“Emergence Christianity” – Part 5- Spiritual Practices
I. Spirituality and Spiritual Practices
For some, “spirituality” is the doing of spiritual practice such as those suggested in this guide: prayer and meditation, worship, study, yoga, ministry, movement. But there’s obviously a problem with this. When we don’t practice, we believe that we’re not being very spiritual. Even worse, when we do practice, we believe that we are! We all know pious, disciplined people who we wouldn’t call “spiritual” at all. Jesus certainly came across some of those folk.
For others, “spirituality” means certain kinds of inner experiences, often characterized as calm, spacious, alert, loving, and non-anxious, with a sense of connection with everything and everyone. As accurately as these words might describe some of our experience, they are really the fruit of a spiritual life, not the thing itself. When calmness or a sense of being connected becomes our definition of spirituality, we run the risk of making these experiences into idols. We seek these experiences rather than seeking God. When we don’t feel these things, we assume that we are not “spiritual” or that God is absent.
So if spirituality is not practice, and it is not the hoped-for fruit, what is it?
It is relationship. Spirituality is how we are in relationship to God, to other people and the world around us, and to ourselves. Spirituality is the process of staying engaged in these relationships, what intention we bring to them, and how willing we are to evolve as the relationship affects us.
A. Relationship to God
Our tradition claims that while God is ultimately a mystery and beyond all of our definitions, God is also personal. While God cannot be reduced to a person (like us, only perfect and much bigger!), God is in relationship with us personally. The Creator of heaven and earth, the Spirit of all wisdom and harmony, the connective force of renewing life in the universe – this One hears our prayers, counts the hairs on our head, and responds to the particularities of our situation.
We are in relationship to the living God, who has a character, will, and methods that are not our own. Spirituality is our ongoing, evolving relationship with this living God. This is why it is so important to not confuse spiritual fruits or disciplines with spirituality itself, making an expected emotional state or the fulfillment of religious activity into something more than they are.
Usually what these seekers discover is that Jesus said “Follow me. Come and see.” He didn’t demand moral perfection or theological certainty. He wanted people to be in relationship with him. In relationship, they would hear him, watch him in action, be questioned by him, and come to know his love for them. We might be in relationship with Jesus mystically, intellectually, sacramentally, or as a companion. What matters is that as Christians, we somehow stay in an evolving relationship to Jesus Christ. He will affect us over time.
And also as in every other relationship, we cannot control the outcome of our relationship with God. We may like to think that we know where it will take us – into greater peace of mind, more patience, kindness and wisdom. In fact, these qualities are promised in scripture and in the lives the saints to all those who love God. But along the way, our relationship with God may take us through some landscape that’s not so pretty! We may need to get a lot angrier before we can find peace. We may need to move through a dark night of despair before we get to the light of God.
Spirituality is our ongoing evolving relationship with this living God. This is why it is so important to not confuse spiritual fruits or disciplines with spirituality itself, making an expected emotional state or the fulfillment of religious activity into something more than they are.
B. Relationship with Others
How do we tell people how much they mean to us? What kind of feelings do we cultivate towards people who are unkind or unfair to us? How do we exercise our gifts in the local church or social communities in which we live? And what kind of relationship do we have with people who don’t share the privileges we enjoy?
When we bring our faith, our prayer, our questions, our scriptures and our sacraments into these relationships, they are affected. The answers to the questions above will change as we see them in light of the gospel. Our behavior in these relationships will change as we pray, as we offer them in the Eucharist, as we puzzle over them with God. The application of our faith traditions to our relationships with others is what makes them “spiritual.” It is also how we participate in the incarnation. For when we take our faith seriously enough to apply it directly to all of our relationships, God takes on human flesh.
C. Relationship with Rest of Creation
Spirituality is how we honor the earth and treat it with loving devotion, as Gods own precious handiwork. It is how we stop and wonder at the color of the sky, the force of wind, the miracle of flying birds. It is how we live our daily life as consumers of the earth’s resources. Creation is Gods body, and our spirituality is, in part, our intentional relationship with this magnificent, fragile, interconnected body.
D. Relationship with Ourselves–
We humans are gifted with the unique capacity for self-reflection, for self-awareness
We are born with genetic determinates and predispositions. As we develop, we are influenced by our circumstances and the people that surround us. We adopt responsive strategies that help us survive and progress. Along the way, some of these conditioned habits of mind, emotion, and behavior become helpful, and some become harmful. Some are our virtues, some are our sins. This is the conditioned self.
Meanwhile, we are also created in the image of God. We are like a seed that contains great potential to fully become the person God intends us to become. The Spirit is given to help us evolve. As spiritual beings, we activate and affirm this Spirit through baptism and other sacraments, faith, devotion, and spiritual practice. Living through us, the Spirit becomes more and more part of our consciousness.
In the course of our faith journey, the Spirit, the Christ within us, the image of God given to us in potential form – this true self rises up and relates to the conditioned self. Gradually, in the dance between God’s grace and our effort, we evolve. We “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). Jesus and Paul go so far as to say that in the process, the [false] self dies, and “it is no longer I [the conditioned self] who lives, but Christ within me” (Galatians 2:20). And yet we remain uniquely ourselves, a particularly version of Christ, or image of God.
Practices
Practices, or “spiritual disciplines,” are the things we do intentionally that strengthen and enliven our relationship with God, others, the world, and the self. Spiritual practices are the things we do that, together with God’s grace, produce the fruit of redemption.
Spiritual Practices are activities that purify and strengthen the mind and body for the spiritual path that leads us along our journey with God.
Spiritual disciplines are those activities that we do that help us practice God’s presence. Paul, the apostle, in his letter to the Christians at Colossae wrote: “And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” (Colossians 3:17)
Spiritual disciplines are not ends in themselves even though they are wonderful habits or practices for the Christian. Their purpose is to provide a means by which believers can grow into mature disciples of the Lord Jesus.
II. The Seven Ancient Practices
Three govern the body; four govern time.
1. Tithing
Every citizen must pay tax. We must give back to what we are a part of. It’s a discipline of giving one tenth to the maintenance of the Kingdom; just as we maintain the state with our good. It separates mere membership and being disciples.
2. Sacred Meal
The most intimate relationship we can ever have with each other is to break bread together. When we take communion we participate in the Kingdom. We share with each other in the most incarnate fashions.
3. Fasting
Fasting depletes our energy and forces us to begin to retreat. Giving up chocolate for Lent is not fasting.
Fasting draws us further into ourselves until there is no energy to meet the stimuli outside of ourselves.
We realize the Kingdom of God is inside of us as well as outside of us. It helps us understand our citizenship in the Kingdom of God and how to live it outwardly.
Disciplines of Time – Time is the dimension in which we are caught. We live with spatial dimensions but time has us captive. It’s toward the end of time we are moving. Time must be governed.
4. Fixed Hour of Prayer
The daily offices of prayer. The Psalmist said “seven times a day do I praise thee…” The fixed hour of prayer governs the day.
Of all the seven disciplines it is the one being most completely revived.
It involves praying every three hours and offering brief prayers. 6 AM, 9 AM, Noon, 3 PM, sunset and before bed [and midnight if you are brave]. When those prayers are said you know Christians are going to pick up your prayers and consistently offer prayer.
You are joining the church invisible when you practice fixed hour prayer. When you pray those prayers you are praying with the church vertical and church horizontal.
5. Keeping the Sabbath Governs the week.- Keeping an entire day that is set aside for God.
6. Keeping of the Liturgical Year – We have neglected to live the Gospel through the entire year. We’ve neglected Advent, Lent, The Great 50 Days, Pentecost.
Resurrection was not so unusual in those days. When they saw Jesus ascend something happened. They knew they were the Kingdom of God on earth. The Liturgical Year reminds us and our community that this the story we live every day of our lives and we measure our time by it.
7. Business of Pilgrimage
We’ve neglected pilgrimage and withdrew from sacred places. You can’t intellectualize faith, it’s something you do incarnate. You incarnate by going to those places that have been made hallowed over the years. Christianity lacks transcendence. A pilgrimage is a coming back.
III. Benedictine Spirituality
The Rule of Saint Benedict is a set of directions for monastic life written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century in Italy. Benedict was educated in Rome at a time when pagan Arian tribes had overrun the civilized world. The church was torn by conflict, and civil and religious authorities were corrupt. Repelled by the vices of Rome, Benedict left the city for the solitude of the hills of Subiaco. In that rocky country he lived in a cave for three years. A monk named Romanus was his mentor. While living as a hermit, he developed a reputation as a holy man.
The spirituality of St. Benedict has offered those who follow its path a way to faith-filled living through work, prayer, learning and living in community. This is not a spirituality that requires a departure from everyday life, but rather a way of being that embraces and becomes fully engaged in the holiness that permeates our daily existence and the call to follow Christ in all that we do.
Benedict established monasteries in which the monks were to be committed to a set of ideals, and were to follow a rhythmic daily pattern of work, study, community, and prayer. He founded twelve monasteries at Subiaco, near Rome, and the abbey at Monte Cassino.
The Rule of Benedict revitalized the Western monastic movement. Benedictine monks established monasteries throughout Europe. Benedictines carried Christianity into Western Europe and the British ‘Isles. Most of the great European cathedrals, and their related universities, came from Benedictine roots. When the Roman Empire collapsed, the monasteries were among the few institutions that kept society functioning.
The monastic movement, empowered by Benedict’s Rule, reached its peak influence in the Middle Ages. Between its origin and the Reformation, fifty popes, thirty emperors, and ninety-seven kings and queens were, or claimed to be, Benedictines. Yet as the Benedictine movement became a secular and political power, it departed from its origins and values, and declined.
Nevertheless, at the heart of the Rule is a core of truth about the human condition
There is increasing recognition in medical science that the human mind contributes to, and in some sense creates, the universe in which it lives. Discoveries in physics confirm that the act of observation is inextricably linked to, and changes, the "reality" observed. This knowledge corroborates the critical role of our own attitudes and perspectives in shaping the world in which we live. The Rule of Saint Benedict is consistent with these discoveries. It is grounded in the realization that the ways we relate to life, our daily actions, thoughts, and feelings, reshape our universe.
The Rule teaches that if we take control of our lives, if we are intentional and careful in how we spend the hours of each irreplaceable day, if we discipline ourselves to live in a balanced and thankful way, we will create from our experiences, whatever they may be, the best possible life
Here are just a few spiritual practices that draw their wisdom from Benedict:
FIRST RULE
The first rule is simply this: live this life and do whatever is done, in a spirit of loving kindness. Abandon attempts to achieve security they are futile, give up the search for wealth, it is demeaning, quit the search for salvation, it is selfish,
EACH DAY
At the beginning of each day, after we open our eyes to receive the light of that day, As we listen to the voices and sounds that surround us, We must resolve to treat each hour as the rarest of gifts, and be grateful for the consciousness that allows us to experience it, recalling in thanks that our awareness is a present from we know not where, or how, or why.
PARAMOUNT GOALS
What is wanted is not that we should find ultimate truth, nor that we should become secure, nor that we should have ease, nor that we should be without hurt, but that we should love.
There is no fear in love. Therefore we should not fear life, nor anything in life, we should not fear death,nor anything in death, we should live our lives in love with life.
It is for us to train our hearts to live in grace, to sacrifice our self-centered desires, to find peace without want without seeking it for ourselves and when we fail, to begin again each day.
If we adopt an outlook of confidence and trust and perfect our experience by care for others, if we live in the certainty that we are heirs in the providence of the outermost mystery, we will begin to change into the persons that we have the potential to be
GOOD WORKS
If you want to live the life that only you can live, do good for others, and when you have done good, you will have life abundantly.
A life without good works is a shadow life. A life centered on itself is an empty life.
Seek to do good for others, and you will find fulfillment. Forget yourself and you will discover what you are seeking.
And if we do good works, we should not do them in the hope of reward, nor in the desire for betterment, nor can we be proud or self-righteous on account of our good works.
RIGHT RELATIONSHIP
These are the opportunities for right relationship:
-To form a loving image of our God, and To love our true God, with all our hearts, with all our minds, and with all our strength, and To love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves.
If we follow the spirit of these charges we will not need any others. But because we are merely human, we should remind ourselves, to relieve the unhappy, to visit the sick, to clothe the destitute, to shelter the oppressed,
-not to take ourselves too seriously, not to want more than we need, not to love possessions, not to carry resentment
-to support the troubled, to encourage good humor, to forgive our enemies, to show mercy to the weak,
-not to want praise, not to be proud, not to be slothful, not to offer unwanted advice, to pray frequently,
-to distrust one’s own will, to speak the truth to ourselves and others, and to prefer nothing to the habit of affinity.
These are the tools. The workshop in which these tools are employed is the community of relationships
DISCIPLINE
“Arise without delay,” Benedict writes in the Prologue to his Rule. “Let us open our eyes to the Divine light and attentively hear the Divine voice, calling and exhorting us daily.”
SILENCE
Remember the great value of silence. Each day there must be time for silence, even in our prayers and meditation. There must be time within which we neither speak nor listen, but simply are.
Consider the silence of a living tree; it neither speaks nor hears. Out of the uncounted aeons, inexorable, ever-changing forces have erected it, to a purpose beyond our understanding.
It needs no words, yet its presence is no less actual than ours.
Consider the value of silence in community. Our ability to listen is our gift to those around us. Too much talk is sign of self-centeredness and insecurity.
If you hear yourself talking excessively, take care.
HUMILITY
A monk is to be humble, and in his humility, he finds joy and even humor. As Benedict says, “by means of his very body [he] always shows his humility to all who see him: that is, in work, in the monastery, in the garden, on the road, in the field, or wherever he may be … with head always bent down and eyes fixed on the earth, he always thinks of the guilt of his sins and imagines himself already present before the terrible judgment seat of God.”
“Cultivate humility. To be exalted is to be in danger. Pride is considered a sin because it warps our existence. It establishes our lives on a false foundation. No one can win all the time.
Therefore, a life based on triumphing over others will always be unfulfilled.
The way to closeness with the sublime is not to add, but is to take away more each day until we have been freed, even from desire for perfection.
ROUTINE
We are physical creatures, and creatures of routine. We thrive when a specific daily schedule is established.
The day should be divided so that there is time for meditation or prayer, time for meals and relationships, time for learning, time for labor, and time for rest.
Time for labor and time for rest will consume two-thirds of our hours. But eight hours a day remain for study, meals, sharing, and prayer. The wise vise of these eight hours is most often neglected.
Bear in mind that the seasons bring changes. Flexibility is required in all things human. Do not be afraid to vary your schedule as long as you are consistent with the spirit of daily balance.
WORK
Before Benedict in the sixth century, work was done by people who had no choice but to do it. In the Roman Empire, slaves were acquired to do as much of the physical work as possible, and getting one’s hands dirty with manual labor was seen as a curse one was born into. But with Benedict, work became prayer, not to be distinguished from other kinds of mental prayer. Your hands are praying while building a table. Your body is praying not only in kneeling before the altar but in sweating in the fields to produce daily bread. Work was made holy by St. Benedict.
OTHERS
Numerous other spiritual principles have their origins in Benedict’s great Rule. Hospitality, for instance, was practiced more in the medieval monasteries than anywhere else at that time. There were times and places when and where the only safe place where a man could find refuge—and be treated kindly as a welcome stranger—was in the monasteries.
And then there is spiritual reading, or lectio divina. Visit almost any Benedictine monastery at meal time and you’ll be treated to a form of this ancient tradition practiced out loud, when a designated monk reads while the others eat. In the refectory the reading is done by one of the brothers, while everyone else eats in silence.
IV. Centering Prayer
Why we need it ?
We move at a pace in life that keeps our souls as busy as our bodies; our unconscious as full as our conscious mind. We are regularly challenged to switch between ideas, images, feelings, thoughts, and emotions with the speed of a computer alternating between programs. The effect on our souls is subtle and stealthy. Over time, we find it difficult simply to be still. We find it difficult to pray or believe that we are centered in the Divine Presence during our prayer. When we are able to take the time to focus ourselves on communication with God, we find our minds assailed by those same ideas, images, feelings, thoughts, and emotions that plagued us before we sat down to pray.
Centering Prayer is a method of silent prayer that prepares us to receive the gift of contemplative prayer, prayer in which we experience God’s presence within us, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than consciousness itself. This method of prayer is both a relationship with God and a discipline to foster that relationship. It places a strong emphasis on interior silence.
Centering Prayer is not meant to replace other kinds of prayer. Rather, it adds depth of meaning to all prayer and facilitates the movement from more active modes of prayer — verbal, mental or affective prayer — into a receptive prayer of resting in God. Centering Prayer emphasizes prayer as a personal relationship with God and as a movement beyond conversation with Christ to communion with Him.
The source of Centering Prayer, as in all methods leading to contemplative prayer, is the Indwelling Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The focus of Centering Prayer is the deepening of our relationship with the living Christ. The effects of Centering Prayer are ecclesial, as the prayer tends to build communities of faith and bond the members together in mutual friendship and love.
Though most authors trace its roots to the contemplative prayer of the Desert Fathers of early Christian monasticism, to the Lectio Divina tradition of Benedictine monasticism, and to works like The Cloud of Unknowing and the writings of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, its origins as part of the "Centering Prayer" movement in modern Catholicism and Christianity can be traced to several books published by three Trappist monks of St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts in the 1970s: Fr. William Meninger, Fr. M. Basil Pennington and Abbot Thomas Keating.
Cistercian monk Father Thomas Keating, a founder of Centering Prayer, was abbot all through the 60s and 70s at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. This area is thick with religious retreat centers, including the well-known Theravada Buddhist center, Insight Meditation Society. Fr. Keating tells of meeting many young people, some who stumbled on St. Joseph’s by accident, many of them born Catholic, who had turned to Eastern practices for contemplative work. He found many of them had no knowledge of the contemplative traditions within Christianity and set out to present those practices in a more accessible way. The result was the practice now called Centering Prayer.
The actual practice of centering prayer is not entirely alien to Catholics, who are advised to meditate in some form daily — such as on the rosary, or on Scripture through the practice of lectio divina. However, although the practice makes use of a ‘sacred word,’ Thomas Keating emphasizes that Centering Prayer is not an exercise in concentrating, or focusing one’s attention on something (such as a mantra), but rather is concerned with intention. The participant’s sole occupation is to establish and maintain the will (intention) to "consent to God’s presence and action during the time of prayer." The above methods, in contrast, have some contemplative goal in mind: with the rosary, the Mysteries of the Rosary are contemplated; with lectio divina, the practitioner thinks about the Scripture reading, sometimes even visualizing it.
Centering Prayer is more akin to the very ancient practice of hesychasm as understood in the Eastern Orthodox Church, in which the participant seeks the presence of God directly (aided by the Jesus Prayer, perhaps) and explicitly rejects discursive thoughts and imagined scenes. (The height of hesychast prayer is spoken of as the vision of the "uncreated light," but this very rare experience is understood as a gift of God, and must not be sought or imagined.)
Basil Pennington, one of the best known proponents of the centering prayer technique, has delineated the guidelines for centering prayer:
Sit comfortably with your eyes closed, relax, and quiet yourself. Be in love and faith to God.
Choose a sacred word that best supports your sincere intention to be in the Lord’s presence and open to His divine action within you (i.e. "Jesus", "Lord," "God," "Savior," "Abba," "Divine," "Shalom," "Spirit," "Love," etc.).
Let that word be gently present as your symbol of your sincere intention to be in the Lord’s presence and open to His divine action within you. (Thomas Keating advises that the word remain unspoken).
Whenever you become aware of anything (thoughts, feelings, perceptions, images, associations, etc.), simply return to your sacred word, your anchor. . Thomas Keating uses a potent image. He says that as thoughts float across our consciousness, they are like boats on the surface of a river. When we are focused on what is on the surface of the river rather than the river itself we slip away from our original intention. The sacred word helps call us back to the place of stillness and faithful presence to God. It is the soft offering that affirms that we want to give our attention back to God.
Ideally, the prayer will reach the point where the person is not engaged in their thoughts as they arrive on their stream of consciousness.
V. Prayer Beads
One of the most difficult aspects of prayer and meditation is focus. There is so much that occurs in the daily round of life that distracts us during the time of prayer. If we were to count the number of thoughts we have in just one hour, we would be astonished at the capacity of our mind to flit like a hummingbird from thought to thought.
The real issue is in the timing. There are times when we want to be free of our bouncing thoughts in order that we can become inwardly still. There are times when we want our focus to be as piercing as a laser beam cutting through an immovable object. There are times when we do not want disturbance to interrupt our intention. Times such as these are often initiated by an external aid. For centuries, in all religions, beads and prayer ropes have been such an aid. While the most touted use of prayer beads is as a counter for the number of prayers said, its use far extends its abacus function. Prayer beads are used to help channel the mind’s energy to a single point with each bead representing a mantra or a prayer. As the user moves their fingers along the beads they are connecting mind and body in such a way that the soul is able to break free to be still in the presence of God. The fingering of the beads keeps the mind and body active, so that the soul can enter the depths of divine love.
Episcopalians are most familiar with the Anglican Rosary that was developed in the 1980s as an aid for contemplative prayer. It is a kind of blend of the Roman Catholic Rosary and the Orthodox Prayer Rope. The Anglican rosary consists of 28 beads with one Invitatory bead and four cruciform beads. The 33 beads are prayed three times, and a prayer is said with the cross so that the total number reaches 100. This is the same number used for the Orthodox prayer rope. The Roman Catholic Rosary is also used by Anglicans with slight adaptations. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Christianity all have some form of prayer beads. There is even now an application version of prayer beads for use on some mobile phones.
When we begin using beads as a prayer practice, there is a period of time needed to become so familiar with the prayers and the practice that they are repeated by memory rather than by conscious thought.
VI. Praying the Daily Office
The word “Office” comes from the Latin word opus meaning work. Praying the Offices, like other spiritual practices, can sometimes seem like work we would rather not do. This prayer practice, however, has the capacity to draw us into something that makes more of our souls, more of our lives, more of the world.
Unlike some other spiritual practices, praying the Offices is both an active and a contemplative experience. It draws upon the discursive part of our being as well as the reflective. In it we taste the textured word of God in scripture, we pray the prayers of intercession and petition, we confess the times we’ve missed the mark and caused separation, we acknowledge and re-commit to the faith that is in us, we get down and dirty with the daily rigors and stresses of life as we work our way through the Psalms, and we have ample time to allow the finger of heaven to etch words on our souls in silence.
Praying the Offices is an attractive form of prayer for those who find communal and liturgical prayer nourishing. It may be more difficult for those who are tired of praying in a formulaic manner or for those who feel it is a practice that is irrelevant to contemporary life, or for those who prefer to simply rest in God rather than manage lectionaries, books, and bibles. The Office, however, is a time-tested prayer practice that offers even more than words can express. It simply must be tried, and tried again, until it is missed when it is overlooked.
Episcopal Daily Office
The prayer book has two basic forms of the Daily Office, one in traditional language (Rite I) and one in contemporary language (Rite II). The traditional language one offers the two classical parts that have been in every Book of Common Prayer stretching back to 1549—a service of Morning Prayer (p. 37) and a service of Evening Prayer (p. 61). The contemporary language one is a bit more expansive. It has Morning Prayer (p. 75), a short Noonday Prayer (p. 103), Evening Prayer (p. 115), and Compline—a short prayer office for the close of the day (p. 127). There’s also another bit, Order of Worship in the Evening (p. 108) but it’s intended primarily to be done in church whereas the others are suitable for doing with family or by yourself.
There’s also a section of really short self-contained versions of the Daily Office that are especially suitable for families called the Daily Devotions for Individuals and Families (p. 136). These are one-page prayer sets for use at Morning (p. 137), Noon (p. 138), Early Evening (p. 139), and Close of Day (p. 140) and are short.
There are three other parts of the prayer book that you’ll need to make these work: the Psalms (p. 585), the Collects (p. 159 for Rite I; p. 211 for Rite II), and the Daily Office Lectionary (p. 934) which gives you three readings—one from the Old Testament, one from the New, and one from a gospel—that you can divide up as you choose. The Daily Office Lectionary is arranged in a two-year cycle. Year One begins on the First Sunday of Advent preceding odd-numbered years, and Year Two begins on the First Sunday of Advent preceding even-numbered years. In this Lectionary (except in the weeks from 4 Advent to 1 Epiphany, and Palm Sunday to 2 Easter), the Psalms are arranged in a seven-week pattern which recurs throughout the year, except for appropriate variations in Lent and Easter Season.
One of the beneficial effects of the English Reformation was that Thomas Cranmer, the author of the first Book of Common Prayer made a deliberate effort to simplify the Daily Offices so that both clergy and laity could participate in it. The number of offices was reduced from seven to two. Morning Prayer was based upon the Medieval office of Matins together with elements from Prime. Evening Prayer was, in its essence, a combination of Vespers and Compline. The Office as a whole was revised around the importance of regular recitation of the Psalms and reading through the whole Bible.
VII. Caring Practice
“Caring about others, running the risk of feeling and leaving an impact on others, brings happiness.”—Harold Kushner.
Innocence and lack of responsibility seem to bring with them an element of unselfish caring. After we have been battered and pummeled by life, however, or have become overly involved in what are considered to be the important things of life, simple caring becomes as slippery as a wet eel. It’s not that we no longer care. It’s that our caring too easily becomes confined. It is carried out mostly in the relationships that take up our life with a few random acts of kindness sprinkled in.
We find ourselves caring for those in our family, those in our congregations, those in our workplaces, those in our circle of friends. There is precious little time left over for caring for people that are outside our everyday circles. We may, from time to time, find ourselves doing a specific ministry that is not a part of our normal routine, but for the most part, our caring is confined to our known circle of relationships or to those whom we serve in our ministry.
The Old English word for caring – “caru” – means sorrow, grief, or anxiety. Although this is a surprising description of the word, it holds within it an aspect that is critical to the spiritual practice of caring. When we commit to the practice of caring, we become aware and attentive to the sorrow, grief, or anxiety that rises in us when we see others struggling and in need. It is, as Kushner says, “running the risk of feeling.” When we truly risk feeling, we are no longer able to ignore, avoid, or deny the reality of people’s needs. The spiritual practice of caring begins when we decide to risk feeling.
There are many ways to take on caring as a spiritual practice. The foundation of the practice is found in the attentiveness we give to the movement of deep feeling that surfaces in us. This sometimes requires intentional focus if we are so accustomed to caring in our work that we may not be as aware of our feelings when they are triggered by a person or situation not connected with our ministry.
In order to develop this kind of focus and attention, we need to expose ourselves to the needs of others on a regular basis. We can do this by committing ourselves to a ministry that has no connection whatever with what we do in our daily work. Or, we might travel to care for those in a developing country. Or, we might align ourselves with a community project that cares for the underprivileged in our own community. Or, we might push ourselves beyond our boundary of ease to give care to a group of people that we find difficult to accept or love. Or, we might enter into a relationship with someone who experiences hardship on a daily basis. When we encounter what we don’t understand, what we are fearful of, or what is unknown to us, and feel the sorrow and grief of compassion growing in us, we are ready for the practice of caring.
Such radical compassion causes three things to happen in our soul. First, we grow in gratitude. We become grateful for the lives and blessings that we have been given, but even more we become grateful for the recipients of our caring. Through them we begin to see the places in our soul that have lain empty for too long. We gain insight into how those empty places might be filled. Hope begins to trickle into us and our heart begins to feel glad.
Second, we are diverted from our own struggles. As we notice and respond to the grief and sorrow that creep up in our soul when we relate with those in need, we find that we are no longer so absorbed in our own dramas and story lines. As we open ourselves to what is outside of and beyond us, we are less fascinated with the often-trivial stresses that occupy our mind and soul.
Finally, the practice of caring helps us pull back the mantle on meaning. The purpose of human existence, the power of God, the strength of human community is revealed in ways that had before seemed obscure. The practice of caring takes us out of ourselves and into the heart of God through the heart of others.
Those who find social interaction natural and easy will find the spiritual practice of caring a meaningful extension of their desire to be involved in giving hope and life to others. Those who are more interior in their personalities may, at first, turn away from a commitment to caring practice because they fear it will be too demanding, too consuming. When, however, compassion is manifested interiorly, it will long to be expressed outwardly. When inward compassion is given outer wings, we are awakened to a deeper sense of holy presence.
VIII. Walking a Labyrinth
The Sacred Labyrinth Walk, Illuminating the Inner Path, is the ancient practice of "Circling to the Center" by walking the labyrinth. The rediscovery of this self alignment tool to put our lives in perspective is one of the most important spiritual movements of our day. People, formal cultures, and traditions have used the spiral and labyrinth designs as a symbol of their search for meaning and guidance.
A labyrinth is not a maze. It has only one path to the center and back out, which is the meaning of the term unicursal (one line). Our only decision is to choose spirit/God and surrender to divine guidance. It has no blind alleys or dead ends. The path twists and turns back on itself many times before reaching the center. Once at the center, there is only one way back out. In this way, it symbolizes a journey to a predetermined destination (such as a pilgrimage to a holy site), or the journey through life from birth to spiritual awakening to death.
Some of the earliest forms of labyrinths are found in Greece, dating back to 2500-2000 B.C.E. This labyrinth is called the Cretan labyrinth or classical seven-circuit labyrinth. So much a part of the fabric of this early society was the labyrinth, that it was embossed on coins and pottery. Early Christian labyrinths date back to 4th century, a basilica in Algeria. The Chartres design labyrinth is a replica of the labyrinth laid into the cathedral floor at Chartres, France in the thirteenth century. The Chartres design is a classical eleven-circuit labyrinth (eleven concentric circles) with the twelfth being in the center of the labyrinth.
One walks a labyrinth by stepping into the entrance and putting one foot in front of the other. After traveling through all the paths and windings, the walker comes into the center – the six – petal rosette, after a time there, the walker returns out to cover the same path out as in. Total travel is approximately one third mile, depending on the size of the labyrinth. The Chartress Cathedral Labyrinth is 42′ in diameter.
Steps
1. Prepare to walk. Take some time to transition from your everyday life to the labyrinth experience. Remove your watch. Slow your breathing. Still your mind. Open yourself to possibilities. Think about, or write in a journal, your intentions for the experience: questions, affirmations, feelings. Leave your personal belongings in a secure place. Take off your shoes, a traditional sign of respect for a sacred space, and required for walking some painted labyrinths.
2. Begin your journey. Pause at the entrance to the labyrinth to take a cleansing breath and focus your attention. You may ask a question, say a prayer or recite an affirmation. Some people choose to bow or make another ritual gesture to signal the beginning of their walk.
3. Walk the inward path. Put one foot in front of the other, and walk at a measured pace that is comfortable for you. On the way in, focus on letting go of things you want to leave behind and releasing things that stand in the way of your spiritual journey. Pause when you need to. Don’t focus on the center as a goal; be present in each step of the inward path.
4. Spend time in the center. Take as long as you wish. You may stand, sit, kneel or lie down. This part of the journey is about being present to your inmost self and to the power of the divine. You may pray, journal or simply be open to the stillness. Respect the boundaries of others with whom you share this sacred space.
5. Take the return path. When you are ready to leave the center, begin walking back the way you came. On this part of the journey, focus on what you will bring out from the center and back into your life. As before, pause when you need to. Resist the temptation to sprint to the finish line: the return journey is as important as every other part of the labyrinth.
6. Reflect on the journey. When you leave the labyrinth, you may pause make another gesture or say a prayer. Before leaving the area, take some time to reflect on insights you’ve gained, or make notes in your journal to explore further later
The entrance can be a place to stop, reflect, make prayer or intention for the spiritual walk you are about to take. The walk around the design to the center can be a "letting go" – a quieting of the thoughts, worries, lists of tasks to do, a letting go unto the experience of being present in the body. Arrival at the center rosette – a place of prayer/meditation – "letting in" Gods guidance, the divine into our lives. When ready, the walk out "letting out" takes us back into our lives, empowered by spirit to transform our lives and actions.
In many ways, the labyrinth can be seen as a call to action, a transformation spiritual tool for people. It can aid healing, help in releasing grief, (people often shed tears during the "letting go"), help guide through troubled times, aid in decision making, illuminate our purpose in life, and act as a tool of celebration and thanks. It is important to recognize it as a spiritual practice, not a magical tool. Its work is our commitment to enter into the sacred spiritual walk, not merely once, but to use it as part of an ongoing spiritual practice.