Struck Spiritual

What is the meaning of the word spiritual?

The word originates in the Latin spiritus or spirit. From that came the Latin spiritualis which brought forth the Old French spirituel. The Old French eventually gave birth to our modern word. The word spiritual means concerning the spirit.

Before you become upset with the apparent vagueness of it all, go back to the Latin word spiritus. Spiritus means animating or vital principle in man and animals.

As much fun as we humans are, we’re also pretty silly. We get all caught up in what we think a word is supposed to mean or people are supposed to be or do when none of that has anything to do with anything.

Spiritual is not a religious term, although that is how we most often use it in the Western world. If we are going to use it directly or indirectly as a term of religion, I propose a change or two. During the boom in the charismatic Christian movement or the 1960’s and 1970’s I originally heard the term “slain in the Spirit”. That sounded very bloody to me. As a little boy who grew up in the post-World War II era I spent a lot of Saturday afternoons with my pals in the local movie theater watching Westerns and war movies. People got slain, all right. There was an awful lot of ketchup and red dye number two spilled on those movie sets. The same with the television shows we watched, although they were normally bloodless to avoid the wrath of the censors and our mothers.