Emphasize Merging of Spirituality with Academic Pursuits and Research: A Plea and an Inspired Poem

Emphasize Merging of Spirituality with Academic Pursuits and Research: A Plea and an inspired Poem

A Plea

As noted by Shahjahan, (2005), spirituality has been marginalized within academic circles due to a deficiency in a culture that promotes spirituality-based inquiry, a reluctance to integrate and prioritize spirituality in academia, and an uncritical acceptance of the materialistic and physical aspects of existence as the sole reality. Additional factors contributing to the sidelining of spirituality include a lack of belief in the divine nature and the transcendent reality of the world; the political economy surrounding knowledge production that grants legitimacy to specific knowledge systems while dismissing others, along with a prevailing sense of comfort and complacency in traditional methods of knowledge creation.

Reference

Shahjahan, R. A. (2005). Spirituality in the academy: reclaiming from the margins and evoking a transformative way of knowing the world, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 18 (6).

Inspired Poem

The hallowed halls, a sterile gleam,

The search for truth, a rigid line,

Material world, the only sign.

A faith in things we touch and see,

No room for soul, no sacred space,

Just data points in time and place.

Denies the world's divinity

Political economy's fist strong,

Protect the knowledge, right the wrong…

Comfort settles, deep and vast,

But truth unfurls, a fragile bloom,

Lost in the academic gloom.