Leanne Shawler, Artist

What has been the role of relationships and/or community in your spiritual growth? This question was recently posed on Facebook by Christianne Squires and I told her I could probably write an essay on it. So here it is. The roles of relationships and communities have both helped and hindered my spiritual growth. Community has hindered my spiritual growth by not teaching me. I've been a Christian from the cradle. I would say I spent the first half (currently) of my life not really getting Christianity. When your Christian education consists of some Sunday School and a confirmation class (where I was taught things my current church teaches to pre-K and elementary school aged children), it shouldn't be a surprise that I didn't really get it. I'd never been educated beyond a kindergarten level and somehow I was expected to know why it was so important to worship God and what exactly that entailed. I was taught nothing beyond "come to Sunday worship...

[This article was originally printed in the San Diego Diocesan Messenger this year. I made some edits] Chanting brings community. Yet it might seem dull to some people. After all, it’s saying a lot of words on one note, right? Well, technically, yes, but chanting unearths a simple beauty, an extra dimension to prayer. I came to chanting through the monastics. Sure, I knew about Anglican chant but I’d never been part of a congregation that did it in such a way that we all knew what note we were supposed to be singing. Either because it was too complicated, or none of us had really been properly taught. The first time I participated monastic chanting of the psalms, I got completely lost, so it’s not like I was initially excited by the idea of chanting. But then I rediscovered it during a retreat to Mt. Calvary monastery in Santa Barbara (which, coincidentally was the first place that I'd participated - but at their old location in the hills behind Santa Barbara). Th...