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.
Centring Prayer
This prayer was used at the beginning of worship. The slides were unannounced; some people may not have seen them. We used slides appropriate to the imagery of the prayer. The final slide was a close up photo of a new baby in the congregation.
(Slide)
Let us remember who we are.
We live on a small planet
in a small solar system.
Rock and gas
and the violent storms of space
have not left a us an airless place
battered by every falling meteor. (Side)
We are of Earth (Slide)
a place fecund with Life. (Slide)
It has been given to us to know something of ourselves
to feel not only pain and fear
or live only in the grip of instinct.
It has been given to us to know laughter
and joy
and Love. (Slide)
We have met the Divine.
Let us be silent
and remember
and be glad for all the good which has been given.
Let us remember the man Jesus
whose life shows us how mighty life can be.
Let us remember all the other people
who have given us life.
Let us remember who we are.
Andrew Prior
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