Go into any book story, or dive into an online search, and you will find all kinds of self-help books, memoirs, websites, blogs, Ted talks and more, all on the topic of spirituality. You could dive down any number of rabbit holes about how to pray, how to meditate, different sacred pathways, spiritual practices based on your personality preferences, or your stage of life. Words like “mindful” and “intentional” and “spacious” show up all over the place. Tag lines include: Spiritual Living in a Secular World, Spirituality for Extroverts, Nine Sacred Pathways, Life with God in 12 Simple Words, and Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (those were just a few titles on my shelf!). Where to begin? It can be more than a little overwhelming. I felt that way as I began to prepare for this Sunday’s service.
I could simply share about some of my favourite spiritual practices and most meaningful experiences, but chances are that won’t speak to all of you in your delightful diversity.
I could focus on one specific spiritual practice and dive into it in some detail. After last Sunday’s service with its focus on how food nourishes us, I wondered if perhaps I should focus this week on the spiritual practice of fasting – something we Mennonites know very little about, and our Muslim neighbours, at the end of Ramadan and 40 days of fasting could teach us a great deal about!
But in conversation with Amanda, as we planned this service, we decided to focus not as much on the “what” and the “how to” of spiritual practices, and more on why we engage with spiritual practices and how they nourish us.
Many of us were probably raised with the “top two” spiritual practices: prayer and bible reading. But there are many more. For starters there are lots of different ways to pray and engage with scripture. And then there are things like fasting, meditation, making music, confession (those of you who grew up Catholic will know this one), worship, Sabbath, acts of service, silence, retreat, journaling, giving, living simply and so on.
Spiritual practices can be anything that brings us into deeper connection and relationship with God, self and others, whether or not we have the language to describe what is happening. Of course we all have different personalities, preferences and background experiences, so something that nourishes my spirit might not have the same impact on you. Some of us can be quiet and meditative for long periods of time. Some of us need to be moving and doing something otherwise we lose focus. Some of us prefer solitude. Some of us need to participate alongside others to share the experience. Some of us need a regular, predictable rhythm of prayer, some of us delight in the spontaneous and surprising ways God shows up.
I think that almost anything we do can be a spiritual practice if we do it in a contemplative, intentional way. So here we could add to the list of spiritual practices things like: walking, gardening and farming, cooking, any kind of craft or artwork, dance, yoga, sewing, woodworking. Dare I say that even household chores can be done mindfully?
There are many tools to help us explore what kinds of spiritual practices might resonate with us. One framework that I find helpful is Corinne Ware’s Spirituality Wheel. It comes from her book, Discover Your Spiritual Type. Show a visual of it. This wheel identifies four types of spirituality. It helps us see where our preferences lie in terms of how we relate to God and how our spirit is nourished. One of these quadrants probably resonates most strongly for you, but there may be a couple places where you feel some connection.
- Top right. Head (thinking). We connect best to God through our head and our thinking. We are interested in theology and study. We like a good sermon, book, lecture or discussion. We tend to be rational, analytical, logical thinkers, and like to describe God in concrete terms we can relate to like shepherd, lord, king, or parent. We are content oriented. We are people of the Word who look to scripture for guidance. With each of these types there is a danger or caution if we are too single-minded. The danger here is that we intellectualize our faith, articulate it well, but never do anything about it.
- Bottom right. Heart (feeling). We connect best to God through our heart and our feelings. We want emotional encounters with God. We experience God in concrete, relational ways, as a shepherd, friend, helper and lover. We like to worship with deeply emotional, charismatic songs, readings and practices, and spontaneous prayers. We focus on our personal holiness, and personal relationship with God. The danger here is that faith simply gives us an emotional buzz or fix for a time but doesn’t have much to say in the ordinary times of life.
- Bottom left. Mystical (being). We connect best to God in our inner being. We are contemplatives who want to experience union with God. We are intuitive and focused on our inner world. We are moved by silence, solitude, inward searching, and listening for the still, small voice of God. For us God is a mystery, wholly other, unknowable, beyond our comprehension and ability to articulate. The danger here is that we get lost in our inner world, and forget that faith has anything to do with life in the real world.
- Upper left. Activist (doing). We connect best to God through doing. We are single-minded visionaries and activists, who seek to transform society by bringing God’s kingdom to reality here and now. Faith is to be lived out. It means doing something through acts of loving service, peace and justice making. Our strong vision and ideals about what the kingdom of God looks like always translates into action. The danger here is we can get moralistic and critical of others, and soon burn out. Or we think we need to earn God’s approval.
So having looked at this Spirituality Wheel briefly, where do you think your preferences lie? What are you most and least drawn to? The risk here is thinking our prefered way of knowing God is the right way. So we also want to ask, what can we learn from the other quadrants?
This can be an effective tool for individuals but it also can reflect a church’s personality or preference. Where do you think SJMC fits as a church? How are we doing at including something for each of the quadrants in our worship? How are we doing at including people whose preferences lie in other quadrants?
This Spirituality Wheel reminds me that there is no one right way to pray or connect with God. I trust that God is always open and ready to connect with us in lots of different ways. Take down the visual.
When I was teaching at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate, we had a tradition of taking our grade 9 students on a spring expedition that involved getting off the school campus for a couple of days and nights to learn in a different kind of environment. One year we took a bunch of kids to Fraser Lake Camp out near Bancroft, doing things like canoeing, mountain biking and hiking in and around the camp. But whenever we had a small window of free time, there were a bunch of kids that begged to go fishing. They brought their own rods and tackle boxes along, and were just itching to get down to the lake any chance they could get. They were obsessed with fishing! I was a little annoyed with them. Why not hang out with the rest of the kids, and enjoy the other camp activities? And it was always hard to gather them back from fishing once it was time for the next activity.
One evening after supper I realized that once again, a group of them had run off to go fishing. I decided I should check on them to make sure they were behaving themselves. I hiked a short distance to the rock outcropping where they went to fish. There they were, all in a row, casting their lines out over the rocks down to the water below. It was a beautiful evening. The air was starting to cool after the heat of the day. The light was beginning to fade as the sun set. The water shone in the fading light. And the kids were quiet. Every once in a while you would hear the whir of a line being cast, or the plink of a lure hitting the water. After the boisterous, activity packed day we had, the silence felt like a blessing. I just stood there for a while watching them. This was a holy moment.
There is no question in my mind that for those kids, fishing was a spiritual practice. I am pretty sure none of those grade 9 kids would have described fishing that way.
Unfortunately the peace and tranquility didn’t last long. One of the boys accidentally hooked another boy on the shoulder with his fish hook! A trip to a local emergency clinic followed for the unfortunate fellow, to get the hook removed. The doctor who did the extraction didn’t seem phased by it. He had a whole bunch of fish hooks hanging up around his office that he had removed from people! Now he had one more to add to his collection! Both boys involved were OK, and at least we had a great story to tell when we got back to school about the really big fish that got away!
Despite the unfortunate accident, that image of the grade 9 kids fishing off the rocks has stayed with me. I do believe that fishing did a bunch of things that nourished their souls.
In our worship series this spring we are reflecting on what nourishes us. Our text from Ephesians today is a prayer about being nourished and strengthened with love, about being filled with the full dimensions of God’s love. Some have described it as akin to the Lord’s Prayer, only this one is by Paul instead of Jesus. In it Paul prays for the Ephesians, that you will be strengthened in your inner beings, that you will know the full measure of Chirst’s love deep within, and then the prayer builds toward the key line, so that you will be filled with the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19).
Spiritual practices can help us experience that fullness of God’s love in a number of ways. How do they do that? I will identify a few things as I see them relating to the scripture we read.
First of all I think spiritual practices speak to something deep within us. What drew those grade 9 kids back to that rock face over and over again to fish? Maybe it was good memories of fishing with someone special in their life (a parent, or grandparent). Maybe it was the beauty of the natural setting. Maybe it was the peace and quiet. Maybe it was the companionship. Maybe it was the familiar rhythm of something they felt good at. Whatever it was, I think fishing helped to fill something their souls were hungry for.
Saint Augustine writes in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” Spiritual practices respond to that restlessness. We could also call it a longing, a desire, a quest, a search, unrest, unease, or the feeling that there must be more to life than this. Some people have called it a homing signal – like a bird or butterfly that finds its way home to its original nesting ground.
This past week I went to see the movie Jesus Revolution, which tells the story of the largest religious movement in US history. The Jesus Movement, as it came to be called, began in the late 1960’s and spread rapidly, particularly among young people. It caught on with the so-called hippies who were disillusioned with the Vietnam War, civic unrest, racial tensions, and worried about the future. They found themselves at odds with their parents’ generation and its priorities, and with the traditional church. They were hungry for something more meaningful, but were not finding it. Into that void came an invitation to meet Jesus, to hear his message of love and hope, to experience acceptance and forgiveness, to meet an open-hearted pastor who welcomed these hippies, bare feet and all, into his otherwise dying church. The movement began with joyful scenes of baptisms in Pirate’s Cove off the California coast, and grew to include millions of youth and revitalized 100’s of churches across the USA. It spread to Canada too. Some of you will have your own memories and stories about how you were influenced or touched by the Jesus Movement. The movie simplifies the storyline quite a bit, and I suspect the directors have an evangelical agenda, but I did find it striking, how much of that context sounds eerily familiar nearly 60 years later. Some people are wondering if we are ripe for another Jesus Movement. Maybe it is no accident that there is such an interest in spiritual practices in our North American culture at a time when we have never been more disillusioned, distracted, depressed and anxious.
In The Voice translation of this text, Paul prays that God will “fill their souls with the power of Your Spirit” (Ephesians 3:16). Somehow that Jesus Movement filled a void for so many young people who were willing to be honest about the emptiness they were experiencing at the time. It spoke to that desire within all of us to connect with something beyond ourselves.
Second, I think spiritual practices slow us down, so that they can touch something deeper within us. We live in a fast paced, dynamic world that is ever changing, with ample opportunities for us to be distracted. Inner, spiritual growth doesn’t happen in a hurry. It takes time and intention. It doesn’t mean we have to be still and quiet and contemplative all the time, but somehow we need to allow the space for that inner growth to happen. It helps if we can have some sort of regular or rhythmic activity or routine, some set of intentional practices–“holy habits”–that reminds us this is space and time for God to strengthen us in our inner being. Fishing slowed those kids down enough so that something deep within them could be nourished.
Almost anything can be a holy habit, but how we approach it makes a difference. We can walk or cook or paint or fish in a mindful way, or we can do those things in a distracted way. Take walking for example. I can walk preoccupied, stewing over some issue, or trying to work out plans. Or I can walk with intention. I can begin by inviting God to be present to me–create that space in my heart for what God might want to bring to my attention, then keep my heart and open as I walk. Similarly with cooking. I can cook with a spirit of drudgery, resenting this repetitive task, or I can cook with a heart of gratitude for the earth and its resources, the farmers who grew the food, and a heart of love for the people that will eat the food I prepare. That kind of attitude doesn’t happen if I am in a rush.
Third, spiritual practices help us notice, see and comprehend. Paul prays “that you may have the power to comprehend…how broad and long, how high and deep is Christ’s love” (Ephesians 3:18). Spiritual practices are about being attentive – about being in the present moment. Not caught in the past, or worried about the future, but right here in the present moment. They help us to notice the “hints of the holy” all around us. We cannot begin to comprehend what we do not notice. I think those grade 9 fishers caught (pun intended) a glimpse of the holy. I think they caught a glimpse of how high and wide how broad and deep is the love of God, and the wonder of how connected it all is.
Fourth, I think spiritual practices centre us, ground us, settle us and help us focus. Paul prays that we be “rooted and grounded in love.” There is beautiful growth imagery here. We grow best when we have strong roots. To have our roots in Christ means we are connected and attached to Christ. We draw our nourishment from that relationship. It is Christ’s love that feeds us so that we can grow more and more into his likeness. In this way spiritual practices that centre us in love give us something to hold onto and something to return to when we get off centre.
And there is resiliency here too. Spiritual practices that ground us in love help us to withstand the storms of life and the difficult, dry seasons of life. They are not just about good times and good feelings. They help to prepare us and strengthen us so that we can face suffering when it comes. And this is sometimes where spiritual practices without words are the most helpful. When we can’t find the words, maybe it is our bodies that remember how to pray; it’s that muscle memory of how we practiced prayer that can carry us through. And sometimes we reach a point where we can’t seem to pray at all, we can trust that the indwelling Spirit prays on our behalf, “with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26), as Paul writes in another letter.
Fifth, when we are filled with the fullness of God’s love, then the gifts of God’s spirit naturally arise in us: compassion, kindness, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, generosity, and so on. This is where spiritual practices work themselves out in love. They inspire action, they motivate us to give, to love, to share, to care. They are not simply, as some have criticized, about gazing inward, fixating on ourselves, a useless waste of time because they don’t do anything. The inner work is important, but it needs to have outward expression. Just as our bodies need to be fed and nourished so that we have the strength for our daily tasks, so too our spirits need to be fed and nourished so that we have the strength and courage to live in loving ways. Contemplation and action go together. One feeds, motivates and inspires the other. Without that nourishment we face burnout.
I remember one of my professors at Conrad Grebel, sharing his experience of serving in Central America in the 1980’s. Young Mennonites headed there with all kinds of enthusiasm, to be peacemakers, to serve in the name of Christ and work for peace and justice. They were going to change the world! But they were unprepared for the suffering and tragedy of what they encountered, for the slow, grinding pace of change, for the profound frustrations. And they started to burn out. Their enthusiasm withered. Their hope faded. It took a group of Catholic nuns to remind them of the importance of prayer, and spiritual practices that could ground them and nourish them so that they could continue their work in hope, and stay in it for the long haul.
We don’t have to be changing the world in a war-torn country for spiritual practices to inspire us to love. Let me end with one more story of what a difference a very simple spiritual practice can make. When I was teaching I remember being frustrated with one of my grade 7 students who couldn’t seem to get to school on time. She was late nearly every day. One of my wise colleagues reminded me that sometimes we don’t know the whole story about a student in our classroom, and then offered me a simple, spiritual practice. He invited me to begin each class with a silent prayer that I might see each student that walked through my door as a beloved child of God, with the light of God’s image shining within them. I don’t know that I remembered to do that every day, but especially when I was frustrated with a student, I was reminded of that simple, spiritual practice – to see the image of God in each child that walked into my classroom.
It turns out the student that was late every day, was the oldest in a large family. She had major responsibilities at home every school morning, helping to get her siblings up and fed and ready for school. She didn’t need my criticism or discipline for being late. She needed my honour and respect, my warm welcome and my support. That is just one small example of how a simple spiritual practice nourished me, filled me in my inner being with the fullness of God’s love.
May you find your nourishing practices–your fishing spots–and may you be filled with the fullness of God’s love, a love so wide and high and long and deep that it surpasses understanding.