Scholars as Spiritual Beings: Five Trajectories of Scholarship and Spirituality

Abstract This article reflects on the bi -directional, reflexive work of scholarship and spirituality. It begins with the author’s positionality as a Christian language educator who has researched spiritually in her field of Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL). A brief introduction of seminal works in faith and scholarship is provided, followed by a discussion of how scholarship within one faith tradition might be applied to others. The concept of scholars as spiritual beings is raised with a reflection on the limits of categorizing acts as either sacred or secular, and how this polarity hinders deeper, more meaningful ways to engage in scholarship when even the mundane is seen as spiritual and so called ‘spiritual’ acts are reconsidered as potentially empty ritual. Five trajectories of spiritual scholarship are described with examples for each trajectory from the author’s work: 1. Vertical: enlarging our understanding of God; 2. Outward: revealing an understanding of nature and the universe; 3. Horizontal: improving our spiritual service to others; 4. Inward: deepening our spiritual identity; 5. Multidimensional: providing a spiritual understanding through difficult life events and finding meaning and interconnectedness to God, self & others. Reflection on the legitimacy of scholarship and spirituality concludes the article.