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.
Why
An evening’s television commercials explain it all- have the right Plasma TV, smiling children, and a house in a good suburb, and life will be good. It will be happy and fulfilling. It doesn’t work like that.
Life is full of unfair pain, and yet it has moments of inexplicable joy. It can be enthralling, boring, and miserable all in the one day. People who have lived through appalling horrors find life good and full of hope. Others who seem to have everything are broken hearted. Making sense of it all is the work of a lifetime!
Finding meaning and purpose is not only a life’s work. It can be lonely and dispiriting. In this place we hope to become a safe haven for travellers. We are not a place with all the answers; we too are on the journey. We have made some choices about our directions and some decisions about our values. We offer our insights. Do you have some for us?
The basic life choice behind the people in this place is that the story of Jesus of Nazareth offers a potent backdrop and guide for our lives. Using his story as an inspiration and landmark, we are finding direction and meaning in our own. We are trying to live using this tradition to explore life and grow as people, not to avoid or deny reality.
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