Spiritually intelligent people help to create a better world.

We all are leaders to the degree we help to create a better today and a better tomorrow. The true hero does not undertake the journey for personal glory, but for the benefit of all. While there is a great deal of good news globally - higher literacy rates, cures for many diseases, increased longevity, and decreasing levels of abject poverty over the last one hundred years - there is much, much more that needs to be done to relieve suffering and create a sustainable health future for humanity and this planet. We can each do our part by developing ourselves, finding our higher purpose, and taking the wisest most compassionate actions we can. Collectively we will decide how the future turns out. I hope we co-create a beautiful future. SQ can help us do that.

John Mackey in forward to Cindy Wigglesworth’s book, The Twenty-One Skills Of Spiritual Intelligence. P. ix

When one becomes enmeshed in the onslaught of sensationalized hourly news from cable news shows and social media platforms, it is understandable how people become cynical, depressed, angry, and feel helpless.

While we cannot do much to influence external circumstances, we can always work on our own level of spiritual intelligence. When we become more spiritually intelligent our presence in the world has a salubrious, beneficial influence. Jeff Skoll states in his TED talk that he asked what it takes to make the world a better place and Gardner said, “Bet on good people doing good things.”

There are steps we can take to increase our spiritual intelligence. There are maps people can acquire to plan their journey and mark their progress. One of these maps are the seven principles of Unitarian Universalism. Another map is provided by Cindy Wigglesworth in her book, The Twenty-One Skills Of Spiritual Intelligence.

Spiritual intelligence can be thought of as part of the three legged stool of human intelligences, IQ, the Intelligence Quotient, EQ, the Emotional Quotient, and now, SQ the Spiritual Quotient. The cognitive, the emotional, and the spiritual or the head, the heart, and the transcendent.

Increasingly, when people are surveyed by the big pollsters like Pew, Gallup, Barna, people say they are not religious but spiritual. The percentage of people who the pollsters call “nones” meaning they have no religious identification has been slowly rising decade to decade.

What is spiritual intelligence? How can it be measured? Does it matter for individuals and societies to increase the level of spiritual intelligence? If so, how can it be done? Mother Teresa said one time that while the US is the richest nation on earth materially, it is one of the poorest spiritually.

Here on davidgmarkham.substack.com this topic of spiritual intelligence will be explored every Tuesday it not more often.