Hello friends,
This is Mark Gladman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighbourhood monk in dogs.
Welcome back.
To look again.
Now here's something that I want you to consider today.
You don't have a spiritual life.
I know that sounds a bit weird for somebody who,
You know,
I guess is classified by others as a spiritual teacher to say,
But stay with me because I think the phrase,
My spiritual life can get us into trouble.
All right,
Because we talk about having a work life and a family life and a social life and a financial life and then a spiritual life.
And it's kinda like.
.
.
You know,
As though somewhere in the middle of all the other stuff,
There's this little compartment labelled God,
And every now and then.
.
.
We open the door and we pray,
We read scripture,
Meditate,
Go to church,
Have a retreat,
And then we close the door again.
And get back to life.
What if that's the problem?
What if there isn't a spiritual life and an ordinary life?
What if there's just life,
And all of it is happening in God.
Now,
Think about the incarnation.
This is the Christian idea that says God became flesh in Jesus.
Notice that in that,
God doesn't become ideas or concepts or experiences,
But flesh.
A body,
Hands,
Feet,
Sweat,
Hunger,
Tiredness,
Pooping even,
Friendship,
Grief,
Laughter,
Food,
Work,
Sleep,
Death.
So if God enters human life,
Which is all those things that we all experience,
And God enters human life in Jesus,
Then we have a serious problem with the idea that parts of life are spiritual and other parts aren't,
Because God has already crossed the boundary.
There isn't a sealed off sacred zone.
Anymore.
The Christian claim is that God is present in the stuff of being human,
Which means your spirituality is happening right now.
Not when you get around to praying,
But right now.
When you're listening to this,
Making your breakfast,
Stuck in the traffic,
Answering email,
Changing the nappy,
Teaching a class,
When you're sitting beside someone who's dying,
Laughing with a friend,
When you're completely bored and irritated,
When you're lonely,
When you're washing dishes,
All of it.
Not all of it feels spiritual,
Sure,
But.
.
.
It's all of life and all of life.
Is.
The presence of God.
Which changes the question.
Because now instead of asking,
When do I get time for my spiritual life?
We need to start asking,
How am I living this moment?
Because the moment is already sacred.
You don't have to make it sacred,
You just have to notice it.
Even the uncomfortable bits,
Because.
.
.
There's another problem with separating spiritual life from ordinary life,
And that is when we start thinking of our spiritual practices as the real thing.
And everything else gets in the way of that.
You know,
And you may have had this from time to time.
Prayer is important,
But then there's work.
Scripture is important,
Then there's family.
Meditation is important,
Then there's the laundry.
Silence is important,
But then someone starts talking.
And all of a sudden ordinary life becomes an interruption.
To our spirituality,
But what if it's the other way around?
What if ordinary life is where spirituality gets tested?
It's easy.
To be peaceful sitting quietly for 20 minutes,
But it's harder when someone sends you an email that makes you furious.
Yeah,
It's easy to feel loving.
While you're singing a song in church maybe,
But it's harder.
When someone you love is being difficult.
It's easy to feel compassionate while thinking about humanity,
But it's harder to be compassionate.
When the person in front of you is being really rude.
Easy to talk about forgiveness,
But it's harder when you actually have to forgive.
Someone.
And that's where spirituality comes in.
Becomes.
Real.
Not in how spiritual you feel.
But in who you're becoming in the middle of ordinary life.
And this is where I reckon Jesus is incredibly practical.
I mean,
Look at his teaching.
He talks about bread,
And money,
And seeds,
And farms,
And birds,
And flowers,
And children,
And neighbors,
And meals,
And weddings,
And debt,
And work,
And fishermen,
And lost coin,
And a woman sweeping a house,
And a man traveling down a road.
It's like Jesus seems incapable of separating guard from ordinary existence.
He looks at the world and keeps saying to us,
Look.
Look at the bird,
Look at the lilies,
Look at the child,
Look at the poor,
Look at the stranger,
Look at the person you've decided is your enemy,
The kingdom of God.
Isn't somewhere else,
It's right here hidden in plain sight and that's why we miss it.
We're waiting.
For something obviously spiritual to jump out and say boo.
We're waiting for a feeling or a sign or a mystical experience.
You know,
A moment when suddenly the heavens open and the voice comes down.
But meanwhile,
God is sitting across the table from us.
Gods in the person we're ignoring.
God's in the conversation we're trying to rush through or get out of.
God's in the body we keep criticizing.
God's in the breath we just took.
God's in the moment.
That we're currently trying to escape from.
I will be very careful here and say that I'm not suggesting everything that happens is good.
It's not.
Abuse is not sacred.
Injustice is not sacred.
Cruelty is not sacred.
We don't baptize evil by calling everything God's presence.
It's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying something that I think is very different.
God can't meet you!
Even within.
Imbues an injustice and cruelty.
Even within the mess and the grief.
And the ordinary.
There is nowhere that God cannot be found.
Meet you.
And be with you.
Even in the places where you don't feel particularly spiritual.
Which means we can stop waiting.
To become more spiritual before we start living deeply.
You don't have to get out of life in order to find God.
Life is where you meet God and suddenly the smallest things become interesting.
How do I speak to the person serving me coffee?
How do I respond when I'm interrupted?
How do I treat?
My own body?
How do I listen?
When someone's boring me?
How do I behave when no one's watching?
How do I handle disappointment?
How do I use money?
How do I speak about someone who isn't in the room?
These aren't moral questions,
They're spiritual questions,
Because every ordinary moment is forming us.
Every interaction is making us into someone.
Every choice is shaping the kind of person we're becoming.
So today.
.
.
The invitation is to choose.
One ordinary thing that you're doing anyway,
Making dinner,
Taking a shower,
Driving home,
Walking the dog,
Washing the dishes,
Sitting with your family.
And before you begin.
.
.
Just stop and say,
God,
This is where I meet you.
And when you do.
.
.
What you're acknowledging is something that's already true,
That God is here,
You are here,
This moment is here,
And this is your life.
Not the bit that you have to get through before the spiritual stuff begins.
This is it.
So maybe you don't have a spiritual life.
Maybe you have something much more beautiful.
You have a life in God.
Every breath,
Every conversation,
Every ordinary Tuesday,
Every beautiful morning,
Every terrible afternoon,
Every beginning,
Every ending,
All of it.
And the invitation.
Is to wake up inside of it.
To look again.
And may grace,
Peace and love be with us as we do today and always.
Amen.
Until tomorrow.
Bye for now.
