Spiritual Gravity

My friend’s phone woke him at 2:00 a.m. It was his son. And middle of the night calls are rarely a good thing. 

“Dad, I’m at the front door,” his son said. “Can you please let me in?” 

This son had left the church years before, lost his way, and had been a source of sorrow and tears to his parents. My friend pulled on some clothes and unlocked the door. It was evident from his son’s appearance that he’d been doing things that weren’t . . . great.

“Can we talk for a bit?” the son asked. 

My friend’s mind raced as he let his son in and, without speaking, they moved to the kitchen table.  

With pain written all over his demeanor his son began: “Dad, I used to be happy. I want to be happy again. Can you please tell me how I can be happy again?”

My friend’s hopes rose. After so many wasted years, could his son finally be coming to his senses? He gathered his thoughts, wanting to say the right thing, but before he could begin, his son lifted his hand and added, “And before you start, I don’t want ‘the church answer.’”

Even now I can feel my friend’s hopes deflate. I feel his sorrow and his exasperation. “Son, I really wish there was some other way I could tell you to be happy. But I don’t know any other way.”

I relate with my friend, but when he shared this story I found myself thinking, “Wait! Isn’t there something he could have shared to help his son without ‘the church answer’?” My mind turned to thoughts my wife and I have shared about “Spiritual Gravity,” as we like to call it, or the spiritual laws that govern all human lives. 

We will recognize these laws as truths of the restored gospel. But they are not exclusive to our church or to any religion. By sharing them in a way that doesn’t depend upon our practices or terminology, we can still find common ground with those who’ve foregone religious affiliation. Spiritual Gravity will help us share spirituality in ways that bring us together rather than drive us apart.

Spiritual Laws

Some years ago, a neighborhood teenager was juggling billiard balls. In a regrettable lapse of attention, he smashed out both of his front teeth. He overestimated his ability to control them as gravity accelerated them toward his face.

No one expects to be exempt from gravity. We live with a healthy respect for it or disregard it at our own risk, like the physical laws of entropy or momentum or electricity. Resisting their consequences will always be in vain. When our choices respect and account for them, we can hope to avoid some of their more painful consequences.

Are there immutable and universal spiritual laws as well? Not religious commandments, but fundamental laws governing our spiritual lives? Perhaps if we understood these better, we might avoid having our spiritual teeth smashed out and benefit instead from their power.

These laws are evident all around us. We find them in proverbs, memes, religious texts, philosophy, and literature. They’re at work in movie plots, stories, and our daily lives. Every day we experience their natural outcomes, even if we may at first be unaware.

I will describe nine laws I believe rise to the level of spiritual gravity. 

1.  The Law of Love:  Charity never fails and love conquers all.

In the movie Groundhog Day, Phil Connors (Bill Murray), TV weatherman, is stuck in a loop of narcissistic indulgence. He is arrogant, vain, selfish, unkind . . . and unhappy. In a twist of cosmic comeuppance, he is forced to live the same day over and over until he learns to be less selfish, less rude, less belittling. The process is prolonged and as painful to him as it is entertaining to us. Changing one’s nature is no small task. He begins to see and be touched by the love and generosity of others, and he breaks free from his same-day loop only when his indulgent motives give way to the needs of others—even Ned Ryerson, the annoying insurance salesman. It is no accident that the love and kindness of another person (Rita) exerts the strongest pull on his desire to change. He finally lets go of his base desires and discovers the inherent joy of loving others.

The Law of Love stands at the center of all spiritual gravity and is the law from which all the others spring—like the light from which all colors of the spectrum emerge. It is exemplified in actions of sacrifice, service, and mercy, and it transforms us spiritually. 

Just as the Law of Love elevates those who are kind and merciful, it has the opposite effect on souls acting with hatred, indifference, and spite. When we act with premeditated enmity and cruelty, we inflict wounds on our souls that may eventually be impossible to hide or heal.

That charity never fails is the greatest of all spiritual promises. It never fails to build, ennoble, and heal, and it conquers all in the sense that its power to lift and heal can overcome all other spiritual setbacks.

The final episode of the 2016–20 sitcom The Good Place includes a powerful demonstration of the Law of Love. The show’s characters have followed various paths to “the Good Place” and are finally enjoying the rewards of Heaven. The Heaven they experience is nice enough to start, but after eons of the same indulgent “rewards,” our characters have become utterly bored. The pleasures they thought would give them eternal enjoyment are now exhausting. “The Good Place” has come to feel more like “The Bad Place.” In the final episode they face the prospect of an eternity of the same. Just then, each is presented with the unexpected option to end their existence in oblivion.

 All choose oblivion but one. This woman, rather than indulging in the Good Place’s endless diversions, opts instead to take a job in something like the office of “angelic help,” subtly nudging mortals to help them progress toward their eternal destinies. The work is fraught with failure as well as success (free will is still at work), but she finds this not a chore, but endlessly refreshing and rewarding! When presented with the same option for oblivion as her friends, she realizes that her eternity is already one filled with meaning. She loves her job. She loves caring for and helping others. She loves . . . LOVE.

Charity overcomes hatred, selfishness, indifference, and despair. When we give love, we lose self-pity and self-consciousness. When we receive or observe love, our souls are magnified and illuminated, motivating us toward spiritual change. Love indeed conquers all, ever exerting its pull through the space of our lives, like far-flung stars of a galaxy ever drawn to its core.

 

2. The Law of Agency: Humans are agents and consequence is sure.

Contrary to what some modern philosophers and biologists contend, our ability to choose our actions and attitudes is not an illusion. While our genes may give us propensities, our choices are not fated. We have agency, and we are therefore accountable for our own spiritual destinies. 

While neither agency nor accountability extend to circumstances in which we have no real choice, even in the most restricted of human circumstances, men and women have demonstrated the power to choose love over evil or ambivalence. Consider the experience of holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl who said, “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Perhaps there is no more universal spiritual idea than this: we reap what we sow. Accountability is nothing more than the consequences of our actions coming home to roost. This law of attraction, or karma, or “law of restoration,” is the justice which no one escapes. While some will try to avoid or ignore accountability, spiritual gravity will not fail to give us what we spiritually deserve. If we cheat and steal, we rob ourselves of trust and generosity. If we are vengeful and unforgiving, we lose peace and growth.

A common way in which we violate the Law of Agency is to restrict the agency of others in misguided, paranoid, or vicious ways. Societal examples include the enslavement of blacks in America and the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. On an individual level, we may intentionally sabotage another’s confidence or insist that things only be done our way. Actions such as these always come with a spiritual cost. When pride or our will to dominate violates another’s agency, we may stunt their development, but we surely injure and disfigure our own souls.

The primary spiritual choice we all must make is whether or not to live in harmony with spiritual laws. In this we bring upon ourselves magnificent or grave spiritual outcomes. Agency and the accountability it presumes constitute the second great spiritual law.

  

3. The Law of Human Worth:  All Men and Women are Created Equal

Every human spirit has infinite worth. While biological capacities differ, there is no difference in the spiritual potential and value of any person, male or female, rich or poor, schooled or unlearned. When we respect and honor this potential, we grow in spiritual power. Organizations such as Special Olympics provide an inspiring example of focusing all involved on the inherent worth of every soul.

Recent studies compare nations with female-friendly cultures (equal rights, better legal protection, leadership opportunities) to those without them. Such countries have demonstrably higher GDPs, lower mortality rates, and lower crime rates, etc. This is no surprise among those who comprehend the far-reaching influence women can have on a society, but from where does this impact spring? What determines that virtuous outcomes follow equal rights and opportunities for all? These are inevitable outcomes of the Law of Human Worth.

When we fail to treat each other as having inherent and equal worth, we are set back as communities and blighted as individuals. This spiritual law is widely violated today where oppression and restriction continue. Nations, cultures, and individuals will slide and ultimately fail spiritually until observance of the Law of Human Worth prevails.

 

4. The Law of Conscience: We can perceive right and wrong.

All humans share a fundamental sense of right and wrong. The ability to distinguish good and evil is an essential capacity of our spiritual selves. In his book The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt concludes that humans have a universal, innate sense of right and wrong:

If morality doesn’t come primarily from reasoning, then that leaves some combination of innateness and social learning as the most likely candidates. . . . We’re born to be righteous, but we have to learn what, exactly, people like us should be righteous about.

Paul Bloom, in Just Babies, describes how even infants appear hardwired with a sense of morality. Even before they can speak or walk, babies judge the goodness and badness of others’ actions; feel empathy and compassion; act to soothe those in distress; and have a rudimentary sense of justice.

This spiritual capacity is essential for us to exercise agency, although conscience may develop unequally or in entirely wrong directions. In Mark Twain's classic novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck senses his true conscience when it conflicts with the cultural conscience he’s been raised with. He just can’t bring himself to do “right” and give up his runaway slave friend Jim:

Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s’pose you’d ‘a’ done right and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I, I’d feel bad—I’d feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, what’s the use you learning to do right when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? I was stuck. I couldn’t answer that.”

Sadly, conscience is a capacity too commonly suppressed. The appetites and emotions of our physical bodies provide a constant stream of distractions, justifications, and temptations. Our consciences are reliable as guides only to the extent they are not suppressed, overwhelmed, or relinquished to cultural rationalizations.

I will not contend that the Law of Conscience is sufficient for us to always choose right over wrong but only that it illuminates all of us to some degree. It is necessary but not sufficient for governing human behavior and must be cultivated in developing our moral nature.

  

5. The Law of Action: We become or receive only after we act on our desires.

An astute observer suggested, “We don’t really know what we believe until we see what we do.” We like to think we believe many things. When we act, however, we not only reveal what we truly believe, but we become, by degree, what we have chosen to do. If we desire and act with virtue, we become virtuous. If we act with contempt or hatred, we become hateful and contemptuous. It cannot be otherwise. While agency gives us freedom to choose, the Law of Action dictates how that choice becomes spiritually consequential. Our action is the essential component of spiritual becoming.

While it would be nice if we always acted with virtue and generosity, there is no shortage of opportunities to become spiritually oppressive as well. These actions may even bring a callous, sadistic pleasure in the moment but eventually transform our spiritual natures into something detestable. In J.K. Rowling’s fantasy novel Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter worried about becoming something loathful—even evil. Professor Dumbledore’s timeless reassurance for Harry is a testament to the Law of Action: “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

Perhaps you are lucky enough to know someone who has become benevolent, at peace with themself, and spiritually above the fray. They are a light to others. We would be well-served to meditate upon their goodness and emulate their actions.

 

6.   The Law of Change: Embracing change leads to peace.

Change is a certainty. The world, our circumstances, our personalities, and our beliefs are constantly evolving. Resistance to the personal growth that change catalyzes in our lives leads to suffering. Embracing it fosters peace, and the spiritual Law of Change will not permit us to be comfortable for very long.

Who cannot identify with Shrek, the loveable ogre whose cozy swamp and contentment are disrupted by the arrival of unwanted neighbors: fairy-tale characters with perplexing problems and demanding needs. What is he to do when these uncomfortable changes are thrust upon him? Our lives seem comically, or tragically, similar. When we are compelled to respond to unexpected change, we may need to confront our own onion-like layers of self-protection, maybe even befriend an annoying talking donkey, or become the reluctant rescuer of a damsel in distress. What we cannot see is that these changes will ultimately be for our good—perhaps even bringing us a Donkey or a Fiona and the peace and richness those relationships will bring. 

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, we’re reminded that some change required of us is not just hard but unfair. Frodo laments his own gut-wrenching circumstances: “I wish it need not have happened in my time." Gandalf responds with compassion and wisdom, "So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

The only path to peace is through the changes so relentlessly pressed upon us. Change may be exciting or terrible, anticipated or dreaded, but we will not find peace attempting to fence out the often-breathtaking changes required of us. Let us embrace the changes thrust upon us and the changes we choose to make, and the Law of Change will bring peace to our souls.

  

7. The Law of Gratitude:  Gratitude induces happiness.

Peter Attia is an M.D. whose practice and New York Times bestseller Outlive promote “healthspan,” maximizing quality of life rather than just its length. In the pursuit of healthspan, he asserts there is no greater single remedy, no medication, no supplement, no habit or practice that is as powerfully beneficial as consistent physical exercise. The evidence that exercise lowers all-cause mortality and morbidity is so dramatic that one wonders why everyone isn’t on board. Well, as a spiritual prescription, gratitude is to happiness as exercise is to healthspan. If we are interested in being happy, nothing comes even close to gratitude. Gratitude is indeed a superpower!

Why does gratitude induce happiness so unfailingly? Perhaps because the gratitude habit acknowledges our insufficiency and interdependence. With that humility, we will seek and find the lovely and the good in any circumstance and relationship. Gratitude permits its practitioners to suffer even terrible setbacks or sorrows and to emerge more refined and wiser from the experience.

Gratitude seems to be in societal decline. When we allow ourselves to be too distracted to be grateful, our spiritual health, individual and collective, is at risk. Social media has become an organ of envy, too many users engrossed with what they don’t have rather than what they do. This focus will assure the epidemic of unhappiness will continue. Pollyanna, the 1913 classic children’s novel made into a film in 1960, tells the story of a “radically optimistic” twelve-year-old orphan girl, who epitomizes the virtue of gratitude in whatever situation she finds herself by playing “the Glad Game.” It seems unlikely that a remake is coming any time soon. Today, too many are inclined to embrace victimhood, perhaps in the hope of getting compensation, justice, or pity, but this spiritual law ensures that these hopes will fail to lead to anything like contentment or happiness. If we would be happy, we must live the Law of Gratitude.

  

8.  The Law of Forgiving: Forgiving frees us to grow.

Chris Williams is a man who would be justified in not forgiving the teen drunk driver whose actions claimed the lives of his wife, two children, and unborn baby. Yet, within two short years, he was sitting with the convicted teen, forgiving and hoping the young man wouldn’t carry the burden of guilt for the rest of his life. In this act of forgiving, Chris freed himself from the spiritually destructive obsessions of self-pity and vengeance.

Forgiving is a spiritual law that contends heatedly with our human sense of justice. We want bad guys to get their due. We want the world to be fair. It clearly is not. Undeserved harm and suffering have been around for as long as mankind has. Perhaps it is because we are unable to make mortal life “just” that spiritual gravity demands forgiving each other so that we can continue to grow. Without forgiving, we languish spiritually.

Unlike legal recourse, forgiving disregards blame and responsibility—where we so easily can get mired. Forgiving does not supersede justice, but rather operates in a separate spiritual sphere. Forgiving is not something we offer another for the benefit of the person who has wronged us. Our forgiving may or may not help them. Rather, it is a gift we give ourselves. We release ourselves from the burden of resentment and self-pity that will otherwise pile up in our souls, making us bitter, angry, obsessed, and unable to progress. Choosing to be unforgiving is a spiritual tether; we are tied to one spot until we release those bonds through acts of forgiving.

No one can judge someone who struggles with forgiving. We may not fully grasp what pain or fear someone holds in their hearts after being deeply harmed by another. Legal justice can and should be pursued. The pull of spiritual gravity, however, is unrelenting. We only fail ourselves if we do not move toward forgiving, however long or hard that road. When we finally do, we are like sailing vessels, having languished in spiritual doldrums, when the breeze finally returns and fills our sails again with fresh power to resume our journey. The Law of Forgiving sets us free.

9. The Law of Meditation: Meditation magnifies our spiritual senses.

When I was twelve years old, I experienced a spiritual awakening on a backpacking trip. I sat quietly with my scouting buddies at sunset on an alpine ridge above timberline, gazing out over Desolation Lake in the High Sierra. Our goofy spirits were subdued from the sheer exhaustion of two days of strenuous hiking. We had set up tents, eaten dinner, and climbed that ridge just for the view. Each of us went silent, spellbound as the last golden rays of sun washed across the granite peaks around us. The indigo ripples of the lake trembled, and a billion stars emerged overhead. I had the deep feeling that my life was connected to something loving and meaningful. The awe of that moment settled in my heart and has stayed with me ever since. Without realizing it, I had experienced the power of the Law of Meditation.

A survey conducted in 2023 showed that 85% of Americans participate in some kind of spiritual practice, with the most common reporting prayer (61%) while 39% said they practice meditation. In another study of 102 countries, the national average share of people who say they pray daily is 49%. Including religious prayer, meditation, and mindfulness exercises, billions of humans are engaging in meditative practices. This reveals something universal about the deep spiritual longing that is part of our human nature.

The effect of the Law of Meditation is connection to our spiritual selves and the magnification of that awareness. When we meditate, we may experience awe, insight, understanding, direction, comfort, peace, or love. Meditation focuses our minds in such a way as to make us more aware and open to understanding spiritual things. Subverting the physical noise around us enables us to better tune into our spiritual frequencies.

The forms that meditation takes throughout the world are varied and numerous and include quiet contemplation, thoughtful appreciation of art and music, time spent marveling at the natural world, and all forms of vocal and silent prayer. All of these focus our minds, lower our heart rates, and decrease stress, but this spiritual law additionally offers us spiritual magnification. 

Final Thoughts

These laws of Spiritual Gravity may vary in their penetrance and immediacy, but I believe they are universal. While you may find others or define them differently, spiritual laws are no more discretionary than gravity or electromagnetism are life options. Understanding this, we can confidently connect our choices and their spiritual outcomes. We will perceive that ultimately no good choice fails, and no injustice will evade spiritual consequence. With that understanding, we will see spiritual laws at work in other faith paths and build bridges of understanding.

For my friend and his son, spiritual laws may be a better place to work from. “Son, I do have some ideas that may help you,” he might say. “They are what I have learned about how to be happy, and I can share them with you without the ‘church answer.’”

His next question to his son should be one we all ask others: “What are your spiritual (not religious) beliefs?” and “How do your beliefs compare with mine?” With a common vocabulary, we can better share, compare, and appreciate the beauty of each other’s experiences.

Spiritual laws are so beautifully generative! How invigorating it is that there is something more powerful at work here than the physical laws appearing to lead inexorably to the universe’s thermodynamic equilibrium (“the Big Chill”). Our spiritual destiny is not dissipation but increased stature—eternal, magnificent, and infinite.

Members of my faith community and fellow Christians may ask, “Where is God in all of this?” Personally, I believe God is the source of spiritual law, but I leave that conclusion to individual readers. My purpose has not been to advocate for Christianity or any other religious faith. Rather, it is to encourage those who withdraw from religious practice to stay connected to spiritual law. For those of us who remain religious, I hope we will find deep connections between our faith practices and the spiritual laws at their foundation. Most of all, I hope we will honor and share the spiritual beliefs we hold in common.

Bruce Bartholomew is a hobbyist writer/poet who delights in the outdoors, spoiling his grandkids, and discovering spiritual truth.

Art by Justus van Gent and Pedro Berruguete, Andrew Bell, Petrus Apianus, and others.