What Is Spiritual Literacy

“To read the sacred in ordinary life, we must cultivate new mental and emotional traits, qualities that allow us to recognize the spiritual presence in all aspects of life. Nothing, at any time, is to be ruled out. However, reading the sacred, like any other sort of reading, necessitates the use of an alphabet. There are 26 different attributes that are required to develop spiritual literacy for interpreting the sacred in everyday life, which are divided into 26 components.”

Spiritual Literacy, by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, is a groundbreaking collection of “aha!” passages from teachers of all spiritual traditions that reveal the profound implications in today's world. Award-winning director David Cherniack has created 26 meditative and soul-stirring half-hour films using those inspiring words, sense-luscious imagery, and emotionally dynamic music for this wonderful series. Here's a spiritual-imaginative marriage that will lead, challenge, soothe, and encourage you on your journey. This groundbreaking series is based on a new alphabet of 26 spiritual traits of mind and heart that can be used to practice spirituality in daily life.

Alternatively, visit our Vimeo Video-on-Demand Spiritual Literacy Media website to purchase/rent hi-res digital downloads of each of the 26 episodes separately.

A Chance for Individual Reflection and Group Discussion on What Really Matters

Spiritual Literacy was a television series that aired on the Vision channel in Canada. Now it's available in the United States and around the world thanks to Spiritual Literacy Media.

• View examples of how people and groups are using DVDs. Demonstration projects that looked into how the series could be used in spirituality groups, prisons, retirement communities, health care institutions, and other settings produced these models. Despite the fact that this phase of the project is complete, we are always delighted when people contact us to tell us about their experiences with the series.
• A list of the writers and readings featured in each episode may be found here. These listings also point to the pages in Spiritual Literacy where each reading can be found.
• Print the Viewer's Guide for each of the 26 episodes, which includes discussion and reflection questions as well as suggestions for how you might put each trait into practice in your daily life.

What is the meaning of spiritual spirituality?

Spirituality is defined as the awareness of a feeling, sense, or belief that there is something more to being human than sensory experience, and that the greater total of which we are a part is cosmic or divine in nature.

What is the biblical definition of spiritual?

Biblical spirituality can be defined as the divine repair and mending of humanity's shattered relationship with the Triune God. As a result, biblical spirituality is a contrite human heart and mind responding to God's loving heart and mind (1 Cor 2:12-13; Rom 8:14).

How do I become spiritual?

Seven Ways to Boost Your Spiritual Well-Being

• Examine your spiritual foundation. You are merely asking yourself questions about who you are and what you mean when you explore your spiritual essence.

What are the 3 elements of spirituality?

In their eternal wisdom, all shamans, healers, sages, and wisdom keepers of all centuries, continents, and peoples claim that human spirituality is made up of three aspects: connections, values, and life purpose. These three components are so strongly linked that it may be difficult to tell them apart. Take a minute to ponder on each facet of human spirituality to determine the state of your spiritual well-being if this is possible. This will be a three-part monthly series, starting with relationships.

Internal (your domestic policy)—how you deal with yourself, how you nurture the relationship with yourself and your higher self—and external (your foreign policy)—how you relate, support, and interact with those people (and all living entities) in your environment—are the two categories of relationships.

What criteria would you use to assess your internal relationship, and what steps could you take to improve it?

How would you assess your external relationships, shifting from the perspective of domestic policy to international policy?

What is a spiritual life?

Spirituality is a vast topic with many different interpretations. In general, it entails a sense of belonging to something larger than oneself, as well as a quest for purpose in life. As a result, it is a universal human experience that affects all of us. A spiritual experience might be described as sacred, sublime, or simply as a strong sense of aliveness and connectivity.

Some people may discover that their spiritual lives are intertwined with their affiliation with a church, temple, mosque, or synagogue. Others may turn to prayer or a personal relationship with God or a higher force for comfort. Others look for significance in their relationships with nature or art. Your unique concept of spirituality, like your sense of purpose, may evolve through time as you adjust to new experiences and relationships.

Type 2 diabetes affects approximately 25.8 million people in the United States, or 8.3 percent of the population.

1 Non-Hispanic Blacks aged 20 and up account for 4.9 million (18.7%) of the total. 1 Complications of type 2 diabetes, such as cerebrovascular illness, renal failure, and amputations, are substantially more common among African Americans than in non-Hispanic Whites.1

With proper diabetic self-care, these problems can be decreased or avoided. Diabetes therapy relies heavily on self-care knowledge, skills, and activities. The intricacy of sustaining and managing daily self-care activities, such as exercise, food change, and medication adherence, makes diabetic self-care difficult. The American Association of Diabetes Educators2 lists seven diabetes self-care behaviors: being active (physical activity and exercise); eating healthy (diet composition and caloric content); taking medications; monitoring (e.g., blood glucose, weight, blood pressure); problem solving, particularly for blood glucose (high and low levels, sick days); reducing risks (to reduce diabetes complications; smoking cessation); and healthy coping (psychosocial adaptation). These behaviors have been recognized as measurable results of effective diabetes education and should be practiced at both the individual and population level to accomplish the targeted outcomes of diabetes complications prevention and physical and psychological well-being.

Spiritual and religious beliefs and activities can either help people cope with a chronic illness by providing support, confidence, and hope, or they might obstruct successful coping by causing them to ignore self-care activities in favor of prayer and/or meditation.

3 While there is evidence of a link between spirituality and hypertension self-management4, few research have looked at the impact of spirituality on diabetes self-management.

5 As a result, less is known about how spiritual beliefs and practices, as well as social support, influence diabetic self-care among African American adults. 6 Spirituality is an important source of emotional support; God is perceived as central in providing strength to deal with daily challenges; God is frequently called upon for help in controlling diabetes; and a strong belief in God, prayer, meditation, and support from church members were all sources of support in previous studies concerning spirituality, religion, and diabetes in African Americans. 3, 5, and 8 Religion and spirituality were linked to better glycemic control in Black women with type 2 diabetes in one study,9 while religion and spirituality were linked to a lower likelihood of lifelong smoking among African Americans in another. 10

Because of the foregoing findings and a gap in the literature, we decided to look into the possibilities of incorporating spiritual and religious views into diabetic self-management. Spiritual views encompass a connection to a higher being as well as an existential outlook on life, death, and the nature of reality. 11 Religious practices/rituals such as prayer or meditation, as well as interaction with religious community members, are examples of religious beliefs. While spiritual and religious views have a lot in common, the authors decided to look into both of them because they are commonly brought up when dealing with disease. It's also necessary to look into both of these concepts because some people consider themselves spiritual but don't necessarily believe in religion. While religious beliefs and practices are more easily measured, the authors intended to look at the larger context of people's belief systems, specifically their perspectives on life's meaning, disease, and existential concerns. 13 The Systems of Belief Inventory (SBI) was chosen to measure these constructs due to the requirement to examine both spiritual and religious beliefs and practices in the process of coping with an illness.

The researchers wanted to see if there was a link between (a) spiritual and religious beliefs and practices and social support, and (b) diabetic self-care activities in African Americans with type 2 diabetes. Because African Americans have numerous diabetes inequities, this is an essential topic (i.e., highest rates of diabetes, diabetes complications, and diabetes-related mortality rates). 14

Because little is known about how spiritual and religious beliefs and practices affect diabetes self-care in African American adults, this study looked at the relationship between spirituality, religion, and diabetes self-care activities in this population, such as diet, physical activity, blood glucose self-testing, and foot care behaviors. Because some evidence suggests a link between spirituality and religion and lifetime smoking in African Americans10, a negative link between spirituality and religion and smoking was hypothesized. It was expected, in particular, that those who scored higher on spiritual and religious beliefs and practices, as well as social support, would engage in more diabetes self-care activities and smoke less.