Reconnecting with Spiritual Practice
Over the last few weeks we have been exploring how we can reconnect ourselves to our faith in ways that perhaps we had not considered before. Our emphasis in the practice of our faith has been more external and otherworldly. We have been taught from an early age that God has given us directions for the living of this life but that the ultimate fulfilment of this life lies in the life to come. The desire to come into God’s Kingdom at the end of this life has left us with the sense that this is a time in which we may seek for God and desire to follow the ways of God but our understanding of God and God’s role in our lives is more of a future rather than a present thing.
However, when we begin to examine the actual record of people who have lived their lives with God and wrote about those experiences, we discover that the connection we want to have with God in eternity is very much determined by the connection we want to have with God in the here and now. Yes, there will be a new earth and a new heaven but this earth and the heaven that we can glimpse are the reality in which we live and move and have our being.
So it is critical for us to take the time we are given in this reality and find how we can connect or reconnect with God. To that end, we have been encouraged to grasp our interconnectedness to all of the created beings and the fabric of this planet; we have been encouraged to recognize the sacredness of all life; we have been encouraged to understand compassion as a responsibility that we have towards ourselves, one another and the wider world so that we may bring a blessing to the world and we have been encouraged to seek for and find the light of God within ourselves and others – even when we all we can see in another person is darkness. In all this we are to seek for the wisdom of God that is present to us at every crossroad of our lives and receive that wisdom as a gift that can guide us on our journey through life. As we take our journey and endeavour to stay connected to God, we will need to pause and refresh ourselves, take stock of where we are and where we want to be. Newell speaks about the Bay of New Beginnings on Iona. It is where the pilgrims take 2 stones. The one represents failure, regret and it is cast into the sea as a sign of letting go of the past; the second represents a yearning for something to come into our lives and it is carried with the pilgrim as a sign of commitment.
Part of that commitment to reconnecting with God is a reconnection with spiritual practice. Spiritual practice goes far beyond our gathering for worship on Sunday. So many things in our modern world can take us away from this weekly gathering. We can be traveling for work or to visit with friends or family or a time of rest and renewal; we can be at work or we can be involved in some form of recreation or charitable activity in the community; we can be ill or find ourselves unable to come for some other reason. If we depend on our Sunday gathering as the only point of connection with God and with one another, we will inevitably find ourselves compartmentalizing our faith life and possibly even find ourselves losing touch with God. Just as we nourish our bodies with healthy food and drink and just as we exercise our brains and our muscles to keep them in good working order, so we need to nourish our spirits on a regular basis as well.
Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk from Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky. Merton sought to invite people into what he called a “contemplative orientation” to life. His goal was to help people find balance – between being and doing, between inner awareness and outward engagement – that would lead to a fuller life both for themselves and their relationships. Merton believed that we are living in a world that is transparent and that God is shining through it all the time. But he also knew that so often we don’t see it. Spiritual practice is about remembering to see. It is about intentional disciplines that will enable us to be more aware of the shinings of Divine Presence that are within us and all around us. It is about training our inner vision to remain alert to the glory that is at the heart of every moment.
But spiritual practice is not a seeking to know about God but to know God. It is a desire for direct personal experience. People desire not to know more about God or truths concerning God but to be intimately joined to God, to feel a connection that brings God from the external to the internal.
In the 19th century, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said that God was dead but what he really meant by that was that our experience of God had died. We became so focused on what we believe that we failed to focus on knowing the person. Over time our relationship to God had lost its intimacy because we became overly concerned with protecting the divinity, the holiness of God. And yet it is clear from the record in the Scriptures – particularly the Gospel of John – that God desires not to be protected but to be an active partner in our lives. He wants to hold us, speak with us, comfort us, encourage us and guide us.
Merton’s teachings on spiritual practice embrace a threefold pattern. The first is his belief that spiritual practice is about remembering our diamond essence. Just as a diamond can only be discovered once the outer shell has been stripped away, so our diamond essence is that which is deepest in us and that deepest part of us is of God. The second is his conviction that spiritual practice is about remembering that that diamond essence is at the heart of each one of us and of all things. The third is his belief that we will find true strength for our mission of working with God for reconciliation and transformation in this world only by digging deep into the foundations of our being. Our real strength and spiritual life will come not from our ego to change the world by words or beliefs but from reconnecting to our essence, reconnecting with God at the core of our existence.
Each of us here has been formed by some religious tradition. We bring with us our expectations for this community and also our fears of what this community might become. The challenge for all of us - no matter what Christian community we are a part of – is to focus ourselves not on what we can know about God and how our interpretation of God can influence the world but rather to focus on knowing God and how that relationship can influence the world. The rules of every Christian community exist to maintain good order and practice but the best rules are those that encourage a growth in spirit and personal relationship with God.
Near the end of his life Carl Jung, the Christian psychotherapist, was asked if he believed in God. His answer was that he didn’t need to believe in God, he knew God. May we seek to know him and knowing him reveal through our living that we believe.
AMEN