Every so often God brings a person into my counseling office who immediately captures the sacred part of me. These folks cause a rush, and then leave a hush in my heart; I feel as though The Holy Spirit is present… in them! After the session I sit awestruck, wondering what just happened, but grandly delighted that it has! What is this force that seems to illuminate my little peephole on life, and so lifts my soul? What has just happened?
I ponder… and ponder more on this spiritual phenomenon. Questions abound… Who? What? When? Where? Why? Then I am given a name… spiritual luster! The ‘something’ that these ‘human spirituals’ emanate is some type of spiritual energy… a light from within them. Spiritual Luster seems as good an appellation as any; and so it sticks.
More than several years ago God sent an angel. Her earthly name is Sr. Mary Corde Lenn, OP. RN, MSN. She appeared in one of my spiritual gerontology retreats. On the first day we randomly chose the same table at lunch. Cordial, engaging, inquisitive, and bright was she. A question surfaced in me, What were those rays swirling around her… could they be spiritual luster? It was right then when the Spirit pushed me to share this still in-utero notion of spiritual luster with her.
The notion immediately captured her heart and seemed to ignite her soul. Before the end of lunch we had become research collaborators in search of spiritual luster. Coincidently, she needed a master’s thesis topic; the final requirement in her degree. Just over a year later, there it was on my desk, the fruits of her/our labor. I read her master’s thesis manuscript with intensity that day; and I yelled ‘alleluia’. Sr. Mary’s good, solid, hard-data research had indeed operationally defined and brilliantly illuminated the heretofore undefined concept of spiritual luster. Spiritual luster was now out of the darkness and into the light!
Tomorrow you’ll receive another introduction to the series; on Friday you’ll receive a third piece describing spiritual luster. And then, each day, for the next ten weekdays, beginning Monday, June 7, I will share the top 10 contributing factors that support the intriguing concept of spiritual luster, as identified in the research. How have these ten factors invaded/captured your heart and soul?