I have tried to dig out my original notes for the presentation I made concerning Gen X spirituality in January. I have also found the notes I made from the flipcharts we used.
I have not posted this before, as I didn't have my blog back then.
I set about trying to illustrate contemporary or Gen X spirituality based on film and music clips, and inviting people to contribute their own suggestions as to the spiritual importance these influential images have.
I started by showing the Red Hot Chili Peppers play "By the way" on the Live from Slane Castle DVD.
I showed the clip from the Matrix where Trinity bring Neo to meet Morpheus for the first time.
I showed a bit from The Two Towers where Gandalf reappears to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli.
I also played Losing my Religion by R.E.M., and Crucify by Tori Amos.
I finished by showing the final scene from The Truman Show.
I invited comments and discussion, and noted down remarks made as follows...
We agreed that contemporary culture was seeking the following things as part of their spiritual search.
A sense of unity
Shared experience
Participation
Freedom
Being in a large group/community
The display of emotions is acceptable
Truth
"You have to experience it"
A yearning for Eden
Common purpose
Energy
Enjoyment
The importance of experience
Presence / intimacy
Something ethereal
Free will and choice
Its okay to be searching
A suspicion of control
A desire for personal responsibility (you have to find out for yourself)
I tried to sum these up by saying that young people don't come to Church because they are not spiritual; rather they don't to Church because they are, and they don't see anything spiritual in what we do.
Many of the items in this list I would want to claim as being "traditional" Christian virtues, but it is just that we have hidden them from public view or lost them along the way through Modernity.
There was a similarity between these comments and another group that I posted about seperately here.
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