The Daily Disciplines
Everything we do is practice for the next time. When we cease to practice, we lose our fluency, and memory becomes imperfect. Some things are practiced by default- when did you last consciously practice eating? Other things require conscious effort. My handwriting is slow, laborious and has lost its fluency. I type without thinking.
When we took our young children back out to the desert where we had lived, they were profoundly uncomfortable with the open spaces. We noticed our son was happier and less fractious whenever we went walking in the enclosed space of mountain gorges. We become used to, and are affected by our environment. Years before, leaving the desert, my wife and I were depressed, dislocated and disoriented by urban life. A day out walking in the hills begins to resurrect memories and instincts which have been lost to our consciousness.
As urban westerners we live in a profoundly artificial environment. It is possible, even easy, to avoid the outside world for days at a time! Enter the garage by an inside door from the house, drive out using the automatic door opener, drive to the underground car park, and take the internal lift up to work. Leave before it is properly light, and return home after dark. We live in a world which we Australians especially, think we control. In truth, we are irradiated with uncontrolled advertising and other stimulation, rarely alone enough to be in silence, and uncomfortable if we are. We live in a noisy, crowded and driven world, which is the anathema of all that our spiritual ancestors learned is necessary for health. We have stepped out of reality into an artificial place.
The spiritual disciplines are designed to bring us back into the real world from our artificial place. They create time, silence and space for us to re-engage with the depths of life. They patrol the corridors of the mind, as someone has said, re-minding us of what is really important. Religion without practice becomes merely an idea, caught in the currents of the ideas round about, without the anchor of reality.
Beginning Worship
This prayer is one attempt at responding to, and rejoicing with, the news of the day. It was used at the beginning of worship on the day after Jessica Watson came home.
Here we are in Australia
Blown away by the exploits
of a tiny 16 year old girl
who has sailed around the world.
Thanks be to God for adventure
for hope
for vision
for joy...
and for rejoicing in achievement.
Jessica Watson said
she had to disagree with the Prime Minister
"I don't consider myself a hero.
"I'm an ordinary girl who had a dream."
We are ordinary, O God.
Thank you we may dream.
Thank you for a new baby girl.
Thank you for Callum, and Akuk, Ajak and Cameron
in our photos on the screen this morning.
Thank you for Renee and Betty,
all signs and symbols
of your love
and the mystery of life
of hope
and potential
and faithfulness.
Let us be ordinary people indeed.
But ordinary people who have a dream.
A dream to live for the good.
A dream to live for the best.
A dream to live for God.
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
Andrew Prior
SharePrevious page: Centring Prayer
Next page: Response to the Word