Sticks and Balls and Natural Spirituality

Dr. Lisa Miller believes that every parent can enhance their child’s natural spirituality. And one great way to do that is through sports: “Sports teams tap into kids’ hardwired spiritual values: for selfless commitment, collective practice, ritual, play, and higher purpose.”

A prime example in Miller’s research is the parallel of Baseball and Divinity: “Basically all sports that involve balls and sticks are far more similar than different: baseball, cricket, polo, croquet, even lacrosse and hurling; we just bend and swing in different forms. Essentially, around the world we all are balanced and built with the same legs and arms, and nature has it that sticks and balls move the same way. So, too, with natural spirituality and the core transcendent faculty: the way in which we connect in the transcendent relationship really does not differ much; it is foundationally essential to how we all are built.”