Kevin Atton recently shared with me a confronting remark which a Brother had made to him that "We Christian Brothers do not have a spirituality". In pondering the validity of the assertion I believe that in one sense the judgment is true, but at the same time it denies a most significant reality of who we are as Brothers. That there is a single acknowledged spirituality which characterizes us or to which we all aspire as Brothers is not evident to me, and in this sense the above remark is valid. But I believe that the assertion is misleading in that it is my observation that there are many authentic spiritualities evident amongst us … for some transcendence is sought and occasionally 'won' (as a grace) through fidelity to traditional religious practices; for some through private prayer and contemplation; for some through the experience of nature and the out-of-doors; for some through a consuming identification with the earth or cosmos; for some through a ministry of engaging with the poor and marginalised; for some through the ministries of teaching and leadership and counselling; for some through story and intimacy of relationship; for some through the fine arts, whether the medium be music or painting or sculpture or drama or dance or literature or poetry or cinema; for some through scientific endeavour and discovery; for some through scholarship; for some through a sporting discipline; for some through the pursuit of theology or scriptural scholarship; for some through liturgy; for some through our various experiences of Brotherhood. And moments of transcendence surely come amidst a myriad of daily tasks done well. Michael Leunig captures this beautifully in a conversation with Caroline Jones: I watched a man making a pavement in Melbourne in a busy city street; the concrete was poured and he had his little trowel and there was traffic roaring around, there were cranes and machines going, and this man was on his hands and knees lovingly making a beautiful little corner on the kerb. That's a sort of love, and that's important, that's very, very important. That man's job is important, and he's a bit of a hero for doing it like that. So that's why love is important, because love involves that as much as it involves what happens between people. It's about relationships between oneself and the world and its people and its creatures and its plants, its ideas. And where there is love, there is the possibility of transcendence. There is surely a spirituality in what this worker brings to his job, and in what each of us brings to daily undertakings.

There is much evidence for me that within the Brotherhood we share there is, in David Ranson's terms, an orientation for transcendence. And the richness of my experience of our shared Brotherhood suggests to me that there is not only an orientation but there must be in fact the fruits of our various spiritualities. There must be transformative experiences of the transcendent, even if we fail to recognize them or put language around them. Do we not find that in our various often unacknowledged searchings for the transcendent, our spiritualities, we sometimes find ourselves unexpectedly transported into a place of otherness and beyondness and dare we say ecstasy? And isn't that experience in the deepest inner place of our selves, that place of the Spirit, that place where we encounter the Sacred? Do we own these authentic personal spiritualities in the various ways we live? Do we acknowledge that we need each other to live out these orientations for transcendence if our Brotherhood is to bring to our world that "life to the full" for which we all hunger and for which we were created?

I am sometimes startled to discover once again that my thinking can be narrow and compartmentalized. I felt that it was important at the Rome Chapter last year to encourage a recognition that we Brothers live many authentic spiritualities, and that it is not helpful to talk about spirituality in the singular. To do so is to create false expectations, and deny important realities. And in fact the Rome Chapter adopted the plural language of "spiritualities" in reflecting on our Brotherhood. But having taken the step of clarifying my thinking to embrace the reality of many authentic spiritualities evident amongst us, I continued to wonder just what my personal spirituality was. It came as a liberating surprise to suddenly recognize that of course I live out of many spiritualities. As do, I believe, all of us. Nature is a constant source of awe and wonder for me, and not infrequently is a source of graced experiences of the transcendent. The fragrance of eucalyptus invariably transports me into a profound sense of coming home and wellbeing, whether it is carried through a smoking ceremony in a Rome liturgy, or from a stand of Australian gums on the shore of Galilee near Peter's house at Capernaum, or in the cold predawn air approaching Tasmania from Antarctica. I recognize personal elements of a creation and earth spirituality here. But then I recall the moment of transcendence which I experienced when attending a performance of the achingly poignant Air and Other Invisible Forces performed by the Sydney Dance Company and choreographed by Graeme Murphy as his way of dealing with the pain of bereavement. A spirituality in the pursuit of the fine arts. And then I am aware of those many 'Stranger' weekends with young people in the early 1980's when we were all invariably transported and liberated through the experience of listening to personal story. It is this Emmaus spirituality of sharing story which we are being invited to nurture through The Heart of Being Brother from the Rome Chapter. Yet another spirituality. And then I remember standing before Thomas Cole's paintings of the "Voyage of Life" and being transported into a profound identification with the ultimate truth of life depicted there. A few, for me, of many different expressions of an orientation for the transcendent, of spirituality lived in the daily round of life, and of transcendence not infrequently experienced.

I have quoted David Ranson's definition of spirituality, and to be faithful to David I acknowledge that I omitted the second half of his definition. He qualified his definition by adding within the framework of their various and deepening circles of relationships. I am not sure of his meaning, but would not limit my sense of what spirituality is by restricting it to the theatre of human relationships. I have no source for David's definition other than my memory from a workshop which I attended. In drawing these few reflections to a close I am aware again of a remark by Michael Leunig to Caroline Jones: I think from the time I could open my eyes I was aware that there seemed to be something else going on amongst those around me which was not talked about … there was another truth. It's as if I want to run up to people on the street and say, 'Look, I feel this; do you feel this, too?' I value deeply those precious friends with whom I find that I can talk about that "other truth".

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