CHAPTER
FOUR:
THE PRACTICES
THAT KEEP ME GOING
“A New
Rule of Life”
By the time the
next leg of my journey came along, it was early fall of 2021. I was figuring
out how I was going to do a little hunting and fishing with the help of others,
coming to grips with the fact that it would no longer be safe for me to go on
the short-term solo wilderness excursions that had been part of my lifestyle
for half a century. Losing that part of my independence so suddenly was sort of
a big deal, but I was thankful that I had Matt and a few trusted friends, and that
I could still get around pretty well as long as I had my oxygen with me.
This would also be
my first Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmas without being a pastor in charge. Christmas
Eve was always the fullest worship service of the year, and family members
would drive across the state to join in worship wherever I would be preaching
that night. This year, it would be different.
It was also a time
for me to develop a pattern for how I would continue the spiritual and physical
practices that had gotten me through the initial trauma and which would be the
foundation for this next part of my life (a word of advice for whoever needs to
hear this: please don’t wait until you are in crisis to develop your spiritual practices!
I would have been bouncing off the walls at this point if I had not had some
spiritual grounding).
About ten years
ago I wrote a curriculum piece called “Hands-On Faith” in which I enumerated
some 40 well-known spiritual practices, then I cautioned:
It is important to
always remember the spiritual practices are not ends in themselves. Paul advises the Philippian Christians to “work
out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in
you both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13). The incarnational paradox is such that our
faithful spiritual practices are by no means an effort towards a “works
salvation” but are merely a means by which we place ourselves at God’s disposal
so that God can do the work in us. We
make ourselves available to God, we make “space” for God, we submit to God and
we cooperate with God. Thomas Merton once
said the biggest part of prayer is showing up.
Through the spiritual practices, we “show up” for God.
Someone once asked
in a class I was teaching on spiritual formation: “What is the difference between
spiritual practices and spiritual formation?” I replied, “Spiritual practices
are what we do; spiritual formation is what God does.”
Ever since St.
Benedict, the pattern for how we practice our spiritual lives has been referred
to as our “rule of life.” In her popular book Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life, Marjorie
Thompson writes of the importance of having some intentionality and structure
in our spiritual lives:
Certain kinds of
plants need support in order to grow properly.
Tomatoes need stakes, and beans must attach themselves to suspended
strings. Creeping vines like clematis
and wisteria will grow on any structure they can find. Rambling roses take kindly to garden walls,
archways, and trellises. Without
support, these plants would collapse in a heap on the ground. Their blossoms would not have the space and
sun they need to flourish, and their fruits would rot in contact with the
soil. We would be unable to enjoy their
beauty and sustenance.
When it comes to
spiritual growth, human beings are much like these plants. We need structure and support. Otherwise our spirituality grows only in a
confused and disorderly way. The fruit
of the Spirit in us gets tangled and is susceptible to corruption, and the
beauty of our lives is diminished. We
need structure in order to have enough space, air and light to flourish. Structure gives us the freedom to grow as we
are meant to.
There is a name in
Christian tradition for the kind of structure that supports our spiritual
growth. It is called a rule of life.
--- Marjorie J. Thompson, Soul
Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life (John Knox Press)
A Rule of Life is the development of “holy
habits” that provide a supporting structure for our spiritual lives. It is the way we order our lives to assure
that we are always making the space for God to work and help us along the way
to being conformed to the image of Christ.
I like the way Marjorie Thompson reminds us that structure is not
something that confines us, but that “structure gives us the freedom to grow as
we are meant to.”
My new set of
circumstances – my physical location, retirement status, and dealing with my
illness – would necessitate arranging my daily life in a whole new way. It
called for a new Rule of Life.
My Rule of Life
has been described in general terms on my blog as “Pray. Be. Enjoy.” This general statement remains the same; only
the underlying order of things is new. Herein are the practices that I have
come to regard as essential for this time of my life:
Centering
Prayer, both solo and in small group
A—C—T—S
Prayer with “Protestant Rosary” Beads
Walking:
in nature, in the neighborhood and on the labyrinth
Worship
Mindfulness
Gratitude
Reconciliation
Here is a brief description
of how I practice these:
CENTERING
PRAYER. This is my
starting point for prayer every day: Centering Prayer as revived, shared and taught
by Fr. Thomas Keating, Basil Pennington, Cynthia Bourgeault, David Frenette, and
others. I practice alone and also with a small group that meets once a month
online for centering prayer and lectio divina. It is silent, meditative,
contemplative prayer, to begin simply showing up to be in God’s presence prior
to any discursive or dialogical prayer.
A—C—T—S
Prayer with “Protestant Rosary” Beads. Have you ever lost your place and wondered if you had
forgotten something you wanted to pray about? These bead sets were made popular
a few years ago by the best-selling book A Bead and a Prayer: A Beginner’s Guide
to Protestant Prayer Beads by Kristen Vincent. We had a lot of fun making
these little sets of beads when lots of people were doing this, and I still
have a couple of sets. They provide a physical, tactile way of engaging our bodies
in our prayers. They consist of four rows of seven beads, separated by a larger
bead. I use the ACTS model as follows:
1.
Adoration:
the best place to start a
prayer is with words of praise. Good places to find these are the psalms and
our praise songs and hymnals.
2.
Confession:
When I realize that I am
coming into the presence of God for prayer, I may get a feeling that I need to
ask for grace and forgiveness before proceeding. The model I use is the Seven Deadly Sins as described
by St. John of the Cross (1542-1591).
They are pride, anger, envy, lust, greed, gluttony, and sloth. These were
described in spiritual terms by John but they can be applied in more fleshly
terms as well. I simply go one-by-one and ask the Spirit to reveal to me any
known or unknown sin that needs to be dealt with (see Psalm 19:12-13).
3.
Thanksgiving: I could go on and on about this….
4.
Supplication: This is (finally) where I get out my “prayer
list” and go one by one, name by name, to pray for those who are especially on
my heart. I also pray for my family and for my team, who have been so faithful
to pray for me and check on me. Then I will pray for myself.
Walking. I
have always loved walking; it’s been my favorite exercise. But now, walking any
distance is HARD. I still do it as much as I can, and I am sorry that I ever
took it for granted. I walk in the neighborhood, at the city park and once or
twice a year on a labyrinth. I have walked
labyrinths all over the place and they are a wonderful way to pray. A labyrinth
is not like a maze: a maze is designed to get you lost; on the labyrinth, if
you stay on the path, you will eventually go into the center and back out again.
Worship. With the pandemic going on and my diminished
lung capacity and immunity, I have avoided most in-person worship but am slowly
returning. Whether in-person or online, worship is indispensable to the spiritual
life.
Mindfulness. This has been one of the most important
resources for me throughout, and I am so glad that I learned something of this
practice before I got sick. I try to practice this all day as much as I can,
for it is the best way I know of to “pray without ceasing.” Be sure and look at
my friend Amy Oden’s book on Christian mindfulness.
Gratitude.
Again, one of the most therapeutic things I know.
Reconciliation.
You might not have
thought of this as a spiritual practice.
But I have seen too many people leave this Earth with unresolved matters
which left a lot of pain behind. As much as possible, if there is anyone who
needs to be forgiven, I want to forgive them, with God’s help. If I have wronged
someone, I want to ask their forgiveness while I am still around to do that. If
I appreciate the positive influence someone has had on my life, I want to let
them know. And I don’t want to miss an opportunity to tell my loved ones that I
love them.
So, these are the
practices that God is using to carry me through, along with the support of
trusted friends (Feel free to contact me about any of these: spiritual
practices are pretty much my wheelhouse). Everyone’s practice will be different;
the main thing is to pay attention to where God is leading.
New Year’s Eve
2021 represented six months in. Six days
later, I sent this to my team:
Thursday, January 6, 2022
Update January 6 Epiphany 2022
On Friday, New Year’s Eve, I drove to
Heber Springs to check on my boat which is docked there. Only once since I got
sick in June-July have I felt like going. It had been my plan to spend my first
day of retirement relaxing on the boat. As you know, I spent that first day and
the next eight days in the hospital instead.
Anyway, on my way back I passed an Episcopal
church that has a sign which invited the public to stop and walk the beautiful
labyrinth on their grounds. I’ve passed that church lots of times; this time I
stopped.
As I stood at the entrance to the
labyrinth, I knew what I needed to do with this particular walk. Last year was
such a threshold year for me, I knew I needed to take some burdens to the
center and leave them there. I took more than 30 years of my cherished roles in
parish ministry, along with the shell-shock of receiving such a sudden and
abrupt terminal diagnosis, along with an assortment of self-blame and regrets
from the past, and pressed my hands into the ground in the center. After a few
minutes I rose and walked the circuits outward to begin the next part of my
life. There are many forms of Healing.
On this Epiphany evening I have two
prayer requests for you my team (in addition to the regular miracle prayer):
Today I have received the special
medication that it took so long to get. It’s called ofev and it’s known for two
things: it’s astronomically expensive [] and potentially dreadful side effects.
But this is one of only two treatments that are known to slow the progression
of the disease and prolong life. My pulmonologist has helped me apply for and
receive a foundation grant to take care of the cost, which would have been
prohibitive. For that I am thankful!
So my two prayer requests are:
One, that the medication is effective and
that I can continue to function as well as I am now, or even better;
Two, that my body will tolerate the
medicine without serious side effects.
As always, it means a lot for you to be
part of my prayer/support team and I’m here for you anytime.
Lots of love,
Bill B
Next week will be Holy Week. My prayers are with you, my readers, and with
all the churches and pastors who have led their people through Lent and who
will be preparing to proclaim the Crucifixion and Resurrection of our
Lord.
The theme of next week’s missal will be “From Team
to Tribe” (“The Necessity of Companionship”), with an added mention that I believe I may have stumbled upon the actual Meaning of Life.
