Anchoring the Day

There are times when I feel less spiritual.  I was recently in a five-day conference.  It was a fruitful and busy time.  Between sessions, work lunches and making contacts, it often felt that I barely had time to breath.  In these hectic times, it can be difficult to stay centered in my spiritual walk.  Fortunately, several times a day, I was able to find a quiet corner, open up my breviary and pray.  This routine of praying the Daily Office (often called the Liturgy of the Hours, the Divine office, or the Work of God) anchors busy days in Christ.  In this way, even the most "secular" days can be sanctified.

Holding the Tongue

We are a gregarious society.  We love and value talk.  Furthermore, many of us come from a culture with a legacy of storytelling.  Let's face it, we tend to put the spotlight on those with the gift of gab.  They tend to be the center of attention, the life of the party.  If they happen to be comedians, all the better.

As a quiet child, there was considerable pressure put on me to be "more outgoing."  I was never shy.  I had no social fear, but I generally was conservative with my words.  If I had something to say, I spoke.  If I didn't I kept quiet.  I loved to chat, but reserved this time for special friends.  This respect for words was considered rather peculiar behavior in my local society. There was a great deal of pressure to be more talkative.  So, I gave in.

Fast forward a couple of decades, and I am now trying to undue the bad habits that I had formed in order to adapt to what my society said it wanted me to be.  Added to this is the awareness that as clergy, I am not as free as I once was in respect to my speech.  Every word that I say may be weighed by my parishioners.   Now, I do  not only speak for myself, but I speak for the church.

St. Benedict in his rule teaches that silence should be the default.  In fact, he says that sometimes even good thoughts should be left unsaid.  He then says that speech for the purpose of getting a cheap laugh should be avoided at all costs.

We practice silence not because we devalue speech, but because we respect it.  We use it wisely. Like an expensive wine, we do not open it up for every meal.  we save it for special uses.  The result is that by saving it and savoring it, it is all the sweater.

Redeeming Coffee Breaks

Most of us have breaks during the work day.  Perhaps we have a coffee when we first get to work.  We then have lunch  some time in the middle of the day.  Most of us will have another cup of coffee in the afternoon.  What if these times could be about more than mental and physical rest?  What if they could also be spiritual rest?

The tradition of fixed-hour prayer developed around the city bells that marked time in the work day of the early Church.  These bells rang at 9 a.m. 12 p.m. 3 p. m. and at the end of the work day.  does this schedule sound familiar?  Here I will not go into the particulars of fixed-hour prayer. There is already a lot written about it in other sources.  What I do want to do here is to recommend that, when we get that cup of coffee or take our lunch break, we stop and pray.  Currently, I am using a small pocket-sized Monastic Diurnal for these times (with some modifications and substitutions of my own).  At the very least, we could say the Lord's prayer and spend a few seconds in silence.

Prayer was never meant to be something that we did for ten minutes or so in the morning.  It was meant to be a lifestyle.  Taking a few minutes here and there during the day for prayer can help us live a life much more centered in Christ.

I once had a job that required me to do 8 hours of mindless filing of legal updates a day.  Anyone who has had experience at this will tell you that it is some of the most mind-numbing work one can do.  I was working for a contractor at the time.  The businesses often contracted this work out because no one there wanted to do it.  I would spend long hours leafing through stacks of updates watching the clock.

I have moved on since then, and have furthered my career.  Still, I prefer some parts of my job to others.  I am a creative person and a visionary, so repetitive tasks are always a challenge for me, but every job has them.  However, I have found these tasks to be great places to learn obedience.

Obedience is a dirty word today.  We all want to be autonomous.  We want to be our own masters.  Obedience is for those who do not make it.  As much as I still struggle with obedience, I have found it to be essential to having peace in the world. We live with others, and if we are going to get along, we must be willing to forgo some of our autonomy for the sake of community.  We can't all get our way all the time.  Too often our separate wills are mutually exclusive. Someone has to yield.

obedience says that, although I have a certain amount of right to do things my way, I will submit to the desires of another.  This can only be done out of love.  If I love my church, I will not be aggravated if my favorite songs are not sung.  If I love my workplace, I will not become territorial, but will work cordially with my coworkers and supervisors.

obedience is not easy.  It will test us.  It will also make us better and freer people

Spiritual Loafing

It happened again,  I had a day off only to discover about supper time that I had not had a moment of stillness all day.  It was supposed to be a day of rest, a day of prayer.  However, I did not feel comfortable unless I was doing something.  As a result, I missed a opportunity to enjoy a blessed Sabbath repose. There was nothing making me be so kinetic.  It was something from inside of me.

The psalmist wrote, "Be still and know that I am God."  I sometimes find this hard.  We are so pressured to be productive in our society, that we have lost the ability and spirituality of doing nothing.  We feel guilty if we just sit still and enjoy the presence of God.

I am coming to the place in my life where I realize that I will never know enough or accomplish enough.  I may not reach my career goals.  I may never be any more of a "master" of or "expert" on anything.  I am trying to let myself of the hook with this.  It is okay if some things are beyond my reach.  I am not God.

This acceptance of my limitations should free me from the compulsive, incessant improvement  myself.  I will continue to try to be a better minister, worker and student, but I also need to learn to spiritually loaf.

Your Cell Will Teach You Everything.

there is an old saying from the Desert Fathers, "Go to your cell and your sell will teach you everything."  A monk's cell was his room, the place where he prayed.  I do a lot of reading.  I read a lot because I have a lot to learn.  In fact, I am usually in three or four books at a time. More if I am in a class or two.  In our society, knowledge is a source of power.  Knowledge is our chief commodity.

I find ministry particularly calls for constant study.  I am newly ordained, and I am constantly aware of the things that I do not know.  I constantly am calling on more seasoned ministers to ask questions.  I also am taking the summer of from seminary to make the adjustment to ministry demands.  Part of this adjustment is reading up on leadership and ministry skills.

Since I am bi-vocational, I also am also constantly trying to keep up with industry trends.  There are some major changes in my career field, and I often feel like I am just staying afloat.  In addition, there are the particular demands of my specific place of work that require me to find creative solutions.

I have often heard it said that many ministers can't find the time to pray.  I think that this is scary. I think that this lack of prayer is the reason that many are opining a lack of spiritually deep ministers in the church.  The best pastors are not CEOs of a church, but are spiritual fathers.  This kind of spiritual  maturity can not come from books or study.  It mus come from prayer, silence and meditation.

As we spend time in our cells, that place in  your home where we meet with God, we are changed.  We are made wise.  We are educated.  Ultimately, we are reared spiritually.

Being Present

Spiritual writers will often talk of  "being present."  This means being fully aware of and in tune to the environment that you are in.  It means being attentive to those that you are with.  the other day, I was assisting in the Eucharist service, when I felt unusually wiggly.  Perhaps the coffee that I had consumed that morning was making me restless.  I found myself unable to focus on what was happening around me. I struggle with attention quite a bit, and this has on more than one occasion been a challenge to me.

Sometimes we just can't be comfortable where we are.  It is not that we have anywhere else to go, but we feel that we should be on the move.  We have trouble just be-ing in a place.

Other times we feel that the best place to be is somewhere else.  We may be in an okay place, but feel a desire to roam. We may also on occasion find ourselves in less than comfortable places, perhaps a lousy job or less than stellar marriage.  In these  times it is hard to see what the present situation can teach us.

There are also the many daily distractions that can keep us from focusing on our present situation.  If I am at a coffee shop talking to a friend, there may be pictures, music, smells other conversations and a whole host of things to distract me. It may be a challenge to listen attentively to my friend, to allow him or her to be my sole focus.  Our senses are so overwhelmed with stimuli that it is no small wonder that we have any real awareness of what is going on.

At the heart of presence is love.  If we love others, we strive to be in tune with them.  We notice things about them, like if they seem a little more down than usual, or if they themselves seem unfocused.  We know when they are hurting and when they are in need.  They may not tell us, but send us little clues that we must work to pick up.  We are attentive because we care about those around us enough to pay attention.

Even now, I am looking at the clock, waiting until I have to be at another place.  I have a lot to learn.

Loving Others as We Love Ourselves

I was thinking this evening about the commandment to love others as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:39).  I know that I have many challenging personality quirks and bad habits, but I am pretty okay with them.  furthermore, I expect others to be okay with them.  In fact, if someone takes exception to one of my idiosyncrasies, I get fairly indignant.  However, that door does not always swing both ways.  What would it look  like if I were as patient with someone else as I am with me?  If I truly loved my neighbor as myself, I think that I would see him or her in a much better light.  I would probably focus more on his or her good points than obsessing over little rough spots.