The Spiritual Practice of Changing the Filter

September 17th, 2010 | 2 Comments

Today I’m drinking a glass of water that tastes much better than the one I had yesterday. Not that I noticed anything wrong with yesterday’s water, but I did notice that it was time to change the filter I use. The difference is dramatic, the taste softer on the tongue—something like cashmere vs. leather.

The water filter works beautifully when it’s fresh. It removes minerals and chemicals, yielding the clear, sweet essence of water. It accomplishes this by absorbing the unwanted elements, but after a time it simply cannot take in any more. The filter’s loss of function is subtle, incremental, and at first it’s hardly noticeable. But eventually the filter stops working, and will actually introduce impurities into the water if it isn’t changed. The water tastes bad.

All of which has me thinking about the psyche’s filters.

Messages, images, and information are everywhere, more than we can ever process. The needs, demands, requests, and unthinking effects of other people’s actions continually challenge our ability to respond. We cannot let everything in; there’s too much. But determining how to filter our experience requires effort.

When the air is thick with frustration and anger, callousness and mindlessness, that’s what we most easily absorb. Without a conscious effort to resist them, negative mindsets permeate our way of being. It’s important to see the world around us as clearly as possible, but to live compassionately requires being careful of what we allow to become part of us.

Yet even when we are mindful about the ways we sort and learn from our experience, eventually the filter becomes too saturated to do its work. The anxiety we encounter begins to color our own emotional life. Thoughts become infused with the taint of fear or resentment in the air around us. It’s time to change the filter.

The upper portion of my Brita pitcher is designed to hold the cylindrical filter securely and allow it to be changed easily. I just lift the lid and drop the new one in. Sometimes I wish I could do that with my mind, but our filters are more complex. It’s through spiritual practice that they become clean again.

The hardest part about cleaning or changing a water filter is remembering to do it. That may be the case with our psyche’s filters as well. The means of restoring spiritual strength and resiliency are as different as people are varied. But we all need our spiritual health to live fully and well. We need the ability to cleanse our thoughts, perceptions, emotions, and motivations. We need a way to experience the pure, sweet essence of life that will nurture and sustain us.

Cleaning the filter might happen through prayer or meditation. It might mean a walk in the woods, yoga, or an exercise routine. It can occur in the experience of music or poetry. It could result from our own means of artistic expression. It may grow out of our relationships or from doing our best work.

Spiritual practice restores us and enhances our ability to take in what we need for health and wholeness. In whatever way we find effective, it’s important to keep up with those practices that cleanse the filter. It changes our way of being in the world, and that changes the world.

What helps you to cleanse the filter?

If you’d like to read more, I’ve posted a reflection on the recent talk by Diane Ackerman as part of the Kentucky Women Writers Conference over at the KaBooM Writers Notebook. It’s called Paying Attention, and offers a look at one way of changing filters by closely observing the natural world.

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The Things that Save Our Lives

August 13th, 2010 | 3 Comments

I’ve begun reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World, a title that speaks to the significance of our embodied lives and our daily experience of the world around us. Her book explores the meaning inherent in our physical existence. The chapters describe ways of inhabiting our bodies and our lives that help answer the spiritual longing for more—“ more meaning, more feeling, more connection, more life.”

“The accumulated insight of those wise about the spiritual life,” she says, “suggests that the reason so many of us cannot see the red X that marks the spot is because we are standing on it.”

The friend who recommended this book called Taylor’s “an earthy spirituality,” and it is exactly that. She rejects the separation of earth and spirit, of body and soul, found in many spiritual writings. She sees that split as more an injection of the history of Western thought than the essence of a life of faith. She makes the point that Christianity at its heart reveres the life of the body through its reverence for the Incarnation. In her words, Christianity takes body and blood very seriously.

Barbara Brown Taylor is an excellent writer and I am finding both pleasure and meaning in her work. I appreciate the way she describes the practices that keep her grounded in the world and, at the same time, connected to the divine.

But the question that keeps prodding me is one she lifts up in her introduction, a question from which her book arises. Asked to speak at a church gathering, she inquired what the priest wanted her to talk about. In his wisdom, he went straight to the heart of life and asked her to “Come tell us what is saving your life now.”

There’s a question. What is so important right now that our lives depend upon it? How do we hold onto what will give life meaning or at least keep us from the pit of despair? Our answers change, but the question remains essential. I’m learning something from how she answers that question, and thinking about how to answer it for myself. I think conversations in which we can share the things that are saving our life are themselves part of what saves us.

For me, the process of learning to see helps. I’m learning to see how the spiritual resonates in the physical world, learning to see patterns in how life unfolds, learning to more clearly see other people. I think that learning to see is a way of learning compassion, as well.

So I would love to hear—What’s saving your life right now?

Comments (3) | Books I'm Reading,Inspiration in the Everyday,Soul Tending Tags: , , ,

Clearing a Path to the Spring

August 2nd, 2010 | 2 Comments

When Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” he could be talking about church leaders. In entirely different contexts over the past few days, I’ve happened upon articles and presentations about clergy burnout, and I know the same thing happens to lay leaders of the church. There’s something wrong with this picture, and the solution goes beyond recruiting more workers.

Photo by Laura C. Brown

The church is a busy place. There’s a lot of work to do, people to serve, and programs to fulfill. We do our best to educate the young, comfort the sick, and reach out to those in need. Hopefully we also find meaning and create community as we carry out the work.

But do we find God?

We need the sustenance provided by a spiritual life. It strengthens us for all this work we’re doing, but more importantly our spiritual life helps us gain perspective on what we most need to be doing. Prayer and discernment help us to see clearly, to respond effectively, and to spend our strength wisely. Individuals need the strength and stability of a deeply rooted spiritual life, and the church community needs it as well. Yet even though it’s the basis of health, we don’t spend much time on nurturing individual spiritual practice at church.

We act as if participation in a church constitutes a spiritual life. We assume that church members have their relationship with God covered. But is that true? When people show up at church looking for God, how can we help? We can put them to work and make them feel part of the community, but is that enough?

Participation in a loving community may be what many people are looking for. But how can we show those with a spiritual thirst the way to the spring they seek? And how can we refresh those who have grown weary?

The Christian tradition offers centuries of wisdom and experience from those earnestly seeking God. Yet many seekers never find their way to this richness of the Christian faith. Many feel they must carry on their search elsewhere.

As a church and as individuals within it, we need to know our way to the spring that waters our community, our ministries, and our lives. It’s the same spring that Jesus visited when he went out early in the morning to pray, and where he spent the hours before he was arrested.

The pathways to that spring become overgrown when we focus solely on ministry, cut off from the spirit that sustains it. We need help finding our way to the source and keeping it clear of debris. Something within us thirsts for the living water there that brings wholeness. It’s a spring we need to visit again and again, and the world will benefit if the church can show the way.

Is there something the church could do to help clear that path for you?

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The Seasonal Work of the Soul

June 23rd, 2010 | 4 Comments

Ecclesiastes is the source of a beautiful passage that has been on my mind in recent days:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;

A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

A time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

A time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to seek, and a time to lose;

A time to keep, and a time to throw away;

A time to tear, and a time to sew;

A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate;

A time for war, and a time for peace.

These words may sound familiar if you know Pete Seeger’s, “Turn, Turn, Turn” from the popular recording by the Byrds. The words set to music convey a beautiful sense of everything held safely by the author of life.

This passage is around 2500 years old, but it speaks timelessly. Its wisdom is in accepting the variety of circumstances and challenges that arise as life unfolds. It passes no judgment as to what is good and what is bad; what should be sought and what should be resisted. It’s a radical kind of acceptance that differs from resignation or passivity as a response. It’s about not wasting our energy in trying to deny how things really are.

No single approach is right all the time. Life is too changeable, its phases too fleeting. What’s required of us in one stage may be all wrong in another. It doesn’t mean we were wrong before or that life mistreats us when it requires something new. We spend years raising children who will leave to make lives of their own. We devote ourselves to careers that eventually come to an end. We expend ourselves on work that is all too soon forgotten. Yet life goes on. Perhaps we have always cast away stones, but we may be required to gather them together, regardless of how strange it feels. If we’ve spent our lives in silence, it may be time to speak, as uncomfortable as it may be.

We don’t make the seasons in which our lives unfold, and it is beyond our power to change the forces that are so much bigger than we are. Life flows through us, manifesting in different ways at different times. We try to respond to the needs of the season, giving ourselves over to what the time calls for.

Ecclesiastes consists of “The words of the Teacher.” The title given to the speaker is a translation of the Hebrew Qoheleth, which is sometimes rendered “Preacher.” The Teacher, or Preacher, reminds us throughout the book that everything changes, everyone dies. Nothing is permanent; no one is spared. The flow of time and seasons carries us in ways that are non-negotiable. Within our lives we make choices, but the context in which we live them is given.

The Teacher also knows that ultimately we can’t get ahead. We don’t beat our fellow players or the game. Life is bigger than we are; all we can do is live it. “Vanity of vanities,” laments the Teacher. “All is vanity.” Yet in spite of the frustrations and reversals that make up so much of our days, he sees that God grants the gift of enjoying life.

The Teacher of Ecclesiastes has more questions than answers, which is probably why I love the book. What he does know is that we are given work to do, and our best hope is to find enjoyment in it. Be humble. Be grateful. Do what we can. Fix what we can. Let go of what’s out of our hands. Accept both our lot in life and the gifts from God that allow us to take joy in it.

What kind of season are you living, and what kind of work does it hold?

Comments (4) | Creativity,Seasons,Soul Tending Tags: , , ,

Seeing Those We Meet as an Expression of the Divine

June 9th, 2010 | 4 Comments

A friend recently shared with me her sense that everyone we meet is an expression of the divine. Maybe that’s what is implied in saying that we’re all children of God, but her way of stating it captured my attention.

A day later I was on a plane for New York City, and her words remained with me while I was traveling. As other passengers claimed their seats, I considered the greater connection we shared. In that light, the aircraft seemed a container of sacred space.

In the city, among rivers of pedestrians filling the sidewalks, the press of engines and car horns through the streets, and the whoosh of full subway cars gliding by, I moved in close proximity to thousands of other people in a single day. So many souls; I was one among many. It changes everything to remember that each one is a way of seeing God. When the light changed at the street corner, I joined the wave of people washing across the avenue, part of the ocean of humanity in that city, upon this earth.

Thinking of other people as expressions of the divine lets everyone in. It shows that adopting tunnel vision regarding what I want is to choose a kind of blindness. All these people line the walls of that tunnel, each with their own ways of manifesting life. Each one matters. When I open my eyes, I see that every place where our lives intersect is holy.

Yet sometimes it’s too much, letting in all that humanity. Their energy clashes. Their oblivion is painful. They make such a mess, leaving chaos behind wherever they go. Like the trash blown up against the curb early on Sunday morning. Like the young woman dropping a gum wrapper on the stairs of the subway in front of the old man sweeping up and spitting a round of Spanish in response. There are reasons why we block out the press of life around us.

But if people are the diverse expressions of a divine commonality, we inherit a connection to all of them. Other people are the sea we’re moving through, whether we’re fighting the water or swimming in it. We, too, make up this sea of life. We’re part of a miraculously varied and endlessly energetic creation. The diversity we see out there is within us as well, and the expression we give to it makes us an integral part of the whole.

We really are all in this together. Why is it hard to learn a truth so old and so familiar?

Comments (4) | Finding Courage,Paying Attention,Soul Tending Tags: , , , ,

Ordinary Time

May 24th, 2010 | 5 Comments

The rush of wind and tongues of flame in the story of Pentecost are powerful symbols of transformation. The drama of the Christian story breaks into flame, and a bewildered body of believers is energized and empowered to become the church. It’s a moment of incredible intensity, but the story doesn’t end at that crescendo. In real life, it never does.

We celebrated Pentecost on Sunday, honoring the power and presence of the spirit in myriad manifestations then and now. But on Monday, the church simply entered the season of ordinary time.

Fire creates a drama that’s tough to follow, and the liturgical calendar makes no attempt to top it. The high seasons of Lent and Eastertide have passed, the liturgical purple, white and gold, and red are folded and put away. Through the remainder of spring and summer, and well into the fall, the church wears green—the color of life and growth. It’s time to move into a growing season that unfolds in its own time, yielding the fruit that the coming days will nourish. Whether it’s in the church year or in our individual lives, growth is manifest in ordinary time.

The drama wanes in the return to everyday life. When tongues of flame set us alight, we know there’s something happening. We’re part of something big, and life is exciting. When we’re merely a vine trying to put out a new leaf, the work is hard and the audience is gone.

The return to ordinary time is like the lesson from a Zen master—Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water; After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. Our spiritual life may change, but ordinary chores remain. We may awaken to a richer reality, but we live out that new perspective in this world—the only one we have.

A vision of what life might be depends on the work of carrying it out. The miracle of transformation is only experienced when it is lived. Transcendence can be visited upon us in a moment, but following through in the world takes time and strength.

Moses came down from the mountain to the mess that his people had made, and he led them to a better life. Though Peter encouraged Jesus to dwell on the mountain of his transfiguration, he returned to his ministry and made the journey to Jerusalem and the cross. Mountaintop moments come to fruition when we return to daily life.

When the Holy Spirit blew into the lives of Jesus’ followers, it was through the hole in their world left by his departure. It blows into our lives, too, through openings we may not even realize are there. Its arrival may not be dramatic, and its presence may be subtle. But it abides where it matters—in ordinary time.

What happens next?

Comments (5) | Seasons,Soul Tending Tags: , , ,

Unnecessary Agitation, and Other Lessons from a Laundry Odyssey

May 12th, 2010 | 1 Comment

This past week included, among everything else that a week brings, a late-night watery floor. It resulted from what I expected to be a typical load of laundry, with too many other loads awaiting their turn. I mopped up the water, put the clothes in the dryer, and resolved to think about that tomorrow. This is my first choice in dealing with any crisis that arises after 10:00 at night. Most of the time it works quite well.

Insight 1:  Sometimes we get messed over by our own procrastination, and it feels lousy.

Lesson 1:  Don’t procrastinate.

Caveat:  This is easier said than done.

It was a busy week, but a couple of evenings later I gathered the strength to face the question of whether it was a hose problem or a washer problem. I ran water into the machine, watched it drain and spin, and there was apparently no problem. Wanting to believe that the prior event was an anomaly, I started another small load and walked away. Which resulted in water on the floor again.

Insight 2:  We know what we know, even if we don’t want to admit it.

Lesson 2:  We can avoid messes if we take responsibility for what we know.

Caveat:  Sometimes it’s hard to know how.

Clearly it was not simply a problem with the hose. With the washing machine several years old, and the high cost of a service call, we chose to replace the machine. I was glad to have that option, and assumed I would find something similar to the old washer, have it delivered, and get on with the laundry.

But the technology of washing machines has moved on, and there were things to learn in order to make a good decision. When I finally understood this, I regretted my thoughtlessness and began trying to learn enough to choose wisely.

Insight 3:  Good decisions require knowledge and attention.

Lesson 3:  Acting responsibly involves making an effort to learn.

Caveat:  There are limits to what we can know; we simply do the best we can.

Now I have a front-loading washing machine, which uses less water, detergent, and power than the old one. I’m still getting used to it. For as long as I’ve been doing laundry, getting clothes clean has meant agitation—energetic churning of fabric through great quantities of water and suds. I had to embrace a new paradigm as I watched the first load of sheets cycle through the wash.

The drum turned, lifting the sheets gently to the right until they dropped, and continued to turn slowly, lifting and dropping. Then the machine stopped and turned in the opposite direction to lift and drop the fabric again. Over and over. It was more like the movement of women beating laundry against river rocks than my familiar modern way of washing clothes. The new machine uses just enough water to wet the fabric, then lifts and drops the laundry until it’s clean. Amazingly, it works—the steady, rhythmic motion of the ancient way is apparently the right idea.

Insight 4:  All the agitation that I thought of as necessary…isn’t.

Lesson 4:  Some assumptions about how things must be done are wrong. Look for a simpler and more sustainable way. There are clues to be found in the past.

Caveat:  I’m grateful not to be washing clothes in the river. New technology can be a good partner to the old ways.

I realize from the whole experience that it’s important to leave room for what genuinely needs attention. Including the need for sleep. But I’m also wondering about other kinds of agitation I’ve assumed was necessary. Maybe I need to rethink some of them.

Is there another way to do things without so much churning?

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Remember the Sabbath?

May 6th, 2010 | 2 Comments

Work and rest serve one another when they’re in the right balance, but finding the perfect equilibrium is an art I have not mastered. The feeling that I’ve done enough and deserve to rest eludes me. The question of what counts as real work, which always shadows a creative effort, makes the issue even more complex.

Yet whatever our work may be, we can’t exhale indefinitely; we have to take a breath. We can’t continue producing without replenishment. But I’d like to have some assurance that I’ve done enough, and that it’s ok to ease up for a while, short of the need to collapse.

The issue of balancing work and rest is ancient. When Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt, they were a people misshapen by centuries of slavery. They needed guidance as they learned to structure their lives for themselves. The Sabbath was a gift to them, which established a rhythm of work and rest, material effort and spiritual replenishment. It conveyed the divine message that for this week, you have done enough. It was essential to being healthy and whole, living in relationship with God.

We still need that rhythm. But with no one descending from the mountaintop with stone tablets for our culture to insist that we keep it, it’s up to us to create space for the Sabbath in our lives. Doing that requires some preparation. It means valuing the Sabbath enough to plan ahead for it. I love the idea of keeping a Sabbath, but maybe it could be even more than a Sunday afternoon nap.

The challenge is that working ahead to clear a space takes effort. Cleaning up the house, preparing food ahead of time, getting the essential chores and errands out of the way requires a commitment that’s simply easier not to make. Those are things I might make myself do if company is coming, but I’m less inclined to make the effort for myself.

My brother and sister-in-law are avid football fans, and when their team plays at home they prepare for their weekends in just this way. On Thursday evening after a long day of work, they nonetheless clean their house as they look toward the weekend. They plan for how to feed their guests who come in for the game, and prepare many of the meals and snacks ahead of time. By Friday evening the work is done, and they’re ready to kick back and enjoy the weekend. Visiting them during football season is relaxing and fun. They’re able to be generous hosts while genuinely relaxing and enjoying themselves.

It seems to me that’s a pretty good model for observing the Sabbath. A day to rest and be restored, doing what we truly enjoy, is worth claiming. Perhaps in preparing for the Sabbath we can relish the feeling of having earned it, as well.

Knowing this and making it part of my life are two different things. But I’d like to work on having that kind of balance.

What helps you get the right rhythm of work and restoration?

Comments (2) | Soul Tending Tags: , ,

Simple Prayers that Fit our Lives

May 1st, 2010 | 5 Comments

Part 2 in a series on Breath Prayers

It’s unfortunate that so little teaching about breath prayer is offered in today’s church. These prayers fit beautifully into the lives we lead in this time and culture. They’re brief and portable, a manageable doorway into a richer spiritual life. And they help to meet our great need for spiritual respite.

A breath prayer is connected with the body, offering a tangible experience of prayer. The life force that draws breath in and out of us through every moment of our lives, with or without our awareness, tells us something about the presence of God. Similarly, a breath prayer is a reminder of God’s presence.

There are many ways to center our prayers in our breathing, including simply becoming quiet and aware of the flow of the breath. Awareness of the breath is a good place to start in prayer; it helps us to relax. But adding words can help to keep a prayerful focus.

Words for a breath prayer can come from poetry, scripture, or prayers we write ourselves. It claims an attitude toward God, a longing, a request, a need, a hope, a confession—an opening of the heart to the divine. When we adopt a prayer to say in rhythm with our breathing throughout the day, we acknowledge something about ourselves, something about God, and something about that relationship. We allow the prayer to become part of us, to shape our thoughts and our heart.

The words to a breath prayer are brief and simple, like a mantra. It does not voice everything we think, and isn’t made to sum up all that we trust in, or hope for, or seek. It uses pared-down language that suggests more than it states. It points beyond us, toward the divine object of our longing.

For example, part of Psalm 13 reads, “Give light to my eyes.” I love the line and the wealth of meaning it implies. A breath prayer using that line might be, “God of all wisdom, give light to my eyes.”

The words to the prayer are said in rhythm with the breath, a phrase on inhalation and a phrase on exhalation. A single breath, in and out, might complete the prayer; a longer prayer might require two full breaths.

You might find words for a breath prayer written in scripture or penned by spiritual teachers or poets. The possibilities are everywhere. In the next post, I’ll offer more from the Psalms.

What words inspire you?

You might also be interested in Part  1 of this series, Breathing a Prayer, on wordless breath prayers. Or in Part 3, Praying the Psalms.

Comments (5) | Prayer,Soul Tending Tags: , ,

Breathing a Prayer

April 28th, 2010 | 2 Comments

Part 1 in a series on Breath Prayers

Breath means life, an association so close that breath itself feels sacred. Watching the gentle rise and fall of a loved one’s chest, smelling the sweet breath of a baby, hearing the labored sound of a struggle to breathe—all are deeply felt experiences.

Breath also holds power. It carries the voice, in speech and song, into the world. A wind instrument filled by the breath becomes an extension of the body, magnifying its expression. We move into life by the strength of our breath.

Breath is an intimate mystery, distinctly personal yet not of our doing. Becoming aware of my breath connects me to what is within and what is beyond. In this way, breathing is connected to prayer. Breath also carries the prayers we voice. So it’s only natural that we have many traditions of praying in rhythm with the breath. The flow of air, in and out, is an ever-present stream of life and energy. Watching it, like observing a flowing river, helps focus and soothe the mind.

A breath prayer can be wordless. One possibility is to breathe in health and well-being, and to let go of dis-ease while breathing out. Another way to pray a wordless breath prayer is to focus on breathing in God’s love and care for me, then breathing out that love and care to the people around me and to all of creation. Both inhale and exhale, receiving and giving love, are essential; they complete each other.

These simple, rhythmic prayers are good to take along into the world. Repetition of a brief prayer that touches the heart can change how I see other people, my circumstances, and myself. It offers calmness in the midst of chaos. It offers some comfort when life is difficult. I can practice a breath prayer when walking or washing dishes, while waiting for a traffic light to change or a computer to reboot.

As I practice a breath prayer, it greets me of its own accord when I become quiet, or sometimes when I most need it. A breath prayer is a reminder that God is present. The prayer, and the presence, are available in every moment.

Is there a wordless prayer that you might want to pray with your breath?

You might also be interested in Part 2, Simple Prayers that Fit our Lives or Part 3, Praying the Psalms.

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