The Daily Disciplines
Everything we do is practice for the next time. When we cease to practice, we lose our fluency, and memory becomes imperfect. Some things are practiced by default- when did you last consciously practice eating? Other things require conscious effort. My handwriting is slow, laborious and has lost its fluency. I type without thinking.
When we took our young children back out to the desert where we had lived, they were profoundly uncomfortable with the open spaces. We noticed our son was happier and less fractious whenever we went walking in the enclosed space of mountain gorges. We become used to, and are affected by our environment. Years before, leaving the desert, my wife and I were depressed, dislocated and disoriented by urban life. A day out walking in the hills begins to resurrect memories and instincts which have been lost to our consciousness.
As urban westerners we live in a profoundly artificial environment. It is possible, even easy, to avoid the outside world for days at a time! Enter the garage by an inside door from the house, drive out using the automatic door opener, drive to the underground car park, and take the internal lift up to work. Leave before it is properly light, and return home after dark. We live in a world which we Australians especially, think we control. In truth, we are irradiated with uncontrolled advertising and other stimulation, rarely alone enough to be in silence, and uncomfortable if we are. We live in a noisy, crowded and driven world, which is the anathema of all that our spiritual ancestors learned is necessary for health. We have stepped out of reality into an artificial place.
The spiritual disciplines are designed to bring us back into the real world from our artificial place. They create time, silence and space for us to re-engage with the depths of life. They patrol the corridors of the mind, as someone has said, re-minding us of what is really important. Religion without practice becomes merely an idea, caught in the currents of the ideas round about, without the anchor of reality.
An afternoon gift
Sometimes I am very privileged sitting up here.
I scarcely noticed the young Chinese woman who was standing on the footpath next to Mawson's bust. I was gazing aimlessly, wondering how to finish my lectionary reflection. I did see the Anglo man, in his 70s I think, slowly walking towards her. Something about his tentative approach, along the opposite side of the benches to her, must have caught my attention.
He spoke to her across the bench, uncertainly. She reached over and embraced him. He stepped around the benches to her side, and they embraced again. The smiles and enthusiasm of two people who somehow know each other, but have never met, shone in the overcast of the afternoon.
Who was he, I wondered? They made notes, and compared diaries. A young man, her friend, I think, approached. Introduced to the old man, he shook his hand with delight, and an obvious respect. He had heard of this man before.
After more conversation, the young woman kissed him on the cheek. The two young people went on their way. He picked up his notecase, and went and sat by the cycads in front of Bonython Hall. He is standing there now, speaking to the two young men for whom he was waiting. Who is this man?
This conversation is longer. Even through the filmy double glazing, I can see it's a good conversation. I am reminded of my grandfather, and Rol Nichols, and Milton Spurling. Good men. Kind men, and wise. He shakes hands with them, and they begin to cross the street. He is walking off past the Mitchell Building when I lose track of him.
I think I have received a gift; a little offering of peacefulness and generosity in all the bustle of the city.
Andrew Prior
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