In 2018, I undertook a challenge to explore and write about a different sacred practice each week, from different traditions and areas of focus (see below for links to the individual posts).
What this year reinforced for me was that the main reason we practice sacred disciplines, rites, and rituals is to train us to experience all of our life as sacred. They are all signs that point us to the reality that the ultimate sacred practice is the doing of life itself. As I wrote in a mid-year review of the project:
“[T]he more of life I experience, the more I see that all of creation and every moment is a burning bush, a vessel for knowledge of and communion with God, if only we have eyes to see and ears to hear.”
Individual practices — be they of sacred reading, prayer, meditation, service, or intentional living — help us cultivate those seeing eyes and listening years; they tune our senses to the frequencies of the divine life. And the more we can tune into that frequency, the more clearly we hear God’s voice singing that ancient but ever-new hymn of creation and redemption that moulds us, fashions us, and refashions us into God’s likeness. When we tune in clearly to that song, every sip of our morning coffee becomes an opportunity for gratitude, every sunrise an opportunity for awe and wonder, every moment stuck in traffic an opportunity for patience; every disagreement an opportunity for communion. Only a rare few actually experience that level of clarity, but all of us can tune in enough to at least hear the music through the static. And when we do, we’ll find that we can’t help but start singing along.
Here are links to the practices I explored:
Prayer and Meditation:
- Sign of the Cross
- The Jesus Prayer
- Morning Office
- Icons
- Mindfulness Meditation
- Communion of Saints
- Invoking the Spirit
- The Rosary
- Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian
Scripture:
- Lectio Divina (Gospel Contemplation)
- Lectio Divina (Senses of Scripture)
- Havruta
- The Lectionary
- Eisegesis & Exegesis
- Integral Hermeneutic
- Florilegium
Thought and Cognition:
- Feel the Feeling and Drop the Story
- The Story I’m Telling Myself is…
- Acceptance
- Listening
- Equanimity
- Tonglen
- Serendipity
- Radical Gratitude
Life Disciplines:
- Journaling
- Silence
- Examination of Conscience
- Ignatian Examen
- Be a Blessing
- Rest
- Fasting
- Inner Wisdom Circle
Coaching / Positive Psychology Disciplines:
- Three Good Things
- Goal-Setting
- Annual Review
- Identify your Values
- Monitoring
- Minimalism
- Three Hopeful Things
Creativity & Embodiment: