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.
Who we are
Church reWired is sponsored by Scots Church Adelaide. We are a part of the Uniting Church in Australia.
Our key author, Andrew Prior, is the Web Minister at Scots Church.
Andrew Prior is the "Web Minister" at Scots Church. He is a minister in the Uniting Church in Australia, and like many ministers, has spent a lot of time doing other things. Not long after his confirmation at Scots, Andrew went to Ernabella where he worked as an Agricultural Development Office with Pitjantjatjara people. After ordination and work in several parishes he spent ten years working in IT Support specialising in Microsoft Small Business Server.
It says in his email signature that he is an IT and Values Consultant. Andrew says "I think of myself as a freelance theologian, but that doesn't mean anything to most Australians!"
He is married to a minister (Rev Wendy Prior), and has a part time placement in the Greenacres Uniting Church. In 2007 he returned to Scots and works three days a week on Scots Wired Church Project, and for a church (re)Wired.
Andrew is normally at Scots on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, madly riding a pushbike in from Elizabeth.
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