Reflection
What is everyday spirituality? We were taught that spirituality was the part of religion that focused on the “inner life.” It was something that you did in a special place or time, usually a quiet room at home or on retreat. However, we discovered that many religious traditions encouraged people to engage in a search for the sacred as they went about the activities of their everyday lives. Yet, many people still have trouble accepting how daily life can be a spiritual practice. Some are influenced by the division of the world into realms of the sacred and the secular and want their spirituality to take them out of the corrupt world and help them transcend it. Others are convinced that all divine revelations ceased with the writing of the sacred texts of the world religions. Still others have the idea that only professional religious leaders have the ability to discern the presence of God in the everyday. The result of these assumptions has been a separation of spiritual belief and practice from daily life to our detriment. A more integrated view is to recognize that spirituality is a way of life, and as such, it cannot be separated from our everyday activities.
Adapted from Spirituality and Practice
Prayer
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?
Psalm 139:7
Action
How does your spirituality infuse your daily life? Try to live attentively and not only by routine. Make your decisions based in your belief systems.
Suggested Reading
If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
Galatians 5:25
Awareness of the sacred in life is what holds our world together, and the lack of awareness of the sacred is what is tearing it apart.
Joan Chittister
Our heart knows what our mind has forgotten – it knows the sacred that is within all that exists, and through a depth of feeling we can once again experience this connection, this belonging.
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Love’s greatest gift is its ability to make everything it touches sacred.
Barbara De Angelis
When we pay attention, whatever we are doing…is transformed and becomes part of our spiritual path.
Rick Fields
Every happening great and small is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.
Malcolm Muggeridge
The spiritual life is, at root, a matter of seeing. It is all of life seen from a certain perspective. It is waking, sleeping, dreaming, eating, drinking, working, loving, relaxing, recreating, walking, sitting, standing, and breathing. . . . Spirit suffuses everything; and so the spiritual life is simply life, wherever and whatever, seen from the vantage point of spirit.
John Shea
The sacred is not in heaven or far away. It is all around us, and small human rituals can connect us to its presence. And of course the greatest challenge (and gift) is to see the sacred in each other.
Alma Luz Villanueva
Learning the inner art of manifestation is a paradoxical process. Unless we can see the magic in the ordinary routines and things of everyday life — or perhaps I should say, unless we can see those ordinary things in a fresh, mindful, and magical way — we will not be able to fully invoke the inner power that fuels the everyday miracles of manifestation.
David Spangler
The real meditation is how you live your life.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Mindfulness isn’t difficult. We just need to remember to do it.
Sharon Salzberg