Faithful Practices

On Wednesday I praised the book Everyday Spiritual Practice: simple pathways for enriching your life.  Published by Skinner House Books in 1997, it has long been my go-to book when people ask me to recommend something they could read about spiritual practices.  I simply know of no other book that is both as expansive and as accessible.  More than any other book I've come across it helps people to see that they may already be doing something that might be understood as a spiritual practice and not even known it.  As the editor, the Rev. Scott Alexander, says in the Introduction:

"While working on this collection I was often asked, 'What makes an everyday spiritual practice different from a casual spiritual hobby, something worthwhile that one simply dabbles in when one feels like it?'  The answer is intentionality, regularly and depth.  Whether it is sitting zen, doing charitable giving, working with a spiritual director, or tending your relationship with loved ones, what shapes your efforts into an everyday spiritual practices is your commitment to making the activity a regular and significant part of your life."

Written from the perspective of "professional" religious people (aka, ordained clergy), and more "ordinary" (read, lay) people, part of what makes this book so powerful is that you not only read about how to do whatever practice the chapter is about, but also why the author engages the practices themselves, and why they think it might be of interest to anyone else.  Simply put, I've known of no other book on spiritual practices that I would recommend more highly.

Until now, that is.

This year Skinner House Books published a new anthology:  Faithful Practices: everyday ways to feed your spirit.  Like its predecessor, Faithful Practices is written by a collection of lay and ordained Unitarian Universalists, with each chapter describing both the how and the why of its author's own practice.  Two things, though, make it stand out for me:

First ... well ... I'm the editor.  I was really honored when the good folks at Skinner House reached out to me, saying that they were considering doing another book like Everyday Spiritual Practices and wondering if I'd be interested in submitting a proposal.  I am tremendously grateful that they saw in me someone they trusted to take on a project like this, and seriously humbled that they saw in my proposal a vision of what the book could be.  (As always, I cannot say enough how wonderful it is to work with editors like Marshall Hawkins and Mary Benard!  They turn manuscripts into books, and are really patient and kind.)

The second thing that makes Faithful Practices stand out is that it takes an even more broad view of what can be considered a spiritual practice.  Maintaining the perspective that anything a person does with "intentionality, regularity, and depth" has the potential to serve their spiritual growth, it goes places that will be for many truly surprising.  Here's the Table of Contents:


Practices Born in Tradition

• Learning to Pray (Sue Magidson)
• Finding a Teacher (Wayne B. Arnason)
• How to Begin an Integral Transformative Practice (Arvid Straube)
• Directed Mini-Retreats (Matt Alspaugh)
• The Greatest of These is Love (Susan Maker)
• The Silent Singing Alphabet or Setting the Altar (Laurie Bushbaum)
• Enloightenment in the Dressing Room (Jaelynn P Scott)
• Entering the Labyrinth (Leia Durland-Jones)
• The Cosmala (Jon Cleland Host)

Practices Born in Play

• Making Magical Moments and Letting Them Go (Lynn M. Aquafondata)
• Instagram as Spiritual Practice (Cynthia Cain)
• Playing with My Dolls (Erik Walker Wikstrom)
• Roller Derby (Dawn Skjei Cooley)

Practices Born in Daily Life

• The Spiritual Practice of Chop, Chop, Chopping (Linnea Nelson)
• The Bloom of the Present Moment (Barry Andrews)
• The Whole of the Spiritual Life:  A Meditation on Friendship (James Ishmael Ford)
• On the Days I Eat (Colleen McDonald)
• Walking as a Spiritual Discipline (Jonalu Johnstone)
• Making Art (Amy Zucker Morgenstern)
• Creating Community (Jessica Lin)
• Collecting Joy as a Spiritual Practice (Ann Richards)
• Integrating Technology into Spiritual Practice (Aaron M. Stockwell)

Yes, along with walking the labyrinth, there's a chapter about walking in your neighborhood.  In addition to a chapter about making art, there's one about using Instagram.  Along with prayer there's an exploration of playing with superhero action figures (aka, "dolls") as a spiritual practice.  And then, of course, there's the not-usually-mentioned spiritual discipline of playing roller derby!

Each chapter in Faithful Practices not only describes the particular practice of its author and why they consider it meaningful, but at the end of each chapter are several questions for you to consider including, "how can you see integrating this practice into your life?"

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Everyday Spiritual Practice

In 1999, Skinner House books published, Everyday Spiritual Practice:  simple pathways for enriching your life.  It was edited by the Rev. Scott Alexander, and includes 38 chapters, each one written by a different person describing a spiritual practice which they, themselves, found meaningful.  These weren't academic essays about various practices; they were first person accounts of the authors' lived experiences with the practices they described.  And, so, each chapter included both a description of how the practice worked (i.e., what to do), as well as why the practice was meaningful (i.e., why to do it.)

There have been other such collections.  Three that come to mind immediately are:

• Celebration of Discipline:  the path to spiritual growth, by Richard Foster
• Finding Our Way Again:  the return of the ancient practices, by Brian McLaren
• Practicing Our Faith: a way of life for a searching people, by Dorothy Bass.

I have read all three -- more than once -- and can recommend them.  I would note that all three are written from a distinctly Christian perspective.  I do not think that this is in any way a bad thing.  I think that they would be accessible even to non-Christians (who have the ability, and the willingness, to "translate" Christian language and theological assumptions).

Celebration of Discipline covers what you might call the Christian classics -- meditation, prayer, fasting, solitude, service, confession, worship, etc.  First published in 1978, Celebration of Discipline is, itself, a classic.

Brian McLaren's Finding Our Way Again, also looks at "the ancient practices" of the Christian tradition.  McLaren (author of such books as A New Kind of Christian, and, A New Kind of Christianity, among others) offers more of a context for these practices than Foster does, and many liberal/progressive religious folks would find his theology more appealing.

Practicing Our Faith is another anthology, and more expansive than either of the others.  Still, none of the chapters would surprise anyone who has any kind of exposure to traditional Christian spiritual practices.



Everyday Spiritual Practice is a different kettle of fish altogether.  Firstly, it does not assume a Christian orientation (although it is in no way anti-Christian).  All of the contributors are either ordained clergy or lay people within the Unitarian Universalist tradition.  And if you know anything about us UUs, you will not be surprised that the practices covered within these pages range from the traditional things like prayer, silent retreats, sacred reading, yoga, and mindful eating, to such things as marriage, parenting, the experience of loss, anti-racism work, and vegetarianism.  There are also chapters on quilting, gardening, and cooking.

If you are looking for ways that you can, as Scott says in the Introduction, "spiritually examine, shape, and care for your life -- and the life around you -- to achieve more wholeness, satisfaction, depth, and meaning," then you ought to do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of this book.  (And yes, full disclosure, I have a chapter in the book.  In fact, that chapter formed the foundation for my own later book, Simply Pray: a modern spiritual practice to deepen your life.)

Pax tecum,

RevWik

I'm so excited to announce ...

The book I've been working on as editor is now out in print!  Here's how the publisher, Skinner House Books, is telling about it:

“In all his work as a parish minister and as an author, Erik Walker Wikstrom has been primarily concerned with deepening spiritual lives in today’s world. Now in Faithful Practices; Everyday Ways to Feed Your Spirit he has assembled a collection of essays about different ways that people take time for their souls. You'll be entertained, and you will be guided to find the holy in the ordinary and in the extraordinary.”
—Rev. Hank Peirce, Unitarian Universalist Church of Reading, Massachusetts

An eclectic mix of contributors share their reflections about spiritual practices in their everyday lives. Each of them describes their practice and the ways it opens them up to their hearts and souls. From chopping vegetables to creatively arranging action figures, from taking long walks to playing roller derby, these practices demonstrate the wide range of ways that we can be spiritual, and provide models for those seeking a practice of their own.

Erik Walker Wikstrom is the Lead Minister at Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is the author of several books and curricula, including Serving With Grace: Lay Leadership as a Spiritual Practice and Simply Pray: A Modern Spiritual Practice to Deepen Your Life.


In future posts I'll write more about what's in this book, what makes it so unique in the field of spiritual practice, and the earlier Skinner House book, edited by Scott Alexander, Everyday Spiritual Practice: simple pathways for enriching your life.


Pax tecum,

RevWik

If Only ...

My wife and I were each born, and grew up, in New York State.  I went to college in Ithaca -- for the first two years, at least -- where lake effect snow from Lake Cayuga means it snows during the winter!  For a time my wife and I lived outside of Boston, and for my first settled ministry we moved to Yarmouth, Maine (north of Portland and south of L. L. Bean).  We lived there for a little more than a decade, and that's where our kids came into the picture.

Speaking of pictures, somewhere I have a picture of our boys as toddlers, making their way through the paths we'd shoveled from the front and back door to the road.  The walls of the paths were taller than the kids!  And there's a picture I took to show a friend in Texas that Maine winters weren't all that bad -- I'm wearing snowshoes, standing on the two or three feet of snow in the front lawn, shoveling snow off the roof!

All this to say ... my family and I like snow.  Love it, actually.  And now we live in Charlottesville, Virginia where they close the schools because of a "prediction of precipitation later in the day that might cause icy conditions."  There might be icy conditions on the roads later in the day, so they pre-preemptively closed school.  I do understand that even slightly icy conditions can be treacherous, especially if you're not used to driving with ice on the road, and you live on one of the way-back-there country roads.  I get that, and I'm glad the schools put the kids' safety first.  Still, it's hard not to make fun of school being canceled for a Prediction-of-Precipitation-Later-in-the-Day day.

Even when it does snow here, very often the temperatures shoot right back up within a day or two and everything melts.  In Maine, the first flakes to fall at the end of October could still be on the ground, under a mountain of their followers, at the time Mud Season begins in what others call the Spring.  Here?  You can be back out in a tee shirt and shorts by the end of the week.

It does get cold, though.  Not Ithaca, Boston, or Yarmouth cold, but cold enough.  And when it does, invariably someone in the family will say something to the effect of, "I don't mind the cold ... as long as there's snow on the ground.  Without the snow, what's the point of so much cold?"

In other words ... if only there was snow, the cold would be okay.  Most of us probably know that feeling -- if only.  If only finals were over.  If only I could get that promotion.  If only my wife didn't have to work so hard.  If only my dad wasn't sick.  If only ... if only ... if only.  It is so easy for us to fall into "if only" thinking, so easy that we don't even always know when we're doing it.

The problem with "if only" is that it pulls us out of our lives as they are.  Because the truth is, no matter how much I prefer my cold days to have snow in them, the cold day I'm alive in today doesn't.  But when I focus too much of my energy into "if only there were snow," I miss the possibilities in the day as it is.  I miss this day, because I'm pining away for that day, even thought that day doesn't exist.

Around a decade ago I wrote a sermon exploring all of this, using as my jumping off point a couple of lines from a Willie Nelson song.  (I wrote a brief synopsis on my blog A Ministers' Musings.)

Here I sit with a drink and a memory. / I'm not wet, I'm not cold, and I'm not hungry. /  Classify these as good times.  Good times.

I know that I can layer my life with so many expectations and desires, so many if onlys, that I forget to be satisfied with what I do have.  Maybe you do, too.  If only we didn't ...

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Why Do I Need a Spiritual Director?

Two weeks ago I reflected on what the word "spirituality" means.  I suggested that it could refer to the difference Henry David Thoreau saw between living life and that which is not life.  Most of us, most of the time, live a sort of not-life in which we miss the moments of our living (most often because we're preoccupied with the past or the future, and not focused on the present moment).  Spirituality, then, has to do with learning to live life.

Last week I explored the question of why we would need to do any kind of practice, have any kind of discipline, if spirituality is simply about living our lives.  The lesson of Pablo Casals' commitment to the disciplined practice of playing scales -- even after he was an acknowledged master of his instrument -- offered an answer by way of analogy.  You can make sound if you pick up an instrument from time to time; you can make music if you're committed to practice.  (I'd not that Siddhartha Buddha is said to have continued meditating twice a day for the forty or so years following his Enlightenment, and Jesus is remembered as praying regularly.)

Let's say that these two posts have made sense -- spirituality is about living deeply and fully, and doing that takes practice.  Still, why would you need anyone helping with that?  What could a Spiritual Director offer that you couldn't find on your own?

The Personal Trainer - Eemnes, Netherlands, 2017
(© Floris Oosterveld, used under Creative Commons license)

Do I really need to say more?

A personal trainer is someone who knows how to help you on your way to being more physically fit, but they don't lift the weights for you.  That you have to do.  And people do certainly work out on their own, yet a qualified trainer can help you to avoid common pitfalls, and can check your form in the moment to help you avoid injury, and can suggest exercises you may not have thought of on your own.  Yet they don't know everything there is to know about fitness, they really know very little about you, and they can't do your workout for you.

I keep coming back to that point, don't I?  There's a story I've read about a Zen monk who had a brand new, overly eager student thrust upon him.  This younger monk pestered the elder with questions, clearly wanting to glean all that he could from the learning of the more experienced monk so that his own journey would be easier.  Aware of this, recognizing that his young charge essentially wanted him to do the work on the other's behalf, the senior monk looked the younger one in the eye and said, "I will do everything I can to help you on your spiritual journey, yet there are four things I cannot do for you:  I cannot eat for you; I cannot go to the bathroom for you; I cannot get into your skin and walk around for you; and I cannot live your life for you."  It is said that upon hearing this the younger monk attained enlightenment.  [I've adapted this story from Sōkō Morinaga's marvelous book, Novice to Master:  an ongoing lesson in the extent of my own stupidity.]

A lot of people seem to have an image of a Spiritual Director as some kind of medieval monk, dour and stern, telling someone how long they should stay on their knees (preferably on a cold stone floor), and how many prayers of just what kind they should be praying.  (With, of course, the threat of eternal damnation if one should disobey.)  And that is certainly one way this calling has been understood and, unfortunately, is no doubt still understood by some. 

Instead, the Spiritual Director -- like the personal trainer who keeps an informed eye on how you're executing the various exercises you're doing -- travels with you to help keep you focused on your desire to see, hear, feel, love, live more clearly.  A Spiritual Director won't -- shouldn't -- tell you what prayers to pray, but will help you to see what "prayer" means to you at this moment in your life, and to look for the ways you are connecting, and to discover new ways through which you might connect, with life's depths (which some call "Spirit," and some call "God," and others call "Inner Wisdom," and others need no names for).  

Pax tecum,

RevWik