Spiritually Perplexed

I had never read these two words used before together or heard them spoken in this way before so since my wife and I were reading two books next to each other I asked her if "Spiritually perplexed" might mean the same thing as "Agnostic". She said "No. This is something different." After I thought about it for a moment I thought maybe "spiritually perplexed" might be sort of like "I wish I knew what it all meant but I don't". So, this said to me, someone who wasn't sure of the meaning of life and possibly wished that they did.

I found these words in "A Note to the Reader" as I began to read "Committed" by Elizabeth Gilbert who also wrote "Eat Pray Love".

So, you can read all this in context I will quote a part of the paragraph it is in. In this paragraph the author is telling us the 27 women for whom she wrote this book for intentionally. She mentioned that she didn't know how to write a best seller and had accidentally written "Eat Pray Love" and at the time hoped her readers would forgive her writing an autobiography in "Eat Pray Love".

Here is the quote from  page xv and xvi:

-----One is freshly married; another two or so sorely wish to be married; a few have recently remarried; one in particular is unspeakably grateful never to have married at all; another just ended a nearly decade-long relationship with a woman. Seven are mothers; two (as of this writing) are pregnant; the rest-- for a variety of reasons and a wide range of feelings about it are childless. Some are homemakers; others are professionals; a couple of them, bless their hearts, are homemakers and professionals. Most are white; a few are black; two were born in the middle east; one is Scandinavian; two are Australian, one is South American; another is Cajun. Three are devoutly religious; five are utterly uninterested in all questions of divinity; most are somewhat spiritually perplexed; the others have somehow, over the years, brokered their own private agreements with God. All these women have an above average sense of humor. All of them at some point in their lives, have experienced heartbreaking loss." end quote from page xvi of Committed.

I found this paragraph remarkable on many levels because it describes a well rounded person who tolerates both spirituality, religious beliefs as well as agnosticism in her life. Her friends are international in scope which means a higher than average degree of tolerance,  education and finances, and makes her the kind of person that many people would like to know and to have as a friend worldwide.

So it is no surprise to anyone why her books are so popular the past 10 to 20 years all around the world.

So, if I were to analyze if I was ever "Spiritually perplexed" in my life it would have had to be between about 10 or 11 and 14 or 15. However, by that time my commitment to a supreme being or a supreme intelligence in the universe was accepted by me by ages 14 and 15. It wasn't that I specifically believed in any one religion completely, it was that I had a direct covenant and ongoing experiences with God and respected all compassionate religions on earth as some of his vehicles. And I expect to find thousands to millions of other religions and vehicles (or more) as we explore our galaxy and other galaxies. However, this has no direct affect on my direct experience with God 24 hours a day since I was about 14 or 15, other than to be amazed at just how many forms (both intellectually, physically and spiritually) that God can manifest through and into all beings in the universe.