed with each day but have become numb towards. To actually live out my faith not just talk or write about it. I said after my last book “no more academic works” so this is more of a diary than anything. No editing, very limited references; I want to be honest and upfront, that my main goal in even writing this is to help me work thru some things as I’m thinking back thru how I got here (literally here at this moment in my fully off-grid house, on the back of 70 acres in the Ozarks). To retrace my steps as a man who wants to make sure he is leaving enough breadcrumbs behind to find his way back in the event he ventures too far into the deep. Then again, perhaps this is my Thoreau moment as he describes it in his famous work Walden: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
I cannot convey the sense of irony that 30 years ago I had the mindset that I must get out of here (the farm); eventually moved to New York City, traveled abroad, and yet here I am back where it all started and oddly joyous about it. As a diary on the spiritual stages, think of this more like Matthew McConaughey’s book Green Lights than any real concrete pearls of wisdom. While I was writing this more as sitting before a mirror, I do believe this could be quite helpful to others that I have talked to from GenZ to Boomers (and everyone in-between). Whether old or young, Christian or not; I see this type of existential crisis, or perhaps existential anxiety would be a better phrase, as absolutely necessary no matter how much you might think its not. Every culture, every religion (including atheism) must go through a series of spiritual stages during life, and I have come to realize (especially for the Christian), neglecting these stages has been to our own peril. I believe that this is why many churches have grown stagnant and their membership continues to decline. We need to move beyond the first 3 stages of this journey. I am to the point of leaving corporate life and attempting to take stage 4 (and perhaps beyond) much more seriously and that is why I am writing this in the first place. I pray it can asist you on your own journey.