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.
Be Thou My Vision
On a Sunday where our theme is to look at our place as people in The Big Picture of all that is, we will begin worship with the singing of Be Thou My Vision… using the words as in Together in Song 547
This prayer will follow. It is designed to speak to the traditional faith, but with encouragement to look beyond, and with encouragement for those who struggle with the traditional language of church.
We do not have high towers, O God
and the armour we must wear
is self control in the face of the temptations of David Jones.
Swords are not what we wish to carry
and yet the hymn we have sung is true:
we want to follow you
we want you to be the centre of our life…
for the times when all is well and joyful,
and for the times when we struggle through years.
You are our vision.
You are our centre.
You are the high tower of our vision
and the high tower which protects our soul…
Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
naught be all else to me, save that thou art
thou my best thought by day or by night
waking or sleeping, thy presence my light…
In these words is all our hope and desire
the best we have.
Amen
There are times when the vision is low,
and the flame of our pilgrimage has burned out.
Then the idea that we are seeking the God of all, the Divine,
is preposterous, and
we are mere small, grubbing, and failed human beings.
Dear God, whatever you are,
when we stand alone
with the vision of a greater world lost,
and full of regrets…
forgive our failure
our loss of vision for a better world
our petty squabbles in family
our mean abuse of others
our low taking advantage
the shrinking of our vision to our own poor self.
If God you are- whatever you are-
let us find vision again…
let us live for more than self…
let us reach for all that is good, and great, and Divine.
We pray as the people
who trust Jesus is our pioneer
and shows us the way to Life.
Amen.
Know that even when we can barely believe
there is yet a high tower.
There is a battle-shield.
God has not forgotten us.
We are still people of God.
Be at Peace.
Amen
Andrew Prior Sept 2010
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