It’s been a minute since we recorded a podcast! As I begin my work as a spiritual director, I have found myself saying on numerous occasions, “Have you considered adopting a daily spiritual practice?” Does that sound like anyone else we know?
And…it has helped me enormously over the years. It’s one of those things that you don’t realize is working until you experience that it is working. For a long time, I didn’t think I was “doing it right.” Now, however, I see that there is no right way, only the experience of becoming a kind of inner observer. Now, I can see the thoughts, feel the feelings, have the experiences (even unpleasant), and offer more compassion to myself and others. I have a greater sense of play. As a result of practice, I experience more delight in Ordinary Life.
Three elements of an expansive daily practice incorporate intention, attention, and attitude. The practice remains anemic if our attitude isn’t toward openness and awakening.
What about you? If you have cultivated a practice, what do you notice?
Post Scripts: 1) Bill recommends this movie, “The Zone of Interest.” It is about what happens when we don’t pay attention. I watched it, and oof. It’s terrifying without the violence.
2) A transcript of the Mary Oliver poem, “Mindful.”
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these –
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
The Untrimmable Light
