Week #29: Take a Retreat

So many of us live our lives amid continuous obligations and burdensome demands.   The way out of such complex living is not simply the reordering of our schedules.  This complexity of our lives, this way of living that often chokes out all sense of spiritual vibrancy cannot be dealt with via a new system of arrangement or a way of task management.  We must get away.  We must put down all that clutters both our internal and outer spaces so that we may be open to the Spirit of God in our midst.  For many, the inability to live fully amid the Kingdom of God is simply because their lives are filled with too many other things.  Rearranging the 'too many things' may make us feel more efficient with our time or schedules, but it still leaves us with too many things.  A filled vessel is still a filled vessel no matter how we arrange those things that fill it.

Taking a time of retreat, by which we remove ourselves from the regular stuff of life is a powerful way to re-connect with God's presence around us. Yet to do this we must leave things behind.  We leave our electronics unplugged, our schedules at home, and our cell-phones off.  Taking a retreat necessitates that we resist the desire to fill up the time, either through the temptation to load various forms of entertainment and distractions or to remain constantly 'available' to the outside world.  These but tie us to all that clutters our lives. In retreat our time belongs to God alone. We submit to God's directions and initiatives.

There are many different ways to be 'on retreat.'  One can go on retreat for a month, a week, or a few days.  The length of time will differ based on the retreat you feel God leading you into.  Retreats can be guided by a director, or can be personally administered; they can be done individually, or as a member of a group. Periods of silence often play and important part in taking a retreat.

The discipline of taking a retreat, however, is not dependant on mountain chalet's and weekends of solitude. One can take 'mini' retreats as we go through our daily tasks.  What would it look like end our day by sitting in silence for 5 minutes?  What if we refused to answer any email after dinner?  When our schedule contains a block of time unoccupied, what if we saw this as an opportunity to sit in a nearby park and, as Jesus encourages us, 'observe the lilies of the field.'

The basis of taking a retreat is hearing the loving invitation of Jesus to 'come away with me to a quiet place and get some rest.'  Retreats lead us into a time of re-creation.  By turning off the noise of the world around us we give ourselves the opportunity to re-hear God's messages of love and grace.  It is important, then,  to have no expectations about our times of retreat.  Demands regarding 'how it should be done', and 'what we should get out of it', even 'how we should feel at the end' are unhelpful to us; they are undue pressures that remove our soul from the sanctity of our moments away.   To fill up our retreat with preoccupations about the 'right actions' the 'right response' or the 'right feeling' do nothing but diminish our attentiveness to the voice of the Spirit and the presence of Jesus.

 A retreat calls us to spend our time doing less, even though the world continually bombards us with messages demanding that we do 'more'.  Retreats call us to stop, even though the world tells us we must always be on the go.  Retreats call us to listen to God's voice instead of the multiplicity of noises that can too easily fill up our lives.

Taking a Retreat is a powerful discipline for it forces us to physically live out our internal desire for spiritual vitality.  We physically remove ourselves from the demands and complexities of our lives in order to enter an intensive and focused time with God.  In this we create the internal space needed to receive nothing but God's presence and voice in our lives.

Week #28: Journal about your consolations/desolations

We live in a world of perpetual distraction.  Our focus is constantly being pulled in a multitude of directions.  Many today simply have no experience of life away from franticness.  To them, the call to 'be still and know that I am God' (Psalm 46:10), or to 'come away with me by yourself to a quiet place' (Mark 6:31), seems all but impossible.  We have no experiences of it to give it content.  Similarly, the language of the spiritual life seems foreign to many.  What is this deep inner movement of the Spirit?  How do I know that I hear God? How can I be sure I am living in connection with God?

Part of the problem is that we never seem to give any sustained focus on our spiritual lives.  We treat our spiritual selves like we treat every other experience in life; they  are lived moment by moment, and once the moment is passed, our focus has moved on to other things.  Rarely do we ever return to our moments of spiritual livelihood and look deeply into them.  What occurred that brought us a feeling of closeness to God?  When did we feel away from God?  What did God teach us/show us/say to us during our day?

Keeping a journal helps us maintain a sense of divine focus because it forces to linger on our holy moments.  We look upon our day, paying attention to the marks of the Spirit upon our lives.  This is not much different from the ancient practice of ending the day with a prayer of examen.  We attempt, with the help of God's grace, to notice those places in our daily life where we were attentive to the Spirit's call and presence, as well as those times where we may have passed it by.

A simple way to set up your journal is to structure it around St. Ignatius' understanding of our spiritual consolations and desolations.  A Consolation is a moment in which we are aware of God's holy presence in our midst.  Ignatius writes " I call it consolation when the soul is aroused by an interior movement which causes it to be inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord, and consequently can love no created thing in this world for its own sake, but only in the Creator of all things. . . .Finally, I call consolation any increase of faith, hope, and charity and any interior joy that calls and attracts to heavenly things, and to the salvation of one's soul, inspiring it with peace and quiet in Christ Jesus our Lord."  A consolation is a place a mystery, a place of transfiguration, where the ordinary of life seems to shine with the glory of God.

Consolations may occur in many different ways.  It may occur through a conversation with a friend, where our spirit seems to internally recognize God's speaking through the voice of another; it may be a feeling that is felt as one walks in nature, or sits alone in silent contemplation; it may occur through a time of worship, or Bible study.  Importantly, a consolation is not something to be understood or dissected, only experienced.  Journalling about our consolations is not done so that we may examine these moments so as to reproduce them; rather the recognition of our spiritual consolations helps us return to such moments, thankful for God's grace upon our lives, allowing them to inform how live out our faith in the future.

A desolation, obviously, is the opposite of a consolation.  They are the moments in which we feel that we are being draw away from the Spirit of God.  Again, it can occur in many different ways; it may be seen in a time where we act in sin or rejection of God, or  it can be a 'feeling' that something is 'not right' about a situation.  Ignatius defines a desolation as 'darkness of the soul, turmoil of the mind, inclination to low and earthly things, restlessness resulting from many disturbances and temptations which lead to loss of faith, loss of hope, loss of love."  Desolations drives us away from a life of prayer and an internal restedness in the Spirit of God.

It can be uncomfortable to reflect upon these things - particularly on our desolations.  We can easily feel overwhelmed as these reflections point us to habits of activity that we would rather not shed light upon.  Yet we must understand that the point of reflecting on desolations is not to feel guilt or shame, but to drive us more strongly to the grace-filled forgiveness of our Saviour. We feel the sting of desolation only so that it may point us to God's loving hand upon our lives.
 
Journalling in this manner trains us to be be open to God's spirit in new ways.  In scripture, Paul mentions that we must 'train ourselves to godliness' in the same way as an athlete trains themselves for competition. (1st Timothy 4:7-8)  In journalling about consolations and desolations we learn how to be present in the sacredness of each moment, peering behind the shallow veil of exterior life, in order to be attentive to the voice and presence of God.  The acknowledgement of God's consolations teaches us how we may enter into future moments in anticipation of the Spirit at work.  Conversely, in recognizing the places in our lives where we begin to move away from God's presence, we are more able to hold more tightly to our Lord in those times, and thus remain steadfast in our faith.  We 'train ourselves' to recognize our inner temptations and vices thus giving us the opportunity to avoid such snares.

NOTE: Quotes of St. Ignatius are taken from "The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius" as quoted in  Devotional Classics: Selected readings for Individuals and Groups;  Richard J Foster and James Bryan Smith, editors.

Week #27: Learn to say 'No'.

Our lives can be filled up with a multiplicity of demands.  We are continually bombarded with calls for more - more action, more time, more effort.  Whether these calls come from home, work, school or church, these asks on our lives seem never ending.   Sometimes this multiplicity of demands are rooted in things we feel passionate about.  We choose to continually give our selves to that which is demanded in the moment.  And because our interests and passions are often varied and complex, the calls upon us are also varied and complex.

Sometimes we create busyness, believing that jammed schedules and pressing demands are tally marks equalling our own importance.  To be busy is to blessed, we believe.  We tell ourselves, and others, "It's better to be busy that not busy!"  Thus, we never refuse an offer or an ask.  Yet what inevitably happens is that we begin to resent those demands upon us.  The tasks that used to be interesting are now only taxing.   That which promised interest now seem dry and lifeless.

Living in such frenzied manner leaves us feeling overwhelmed and drained of energy.  It is to live from a place of duty not devotion.  God becomes viewed as nothing more than a boss demanding results rather than a Saviour inviting us into abundant life. The activity of our life become that which drain our faith rather than that which fuels it.  This is not the life that God calls us to.  

We must learn how to say no to the those things that take us out devotional living.  The inability to say no keeps us from the life rooted in Christ's presence.  We remain in state of perpetual distraction, pulled in a thousand different directions. Our heart, mind, soul and strength is continually directed to the demand we have to face in this and the next moment, and this keeps us from truly dwelling in the deep well of God's love. The truth of our spiritual lives is that the richness of an internal life with God is rarely found as we run true and fro. A single-hearted focus upon God and his kingdom cannot survive in the constant oscillation between this demand and that task.

A simplified life is a life that is lived out of the centre of faith.  Our desire to follow God's will, expressed in and through our lives, becomes that which governs all of life. In the book, "A Testament of Devotion" Thomas Kelley writes about the necessity of living out of this sense of guidance.  Kelley writes: "When we say Yes or No to calls for service on the basis of heady decisions, we have to give reasons, to ourselves and to others.  But when we Yes or No to calls on the basis of inner guidance and whispered promptings of encouragement from the Centre of our life, or on the basis of a lack of any inward 'risings' of that Life to encourage us in the call, we have no reason to give, except one - the will of God as we discern it.  Then we have begun to live in guidance.  And I find that He never guides us into an intolerable scramble of panting feverishness." ( pg.100)

The life that God calls us to live is not a life of frenzied deadlines and last-minute projects.  God does not wish us to feel so overwhelmed at the things of life that we feel cut off from the Spirit of God in us. Jesus invites us to know life, and know it in abundance.  It remains then, that the way of God must also involve the denial of demands, and not just the acceptance of them.  The abundance of life that Christ invites us into is not merely an abundant of things to do.  In fact, the abundance of God may very well be experienced through our ability to refuse such demands.

God calls us to say no in certain situations just as much as He calls us to say yes.  God may call us to put down or limit certain tasks we enjoy, or demands we are interest in, in order to cultivate a deeper rootedness in His kingdom.  We say no, not because something is bad, or even because we do not wish to do that which is asked of us;  we say no out of desire to remain centred in holy focus.  The act of saying no to a demand is an act of saying yes to God's will in our lives.  This is the root of a life of faith.  We are able to say our no with just as much confidence as we say our Yes because we recognize that our no is yet another way in which we turn to God.  We put down the demands of life for the sole purpose of dwelling more securely in the presence of our Lord.

What is it that God may be asking you to say no to?  What is the task, or duty, or demand you have been holding onto to that God is asking you to put down?  

It can be scary to say no.  It can be scary to turn down offers, or refuse demands, but there is tremendous freedom in do so.  When we say no to something, out of the deep desire to remain rooted in God's surrounding presence, then we release ourselves from the burden of control.  We sit with a spirit of patience and submission and in this we are graced to experience the movement of God in our lives and in this world.  As Thomas Kelley describes it, this manner of life 'is a life of unhurried peace and power.  It is simple. It is serene. It is amazing.  It is triumphant. It is radiant. . . .We need not get frantic.  He is at the helm.  And when our little day is done we lie down quietly in peace, for all is well.'

Week #26: Consider the present sacred

For each of us there is a certain degree in which our lives are filled with the mundane and the normal.  In fact, most of our lives probably do not exude the extraordinary, the miraculous, the exciting events that we spend much of our time hoping for.  Rather, we live amid the humdrum of life.  The routine.  The trivial. The regular.  There are phone-calls and deadlines, traffic jams, and dinner preparations.  Rarely do we see these moments as places of providential blessings or miraculous peace.

What do we do with these ordinary moments, moments that simply bleed one into another?  Often, we ignore them.  They are, after all, nothing special.  Yet such negligence of the holiness around us is to cut ourselves off from the presence of God in the sacredness of the present moment.  Our lives, as ordinary as they may be, are the very places where God chooses to dwells with us.  The tasks of the day, no matter how mundane or trivial, are able to be the means of God's grace, places where we enter into life with the Holy Spirit.

When it comes to living a spirituality of ordinary moments, the Celtic tradition has a unique take on this. Believing that we are able to remember God's presence in the most trivial of places, Celtic tradition advocates a ritualization of ordinary places.  By surrounding the tedious moments of life with a prayer or blessing, the moment is thereby transformed into a place of divine intimacy.   Take, for example, 'The Blessing for the Receiving of Phone Calls;

Here is a child of God,
image of the Father,
redeemed by the Son,
invited by the Spirit,
I welcome this person,
with the heart of Christ.

(For those on eastern and western shores, you may wish to look at 'A Celtic Blessing for the Harvesting of Seaweed.')

What would it look like if we saw the ordinary things of life as places whereby we are invited into a deep connection with the Spirit?  What if we saw every phone call as a Spirit-led conversation, every interruption as an insertion of divine agenda, every trivial matter as a place where we are able to breathe deep the presence of God?  Would some of our frustrations end?  Would irritability and short fuses decrease?  Would we be more accepting of the things around us, or even ourselves?

Our faith is lived in the real, tangible, and often ordinary moments of our lives.  The ordinary places of life are not untouched by the presence of God.  In fact it is in the present moment where we abide with Christ, where we feel his love and grace, where we are led by the Spirit, where we receive mercy and forgiveness.  Denying the holiness of the present moment is to deny the very reality of our life with God. In his famous book "The Sacrament of the Present Moment,' Jean-Pierre de Cassaude writes 'What treasures of grace lie concealed in these moments filled, apparently, by the most ordinary events. That which is visible might happen to anyone, but the invisible, discerned b y faith, is no less than God operating very great things."

The language of the present moment being a 'sacrament' is intriguing.  It reminds us to look beyond the surface frustrations to what may truly be occurring in our lives.  We peer past what our eyes see and attempt to interact with the deep things of life from the place of faith, the place where true life resides.  What is more, there is excitement here, writes de Cassaude. He writes 'If we could lift the veil, and if we were attentive and watchful God would continually reveal Himself to us, and we should see his divine action in everything that happened to us, and rejoice in it.  At each successive occurrence we should exclaim, "It is The Lord!"  and we should accept every fresh circumstance as a gift from God.'  Imagine seeing every moment as a place where we bump into our Risen Lord.

Yet is that not the life that we are called in to?

Each moment of life bares the opportunity for divine nearness.  The present moment is sacred because in it we uncover the freedom of knowing that we are called to be no other person than who we are here and now.  The present moment tells us that we are called to no other place then where God has placed us in this instant.  Why strive to control, to manage, to direct, when there is a deeper reality at work.  Yes the present moment may be ordinary, even dull.  Yet it is a place filled with God's holy presence, and in that there are multitudinous possibilities.

Week #25: Tithe

Simplicity is both an internal and external discipline.  It speaks to the very way we perceive the matters of faith and life and has dramatic effectIn on the manner in which we live in this world. There is perhaps no deeper realm to this, or perhaps none more uncomfortable, that the manner in which we understand, use, and relate to money.

Money is deeply ingrained in the very manner in which we live; there is simply no way around it.  We use money, we spend money, we save money.   Yet too often we fail to see our relation to money in any sort of spiritual context.  It is simply that which is used as we go through the functions of our every day lives.  Yet peel back the layers and we find that too often the money we have, or long to have, exerts a dominating force upon us.  It controls us.  It drives our action, establishes our focus, and calls our attention. We dream of 'striking it rich', 'hitting it big', or moving from 'rags-to-riches.'  These lies communicate to us that accumulation of money is that which solves all our problems.  We dream about what we will do when we win the lottery thinking that a massive influx of cash will set our life in order.  Yet too often those who win the lottery find quickly find themselves in financial, moral, emotional, and spiritual bankruptcy.

Money promises freedom and happiness yet delivers slavery and depression. It keeps us in anxiety and fear.  It tells us to be fearful of never having enough, despite the fact that too often that which it calls us to is far from necessary.  It keeps us always focused on the riches we do not have, rather than highlighting the riches we do.  Jesus knew that money too easily becomes a rival God demanding servitude.  "You cannot serve both God and money (mammon)."  Jesus knew that the money is able to exert an intoxicating pull over us. Like a rival deity it demands an emotional attachment. We become identified with how much we have and find ourselves unable to part with the smallest of units.  Is it any wonder that our modern world, so full of abundance, has produced such a soul-crippling problem as hoarding?

This is why the discipline of tithing can be so powerful.  Tithing dethrones the rival power.  It frees from the emotional enslavement that money too often holds over our lives.  In tithing we reclaim our proper place.  This is because tithing, ultimately, is not just actually about money.  Tithing is about worship.  It is about divine allegiance.  In tithing we strip money of the sacredness that this world wrongly gives to it, and again submit ourselves in humble faith to the Lord of heaven and earth. In this we enter into the joy and freedom found in a posture of dependance.  Ours is not to strive and fret - ours is to humbly receive and give thanks.  Consider the lilies and the birds, Jesus says.

Through tithing we truly uncover the beauty and goodness of all that surrounds us.  The goodness seen in that which we own occurs truly as  we see these things as expressions of God's care and providence for us.  This frees us from the burden of having to protect or hoard that which we own.  For if the goodness of money is found, not in the ownership of it, but in its kingdom use, then we are able to uncover the blessedness of giving.  "We would be hard pressed," writes Richard Foster, "to find a teaching on money [in the Bible] that does not somehow mention giving."  (From 'The Challenge of the Disciplined Life').

There are many ways that we can enter into the discipline of tithing.  While it does not have to be the typical 10%, we must resist the attempt to minimize its force.  To do this is to value our ownership of money over our life with God.  If tithing is seen only as an obligation, or worse yet - a bill, then we will never see it as an act of  thanksgiving.  The tithe should be significant enough that we notice the gift for it is in noticing that we express our thanks to God for all of God's blessings in life.  It is an act of praise and thanksgiving.  We do not retain a sense of deserve or ownership of our money - we release it all into the hands of God and in doing so render our confidence and trust.

It should also be mentioned that we are also able tithe our time and/or service. Tithing does not have to be a gift of money.  It can also be a gift of our time and our effort.  Too often our life with God is relegated to 90 minutes on Sunday mornings while the rest of our lives are spent living unto ourselves.  When we tithe our time or effort, we recognize the possible incongruity between our that which we say we believe, and how we actually live it out.  What would it be like to increase my time with God each day?  Can we spend more time in prayer, in worship, in study? Are my faithful expressions done out of duty or out of an internal desire to be with our Lord in intimate relationship?

The mathematics of tithing, whether it is in time/service or money, is not about 10% here and 10% there.  Tithing is  about our life with God; about our focus, our worship.  And to that end it should always equal 100%.

Week # 24: Do not take part in Gossip.

'Sticks and stones may break our bones but names will never hurt us.'  It sounds good doesn't it? It suggests that as long as we feed continually on this mantra then the taunts and insults of haters will simply roll off of our backs.  The rhyme makes it sound as if our words lack the the power to inflict deep and lasting wounds.  It promises to keep us inwardly strong and stalwart.  Too bad it's a lie.  Names hurt.  Words scar.  We have seen this time and time again.

Long before this rhyme was thought up, James wrote 'The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell.'  (James 3:6) It is a truth testified to far too often. Gossip destroys people and communities.

The root of gossip is selfish pride.  It is selfishness which says that we need to be the center of information, and it is arrogant pride that reduces someone's identity to the sole product of the stories we hear and tell.  The sly whispers in the parking lot, the casual utterances of 'well that's not what I heard', the willful re-telling of events in someone else's life, all play on the idolatrous notion that we are more important than others.  We speak about matters which we have no right to speak to.  We tell stories that are not ours to tell.

Sometimes this seems innocent enough.  We tell of another's medical diagnosis under the rhetoric of 'people should know.'  Or, as often is the case in the church, we aggressively plumb for deeply personal information, often referencing why it is important that we know such information. 'Why are they on the prayer list?' we ask.  "Have you heard about so and so?" "I need to know how to pray for them.'  In this we reduce the other to the sole product of the stories we hear or the tales we tell.  We fundamentally deny their personhood through the insistence that we know what is best for them. Shirley Hughson writes "One of the most frequent and hurtful occasions of pride is the readiness with which most of us give our opinion or instruct others, on any subject that might be introduced into conversation.'  It is 'enslavement to talking' writes Johnson.

It used to be that gossip was reserved for shadowed conversations occurring in the background.  Social media has changed all that.  In a world that is so laden with text - from Internet forums to text messages to social media posts - the manner in which we speak to each other is of utmost importance.  Just like face-to-face gossip, we need to see the words we write as coming from the deep centres of our being.  Our words, whether typed on a keyboard or spoken in private, bare our souls and they declare what is in our hearts.  When our gossip or bullying destroys the personhood of another, we should feel deeply ashamed.

The tongue is a restless evil precisely because through it we are able to hurt someone more deeply than sticks and stones could ever do. "With the tongue we bless The Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God" (vs 9). Our words cut to the heart and are able to destroy the soul.  How can this not be seen as hellish behaviour?

Here is an interesting thought experiment: What would happen in the world if we gave up gossip?  What effect would there be if we embraced the refusal to speak out of turn, to whisper behind another's back, to keep our disparaging remarks to ourselves?  How would the world be different?

For those of us in the church, this shouldn't really be a thought experiment;  it should be the very manner in which we live out our faith lives.  The matter of how we speak to each other is not merely a matter of politeness or social nicety.  It goes to the heart of faith.  Our holiness, or lack thereof, is displayed for the world in how we speak to each other.    James concludes his discussion on the tongue by stating that 'out of the same mouth come blessing and cursing.  My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.' (vs.10)

What if we simply decided not to tell other people's stories - good or bad.  What if the phrases  'guess what I heard' or 'Did you hear about ..' were viewed to be as offensive as the worst four-lettered swear.  Doing so would release us from the enslavement to talking, and the prideful wielding of others' stories. It would focus us away from self interest, and the building up of our own image, and ground us in the call to bless and edify others.

With celebrity expose's around every corner, we need to be reminded that it is not our job to have all the information in people's lives - or to tell events that are not ours to tell.   Refraining from gossip-filled conversations is a simple act by which we free ourselves from the 'information is power' way of thinking.  No longer are we concerned with the management of our image - which too often is seen as related to another.  In refraining from gossip we strive to be content with not knowing the ins and outs, the latest scoop, or the rest of the story, as we release such matters into the gracious keeping of God.

May the words of our mouths, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable to God, our rock and our redeemer.

Week #23: Make your confession

It is said that confession is good or the soul, but how many of us actually take this to heart?  Unless we come from a religious tradition that makes confession a liturgical necessity this discipline too often get's pushed to the side.  Even then, confession can become a dry and lifeless liturgical hoop to go through.  We make our confession without any real desire for spiritual or moral change.  Similar is the case of corporate confession.  The moment when congregation says together 'we confess our sins to Almighty God . .' simply becomes nothing more than a prayer we rattle off giving no thoughts to matters such as repentance or the amendment of life.  In each case true confession is fundamentally rejected.

From where did we get the curious notion that the call to confession was somehow contrary to the love and grace of God?  Why is it that we see confession as an exercise akin to guilt-mongering instead of one that ushers in spiritual freedom and closeness with Christ?

When we refuse to confess our sins to God, we choose to keep parts of ourselves hidden.  We mask the state of our heart and souls, and we thus we live in a self-deceiving lie. It is not that we are hiding these things from God, but we fail to engage ourselves in true and humble honesty. We put up a front.  Instead of engaging those deep places of our soul, the longings, the hurts, the wounds, the sins, we plaster them over with a schtick of 'I'm Ok, You're Ok.'  All the while, internally, we are crying for a depth of spiritual freedom that somehow, amid our best efforts, remains forever elusive.

How can we find the freedom that we so desperately crave if we do not seek in the fullness of who we are?

Confession is good for the soul precisely because it frees it from the toxic self-deception and festering negative forces that can too often eat away at us.  Just listen to David: "For when I kept silent my bones wasted away through my groaning all the day long.  For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer."  (Psalm 32:3-4)  Living self-deception exhausts us.  It drains our spiritual livelihood. Slowly, the reality of our Lord's love and mercy becomes replaced by things such as fear, guilt, and shame.  Our spirits are left feeling wasted and dried up.

Confession can be hard and challenging, but ultimately God leads us into so that we can be free from the sins, hurts, and wrongs that shackle our spiritual lives.  This is why God's hand is sometimes 'heavy upon us', not because God delights in seeing us writhe in guilt-ridden agony, but because God desperately wants us to the experience the full force of liberating love.  After uncovering how the silence about his true spiritual condition is inwardly destructive, David continues: 'Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and did not cover my iniquity;  I said "I will confess my transgressions to The Lord," and you forgave the iniquity of my sin' (vs. 5).

Confession is important for a life of simplicity because it causes us to look at our spiritual life as it truly is.  After all, how can we live a life of single-hearted focus on God if we are not honest about our struggles or needs.  We cannot have a singleness of heart and hold onto spiritual duplicity.   If we deny the struggles of faith, or the frailty of our lived-out relationship with God, we only deceive ourselves and the truth - the truth of God's full redemption, the truth of who we are before our Lord - is not in us.  Confession does not make God love us, God loves us in every instance and moment, but confession does produce an inner vulnerability that opens us to divine love unhindered by all that we try to hide.

There are several ways that we can incorporate confession into our spiritual lives.  Confession is really is not that hard.  All it takes is a humble honesty about ourselves.  You may choose to obtain a 'confessor,' someone whom you will be honest with, and whom you will accept their words of absolution as divine truth.  This person doesn't have to be a pastor or priest, but it is helpful if they are.  Confessing to someone can be difficult and scary, and you will want to pray about the person you choose as a confessor.  Such a relationship must be mutually established and agreed upon. This is why a priest or pastor is a good option, for they will already be accustomed to things such as accountability, confidentiality, and prayerfulness.  

Of course, you don't have to confess to another human individual.  We can confess directly to our Lord.  In many ways this is a 'safer option',  but therein lies the challenge.  We must work hard at full disclosure.  A good suggestion would be to write your confession down on paper.  There is something deeply moving about writing down 'I judged x' or 'I yelled at y'.  Somehow, seeing it written down helps us understand the reality of these things in our lives. Once you have written down all that you choose to confess, sit with that reality. Don't rush past this too quickly.  Experience the discomfort, the sorrow, the desire for forgiveness.  Pray a simple, uncomplicated prayer, one that asks God forgive you of these matters.  After a certain amount of time you may experience these sins slowly melt away.  In manners which are unique to you, you will feel the truth of forgiveness.  When this happens, it is good to write 'Forgiven' over everything you wrote.  Again, there is something about seeing the word 'Forgiven' stamped over your particular sins that helps us understand the reality of the freedom and redemption that you have been lead into.

Confession, ultimately, is not about our sins.  It is about the love of God and God's desire to forgive.  In confession, this is what we are left with - and this is the experience that surrounds this discipline.

Week #22: Discover Church as Sacred Space

What is your understanding of sacred space? Is it merely a spot conducive to relaxation and rest? Is the sacredness of a space dependent upon how much you enjoy your time there? Is there any difference between the sacredness found in cabin get-a-ways and golf-course greens, and that which is to fundamentally define the church?

Our life with God has become so individualized in contemporary society that I wonder if we downplay the understanding that church is the house of God. Truth be told, when talking about sacred space, does ‘church’ even enter our minds? A common quip today is “I don’t need to go to the church to be with God, I can worship God equally on the golf course, or the ski hill, or the summer cottage, or the coffee shop.” True. God is everywhere. We see this reality testified to again and again in scripture. Yet scripture also maintains that there is something special about the sacred space of the temple – or later on – the gathered collection of worshipers known as ‘the church’. The temple was seen as God’s house, the localized tent in which God’s presence would reside in magnificent glory. Even though God was everywhere, the psalmists would cry out ‘I was glad when they said, let us go to the house of The Lord’ (Psalm 122:1) or “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty’ (Psalm 84:1). Of course, the internal longing to be in the courts of The Lord was not based merely on the beauty of the building, or the majesty of its adornments. For those in the Old Testament and the New, to be in the temple was to be in the very presence of God, and to be surrounded by the wonderment of God’s divine activity.  God’s presence, localized in the context of the temple,  something incredibly special and unique, not to be duplicated or copied in other places within the world.

Is that the way we see the church today? Do we understand the church as sacred space, a space defined by God’s presence and activity? As we travel along the road and approach our buildings, do we believe, anticipate, andexpect that we will be in the presence of God?

Sadly, it is far too easy to see the church only in human terms. Church becomes nothing more than the place we come to sing religious songs, to hear scripture read, to touch base with friends. (Personally speaking, it is far too easy for me to see church as simply the place that I work. It is the building that houses my office). But if we understand the nature of the church only through the lens of what we do, we completely miss out on its blessed sacredness. If this is the case, then the adage is entirely correct: it does not matter if one goes to church for these religious actions can be done with the same effectiveness wherever one chooses to be.  In this way, sacredness simply becomes a function of where we are, not where God is. This obviously has disastrous effects on the how we view the church, and the God we worship. As Graham Standish writes in his book ‘Becoming a Blessed church’, God merely becomes ‘a theological principle we speculate about rather than a spiritual presence we encounter and experience.’

What is the church if it is not a place where we meet the very one who created, redeemed, and sustains us. Just as Moses was instructed before the burning bush to remove his sandals, as the place he stood was holy ground, so too, we should be overwhelmed by the presence of God active in and throughout the life of our churches.  We should enter through the doors of the church with our hearts leaping with anticipation over what God will do in our midst.

Why did the psalmists write so lovingly of the temple? Why did the disciples spend their time in the temple immediately following the resurrection? Why did Paul, Barnabas, Philip, and others, labour so hard to set up locations in which people would gather together in worship, if these places were not to be understood as spaces where we are invited to encounter the miraculous and powerful presence of our Lord.

Have you ever had the opportunity to sit alone in a church. If not, find a time to do just that. Schedule a time when the sanctuary is empty, and simply sit. Don’t pray specifically, although if your time turns into prayer that is alright. Just sit in God’s place and open yourself to the reality that you are in God’s presence in a special, unique, and blessed way. Open yourself to the Spirit’s movement within you, and around you. You don’t have to stay long, but try to let God define your time there.

After all, that is what sacred space is about isn’t it? Sacred space isn’t about us defining what we like to do, or how we like to interact with God. Sacred space is about submitting ourselves to the movement of God, and allowing God to take the lead in God’s own house.

Week #21: Celebrate!

The kingdom of God is filled with celebration.  We see this in the prophets, and later in John, as they peer into the heavens.  Endless worship and shouts of 'Hallelujah, 'Glory be to God' and 'Worthy to be praised' fills the lungs of all heaven's inhabitants. Jesus himself took up this imagery. He continually spoke of himself as the 'bridegroom.'  He imaged the Kingdom of God as a party and invited all to enter into such divine celebration.  For Jesus, and for all who take up his invitation, kingdom life is filled with exuberance and joy.  It's a wedding feast, an elaborate gala, a relentless rejoicing.

If scripture is filled with such descriptions of what life in God's kingdom is like, from where did we draw the conclusion that life with God is a bore?  When did we assume that focusing our life on immersion in God's kingdom meant sequestering ourselves from all pleasures and earthily enjoyments.

Yet so often, this is the very thought we have.  We see this particularly when talk turns to the dynamics of Christian discipline, or spiritual practices. After all, how could fasting be enjoyable?  Doesn't cultivating a life of prayer involve one's refusal to enjoy everyday life in order to lock one's self indoors and commit to endless navel-gazing?   Where is the fun in all of that?

Of course, when we add on the controversies, the back-biting, and the insults that sadly run alongside the christian community, we can see why some would conclude that God has nothing to do with fun, joy, or happiness.

Of course, as we saw above, this is not the case.  The kingdom of God is a party, and eternal celebration of the grandest scale.  The actives of faith, even the  more disciplined ones, only serve to usher us deeper into divine joy and abundant life.  As Richard Foster often explains, if the disciplines do not lead you into joy, you have missed the point.

We simply cannot expect to live our lives with any kingdom-focus if we deny the joyous experiences that God leads us into.  If we are too busy trying to live the christian life that we forget to enjoy the christian life, then we have failed to truly take up Christ's invitation.  The fruit of the Spirit involve love and joy, not just self control.  God's presence is intimately found in those times where we laugh and sing.

What is more, the invitation to join God in God's party is to be lived out in our lives.  We don't celebrate by ourselves.  We engage others.  We invite others.  We join others.  The community of faith is a community of kingdom-focused, Jesus loving, party-goers!

Where can you celebrate?  What can you celebrate?  Perhaps you should put down your prayer journal, or your disciplined fasting, and your times of service, and find a party? What would happen if you saw the enjoyable things in life, as ordinary as it might be, as a place in which a kingdom celebration could erupt?  What if you gathered people together for no other purpose that to enjoy each other's company in the Spirit ofGod.

That is kingdom focus.  That is simplicity.  It is the willingness to see our lives lived in God's kingdom.  And that has as much to do with our smiles and parties as it does our serious spiritual works.  So look a celebration and join God's party.

Week #20: Check email/social Media only twice a day.

A few summers ago I attended Provincial Synod in a neighbouring province.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, the location of the synod was not conducive to my cell service.  The carrier that I use did not have stations in that area.  Thus, my phone was completely useless for the 6 days that I was away.  I was unprepared for the panic that I ensued.  Internally, I felt as if I was entirely alone and powerless.  I felt as if my life would crumble around me and that I could do nothing to stop it.  What would I do, how would I function if I couldn't update my status, send snarky tweets, or check my office email?

We are bound to our electronic devices with emotional chains that we often don't realize.  Most studies agree that the average person checks his or her phone every 6 minutes.  If you do the math you learn that we can't even go one percent of the day without reaching for our phone! We are consumed with the idea that we will miss something important if we don't have our eyes constantly on that screen.

We like to tell ourselves that this is out of a desire for connection.  We want to be available to all people at all times, we say. Of course, the truth is that this isn't about availability at all.  It is about control.  It is about fear.  We have this fear that if we do not have control over our surroundings, then everything will fall apart.  What will people do without our input or our statuses?  Surely life cannot run without these things?  So we tell ourselves that everything is of utmost importance.  Everything is an emergency. Everything demands our time, our response, our input. Why else would we check our work emails while on vacation?  Why else do we refuse to turn off the device? We are simply enslaved to the notion that anything important will be mediated through beeps and chirps, and unless we are there to receive it, to manage it, then something will be thrown off balance.

Of course, in this striving to see ourselves available to all, we actually keep ourselves unavailable. We fill our moments always looking to something else. We wait for the next beep.  The newest notification. The latest post is never as interesting as the one to come.  Life is spent in anticipating what will come next, rather than what is present now.

It can be hard to put down our phones - especially if we have trained ourselves to feel uncomfortable without it in our hands.  Yet when we do so, we are able to uncover the Kingdom of God which is present.  We enter into life in the Spirit as defined by the presence of God here. In refusing to look at our social media devices, we remind ourselves that the world around us runs to a bigger agenda.  We put down the desire to control, to be the one who knows, who answers, and we sit with the reality that God is able to run the things of heaven and earth according to God's good purpose, and not our own.  We remind ourselves that in pursuit of the Kingdom of God,  we are not called to be the ones who lead, but the ones who follow. After all, we cannot be open to Jesus and his kingdom, in the sacrament of the this present moment, if we are too busy waiting for the newest gossip and the latest notification.

There are times which we need to check our email.  And Facebook today is a constant source of communication.  But will anything really be lost if you do not turn on your screen for a few hours?  Do you really need to respond to every email, every tweet, every message the moment in which it comes.  Or can you take some time, to breath, to pray, to seek God's wisdom and guidance in the life in which you are called?  Can you stop long enough to remember that the Kingdom to which you belong is held in His hands, not in your own.

Through the discipline of putting down your phone, you don't lose your beeps and notifications.  In fact, I'm willing to bet that you wouldn't actually miss anything.  What you gain, however, is freedom, and joy, and life in the Holy Spirit.

Week #19: Practice Submission of Will.

In his book, The Making of an Ordinary Saint, Nathan Foster writes about a time where he decided to submit to his children.  For one whole day he allowed his children to define the games that were played, the food that was eaten, that parks that were visited.  Foster engaged in this experiment in order to lean the discipline of letting go, of laying down his 'oppressive desire to have [his] own way' (pg.32).  Foster writes:

" Jesus knew that as humans, we are by nature slaves - slaves to power, slaves to approval, slaves  to escapism.  So instead of leaving us bound to our selfish  desires, he calls us to chain ourselves to his rule of love.  Freedom through submission. " (pg. 33)

We often like to say 'Let God and Let God', yet this phrase is most often spoken of in times where we are pushed beyond our own competencies and prowess.  Submitting to God's will becomes the last resort.   Let go and let God, but only after you have tried everything in your own toolbox!  It is as if we are arguing that God will only step into our lives after we have been drained of all our power and effort.

And in fact, that is exactly what we are arguing.  'God helps those who help themselves' we say.  It's sounds good, but it is a lie that has seeped deeply into the contemporary religious ethos.  It subtlety suggests that faithfulness exists in following our own wishes and whims.  If God only helps those who helps themselves, then we are saying that God expects us to be leaders, controllers, and managers of His kingdom.  Divine help is only found in the context of getting our own way.

This, then, becomes the beginning of the 'heath and wealth' gospel that is so prevalent in the affluent west.  This undoubtedly breeds competition, because if God's power is understood as us 'getting our way',  then every interaction with another becomes a battle for divine favour.  Life becomes you vs. me, us vs. the, winners vs. losers. The  thought of submitting ourselves to God, then, begins to take on association oppression or weakness, or the wilfully allowance of someone to exercise dominance over us therefore abdicating our chance at divine favour and power.  We end up training ourselves to see the life of faith about nothing more than the fulfillment of our selfish and self-focused desires.  It keeps our eye on ourselves as that which is most important.

Submitting to the kingdom of God, and the Lordship of Jesus is not to be a last resort after we exhausted all possibilities. Neither is it about claiming a blessing in that which we have created by ourselves, or muscled through by our own effort.  We lay down the desire to get our own way - not because our way is necessarily bad or wrong but because it always pales in comparison to the plans of God for us.  God spoke to Jeremiah that words 'I know the plans I have for you'; those plans became the framework for Jeremiah's life and ministry.  In submission we remind ourselves that we are, ultimately, not in control.  We are not Saviour, or redeemer, or creator, or the one on whose shoulders rests all the things of heaven and earth.  In submission we take our eyes off of the self and reverently place them on Christ our Lord.

The decision to lay down the desire to push through our own will, voice, or plan becomes a place where we live this out.  It may be uncomfortable, but it ultimately becomes formative as it expresses the deep heartfelt prayer 'Thy kingdom Come.'  We lay down our kingdom in order to be found in his.  This doesn't mean that we are called to submit our will or desire in every and all situations. There is no 'door-mat theology' at work here.  Remember, submission is not about weakness or powerlessness. Ultimately it is about strength in the Spirit of God.  It is when we see a dominating spirit of competition being to rise within ourselves that we wilfully, gladly, and humbly lay down our will not to another - although practically speaking someone else may 'get their way' - but to the Spirit that is present with us.  Instead of ourselves, we focus ourselves in following where we feel the Spirit lead. There is incredible freedom in this.

Ultimately, we cannot seek first the kingdom of God and yet remain locked in the 'oppressive desire to get my way.'  We must lay ourselves down in totality, without reserve.

Week #18: Spend time in Spiritual Friendship

We sometimes mistakenly assume that the discipline of simplicity is an entirely solitary discipline.  We see it as something pertaining only to our selves, relating to how we inwardly focus our lives on an ever deepening emersion in the Kingdom of God.  There is truth to this.  Simplicity is about living amidst the Kingdom of God.  We focus on the presence of Christ and we strive to live our lives in step with His Spirit.  Yet it is also true that our lives are lived in the midst of a myriad of relationships.

Simplicity does not call us to isolated caves.  It does not require us to cut ourselves off from those with whom we have established relationships.  Cultivating a single hearted focus upon God involves seeing the friendships that we have in light of God's presence and the call of the Kingdom

This should not be surprising if we consider that our Lord relational in nature.  The incarnation of God was an incarnation into social relationships.  Jesus never stood aloof or removed, but entered into the deepest elements of humanity.  Jesus himself expressed his mission was one of friendship.  "No greater love has anyone than this, that they lay down their life for his friends."  He further describes those who focus on his presence and will in their lives as his friends. (John 15:13-15) More profoundly still, even in the shadow of the cross, at the very moment of betrayal, Jesus still referred to the one who rejected him as 'friend.' (Matthew 26:50)

Because friendship is central to life with God our friendships therefore become central to our life in God. Aelred of Rievaulx, a twelfth-century abbot, wrote a book called 'Spiritual Friendship', in which he observed that 'I am convinced that true friendship cannot exist among those who live without Christ.'  This is because, as James Houston puts it in his book The Transforming Friendship' that the Gospel calls us to 'show self-giving love to everyone' (pg.205).  True, authentic, self-giving love, indispensable to friendship can only be rightly understood in light of Christ's sacrifice for us.

Is it possible to see friendship as its own spiritual discipline? Instead of observing our spiritual disciplines by ourselves, alone in our inner chambers, what if we involved our friends?  Of course, a little introspection is in order.  Who would consider your deepest and closest friends?  Is there a spiritual component in your friendship?  Do you ever share your faith or your spiritual experiences with your friends - or is your spiritual life completely and utterly privatized?

Houston remarks that friendship has been undervalued in contemporary religiosity (219).  We simply do not see our friendships and constituting the tapestry in which we live out the Kingdom of God.  Because of this, the decision to involve our friends into our life of faith can seem daunting and scary.  We are afraid that we will come across as spiritual zealots or that our faith will become a wedge between the previously held relationship.  Yet true friendship must embrace the deepest things of the soul, unreservedly.  It is both in the risk of full self-disclosure and the grace found in acceptance where the Kingdom of God is lived out in our friendships.

This week is filled with plenty of time to touch base with your friends.  Find a time to connect.  Go for coffee.  Go for a beer, or glass of wine.  Go golfing, or bowling, or simply sit and watch tv together. What matters more than what you 'do' is the spirit in which you engage with your friends.  Move deeper in your relationship by sharing the deep things of your spirit.  Share your faith, your prayers, and your spiritual experiences. Offer to pray for your friend; ask them to pray for you.

There is a big difference between social companions, casual acquaintances, and rich and satisfying spiritual friendship that is rooted in the presence of God.   It is this friendship that Jesus himself modelled, and that we are called into.

Week #17: Take your 'off' time.

I like to pretend that I am good at honouring my day off.  I have tried to be diligent in my refusal to answer work emails, along with an overall reluctance to make my way to the church in order to ‘pick something up’.  I even use the language of ‘taking my Sabbath.’  This may sound great, even spiritual, but the secret is anything but.  The fact is, the way I avoid drifting into work demands on my day off is simply to jam my day full of other activity.  I structure the hours of my day so that every minute is taken up.  After dropping my son off at school I attempt to plan my day in away where I will be able to maximize all the things I want to ‘do’ during the short few hours I have to myself.  Sure this may involve a walk down to my nearest coffee shop for coffee, yet this occurs after the planned activities of clearing up the dishes, spending 40 minutes reading; watching a movie and fixing some lunch.  I then go for coffee all the while knowing that if the walk takes me 30 minutes, I can then spend an hour at coffee before needing to walk back to the house so that there is just enough time for me to get into my car, do some shopping, and then get home by 4:00.  Frankly, I find my day off rather exhausting, and it sounds as if it is exhausting for my friend and for any who recognize the same trends in their own lives.  Isn’t the operative word supposed to be ‘off’?

If simplicity is about turning our attention to God then this must effectively change the way we approach our downtimes.  It is easy for us to think that we need to jam our days with a long list of frenetic activity.  We hear, echoing in our ears, the adage ‘idle hands are the devil’s playthings.’  Thus, we do all that we can to avoid such idleness turning our day 'off' into a day of busyness.
Yet in this where is the rest?  Where is the sense of peace?  Where is the sense of being ‘off’ from the frantic running around that is part of the normal routine of life.  What is more, where is the sense of re-creation essential to not only our physical lives, but our spiritual lives as well?  It is like when people express the need for a vacation in order to recoup from their time on vacation.  Clearly the point of time off was missed.

This type of frenetic running around on our time off is not only exhausting, but it drives us to the place of distraction.  We are never able to keep our mind or heart in a focused state because we are too busy looking continually to the next activity.  Again, this is not only physically taxing, but it is spiritually draining as well.  How can there be any peace and rest in the presence of God if we are filled with other things?  In this place of constant movement,  bringing with it ever shifting attentions, how can we ever quiet ourselves enough to delight in the presence and love of God?  Instead, we are left like Jacob who cries ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, but I was not aware of it’ or like Martha for whom it is said is distracted by many things.

There is a deep spiritual problem at hand when endless line of distractions that jam up so much of the work week filters into our days of leisure as well.  The problem isn’t necessarily in what we are doing, as if to say we should not watch movies or drink coffee on our day’s off.   Nor is this simply a lining the day with prayer, bible reading, and other spiritual activities; we would be doing the same thing, yet this time adding on the sense of guilt over not being able to keep focused in prayer or bible reading for the pre-determined length of time.  How can there be any communion with God in this?

The problem lies in the fact that like our regular work week, we define our down-times by what we choose to ‘do.'  Instead of seeing our time off as a time spent with God, in re-creation and and spiritual nourishment, we see it as a time to catch up on our 'to do lists'.

In order to enter into the place of rest and re-creation, we must uncover the glory found in the three letter word ‘off.’  It is here where we release ourselves the perennial pressure to perform or accomplish.  We put down the demands that we sometimes place on ourselves, and are thus able to enter into the day in complete anticipation of God’s presence and activity.  In his book “Streams of Living Water”, Richard Foster uses the phrase 'Waste time for God.'

What would happen if we ripped up those day off to-do lists, and decided to simply waste our time with The Lord.  Is this not what Jesus meant when he said 'Come away with me to a quiet place and get some rest'?  What if we decided to wake up to a day of no demands, no tasks, and no pre-conceived notions of what needs to be ‘done.’  What if the activities of the day were not defined by what we wanted to accomplish, but what the Spirit prompts us to in the moment?  It may just be that it is as we actively turn things off, put things down, and stop our frenetic activities that we find ourselves catching a deeper deep vision of God's kingdom and finding ourselves re-created in his image and likeness.

Week #16: Observe a ast

Surrendering ourselves to Jesus becomes little more than a thought exercise unless we see practical avenues in our lives in which we are given the opportunity to live it out.  The discipline of fasting is one such powerful tool in this regard.  Fasting is the act of abstaining from elements pertaining to our appetite in order to further give ourselves to prayer and communion with God.  It should be noted that 'appetite' does not simply refer to the grumbles of the stomach, but refer to the wants and whims of our human nature.  Fasting addresses those appetites, pertaining to life in the flesh, which only serve to move us away from spirit-filled living and imprison us in a life of self-satisfying cravings.   Through the act of self-limiting, we turn ourselves away from these hindrances in order to more faithfully and intentionally rest in the presence of God.  The physical act of going without that which we crave becomes an echo of the willful and spiritual laying down of ourselves before God.  We ignore the claims of self, with its juvenile cries for attention, in order to more deeply immerse ourselves in the presence of the Spirit.

While we can fast from anything, electronics, media, sex, we most often think of fasting as it relates to our physical appetite for food.  Fasting from food can be a powerful exercise, precisely because much our interaction with food is solely pleasure-based.  That is to say that rather than food being a source of sustenance and nutrition, it is often that which serves to 'make us feel good.' We run to food when upset; we pacify our frustrations with alcoholic beverages, eating has even become a past-time all in itself.   Based solely upon the ever-expanding waistbands of the average North American, it is abundantly clear that we have an unhealthy association with food.

Yet our unhealthy association with food goes far beyond our associations what and how much we choose to eat.  A culture that can turn dieting into a competition clearly illustrates a lack of control over appetites.  Clearly we have lost the basic understanding that food is a gift from God to be cherished and not squandered.

Fasting breaks us out of our self-destructive habits. It shocks the system out of that which in which it has grown comfortable, and in doing so places us profoundly before the spirit of God in uncluttered sacrifice. It is only when we refrain from the gluttonous associations surrounding food that we fully hear Christ's words that "Man does not live by bread alone.' (Matthew 4:4)   By stripping away the amount of time we spend in shopping, ordering, preparing, and consuming food, we open ourselves to receive the better, and more satisfying bread from heaven.

It is important to remember that the purpose of fasting is not simply to go without food for a certain period of time.  The time spent in usual association with food, not freed through the discipline of fasting, is therefore redirected to prayer and worship.  In the Institutes of Christian Religion, John Calvin reminds us that the purpose of fasting is to free ourselves to become 'more eager and unencumbered for prayer.'

 Through the practice of Fasting we are able to address anything that gets in the way of our spiritual progress toward Christlikeness.  By going without our 'appetite' we become confronted with how much of a hold such things have on our lives.    We realize, for example, just how often we check our social media status, how much time we spend on our cell phones, the quickness for which we turn on the television, or how our bodies physically react to the ceasing of constant sugar or caffeine related stimulants. Undoubtedly this can be an uncomfortable process.

There are many different types of food-related fasts that you can do.  If you have never engaged in a fast before, I would recommend a 24 hour-2 meal fast.  Simply stop eating after dinner time on one day, and do not eat until dinner time the next.  A 2 meal fast isn't that hard on your body, you will feel the effects of hunger, which becomes a reminder for you to seek first God's kingdom.  Beyond this, you can try a 24 hour-3 meal fast; for a 36 hour fast.  Remember to drink lots of liquid (water or fruit juice) and consult your doctor if you fear any medical-related complications or concerns.

Much more could be said about the topic of Fasting, particularly regarding the many practical considerations pertaining to how we go about entering a fast.  There is neither time nor space to speak about such matters here.  I recommend Richard Foster’s chapter on Fasting in ‘Celebration of Discipline’ for any who wish to know more.   I end this section with words from Andrew Murray:

Fasting helps express, deepen, and confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, even ourselves to attain what we seek for the Kingdom of God, and Jesus, who himself fasted and sacrificed, knows to value, accept, and reward with spiritual power the soul that is thus ready to give up everything for him and his kingdom. (From With Christ in the School of Prayer)

Week #15: Ask for Help.

My father tells a story of the time when my family did not have much money to speak of. It was unknown from where our next meal was to come from.  Unbeknownst to us children, hampers of groceries were frequently left on our doorstep by anonymous donors.  On one such occasion, my father met one of these donors, a kind old gentleman from our church.  Coming fact of face, not with the groceries but his own uncomfortableness with needing help, my father instantly began to refuse the gift.  They would be fine, he objected, no gifts were necessary.   The gentleman simply smiled and said 'Without one to receive, one is not able to give."

We like to believe that we can do things alone, that we don't need any assistance.  It almost seems as if this is the default position of modern life.  After all, many idealize such mythical notions as 'the self-made man.'  We chase what is popularly called 'The American Dream', but we know that it is really nothing more than the lie of the garden -  You shall be like God, knowing good and evil. (Genesis 3:4-5)  How can we be like god in our own day and need the assistance of another?

Because of this we often associate the receiving of help with inability or weakness.  We easily succumb to the lie that tells us that needing help highlights a deep lack and/or negligence in our lives.  It is embarrassing - an embarrassment we desperately try to void.  Receiving help, worse yet asking for it, means we are trapped in that which we cannot do.  It strips away our self-focused confidence and our egotistical pride.

Of course, offering help is another thing altogether.  We laud and esteem the qualities of service and helpfulness!  There is no problem with extending a helping hand to another.  Helping others is even encouraged, for in this we are able to remain stalwart in our sense of competence.  It means that we are powerful, we are able, we are steadfastly in control.

We would like to think that this dynamic doesn't occur in the church, but it does.  The community of faith is naturally a place where people are willing to lend help at a moments notice.  I have seen it many times.  People give sacrificially toward a cause, a fund, or a family in need.  It happens time and time again - the call goes out and the response is overwhelming.   People dig deeply into their pockets of resources and give sacrificially.  Yet  so often these same people, so very willing to lend a hand to those less fortunate, will not allow others to help them.  They refuse offers and reject invitations.  They do not open up about their needs, or their hurts.  To ask for help is just too uncomfortable.

Asking for help can be hard, because it displaces that throne of pride that so many of us carry deep within.  There is a certain amount of humility that is needed in asking for help.  We must be open and honest, not just about our abilities, but also our inabilities. In asking for help we are called to recognize the gifts of God, flowing through the talents and expertise of other people.   It forces us beyond reliance on ourselves or our own competencies, and asks us to see our lives lived within the context of the community.

Asking for help moves us away from the rampant 'Me-and-Jesus' type of individualized spirituality that so often dominates our religious landscape.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul lists a variety of spiritual gifts.  "And God has appointed in the church fist apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues."  The King James Version used the term 'helps' in reference to the spiritual gift of assistance.  Receiving help, then, allowed another person to exercise their spiritual gift, a gift exercised to the glory of God and the livelihood of the faithful communion.

What if we chose to understand the receiving of help in this manner?  What if asking for, or receiving help spoke, not to our weakness or inability, but to our love for the community of faith - a love that causes us to lay down our need to pridefully assert our own independence and allow others to express the grace and love of God to us?

We all need help.  Sometimes this is because we cannot do something, or do not know something, and we need to reach out to one who has the resources or knowledge to aid.  Sometimes receiving help is more about allowing a brother or sister in faith to minister to us in the love of God.  So when you uncover a need in your life - a need that you quickly attempt to swallow under your own competence, perhaps choose a different route.  Take a deep breath, ask for help, or accept help when it is offered.  Don't make it complicated, and attach no provision onto it.  Allow no bargaining to take place.  Just receive.  Be forthright about your need and make the decision to see the help given as God's response of provision and love for you.   Allow that help to lead you into a deeper dynamic of God's kingdom, a kingdom  which is not yours alone but is experienced fully through the community of faith.

Week #14: Cultivate Silence

We are constantly surrounded by a myriad of sounds.  They surround us. Music, ads, and jingles play in every public sphere of our lives, from waiting rooms to elevators, from walking down the street to waiting on the phone.  Then, of course, there is the sounds that we cultivate ourselves.  We return home and instantly turn on the television.  Early morning commutes occur in the presence of the radio, or the music blasting from our headphones.  More and more, with every passing year, decade, and generations, sound becomes unavoidable, so unavoidable that the biblical call of 'for you, O God, my soul in silence waits'

We simply do not know how to remain silent.

We have grown accustomed to the noises of the background, noises that contain no importance, claim no focus, yet exists for the sole purpose of taking up acoustic space.  We find comfort in background noise.  Yet these noises do nothing but continually call our attention and focus away from our internal connection to God.  There is always something else that we are called to focus on.  Thus our attention and focus constantly shifts and continually moves.  Here there can be no restedness, no peace, no rootedenss.

The early church had a saying 'Cultivate silence and it will teach you everything.'  A single-hearted focus on God and His kingdom can only occur as we enter into the process of quieting ourselves before His presence.  As long as the direction of our soul's activity and focus is upon the frantic otherness of the life around us we will never be able to catch even the smallest glimpse of the presence of God in our life.

Our reluctance to remain steadfast in prayer; our inability to discern God's own voice apart from the voices of the world, our feeling of skimming over the deep things of faith are all rooted in our inability to remain silent.  Yet silence is that to which we are continually called.  The prophet Isaiah beckons us with the words 'In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. (Isaiah 30:15).  In fact, the entire earth is called to 'keep silence' before The Lord in his holy temple (Habakuk 2:20).  We cut ourselves off from a tremendous source of spiritual livelihood when we fail to adequately cultivate silence as a regular discipline of the life of faith.

Silence involves the closing off of ourselves to that which whirls around us.  Noise, music, words of any kind are laid aside so that we can enter into the place of deep listening.  We still the inner chatter.  We open ourselves to God's presence and attempt, as best we can, to remain attentive to His words.  Silence is a passive place.  It is not defined by our activity or our striving. In silence we wait.  We listen.  We abide.  We long for God to speak, to act, to move, and only then do we respond to the rhythms of God.

Dietrich Bonehoffer writes: "Silence is the simple stillness of the individual under the Word of God.  We are silent before hearing the Word because our thoughts are already directed to the Word, as a child is quiet when he enters his Father's room.  We are silent after hearing the Word because the word is still speaking and dwelling within us. . . . .Real silence, real stillness, really holding one's tongue comes only as the sober consequence of spiritual stillness. (Life together, page 79).

Cultivating silence can be as simple as finding 5 minutes during the day to sit it quietness and turn our attention to our Lord.  Find a quiet place where you can remain undisturbed.  To the best of your ability, remove all distractions of sight and sound from the atmosphere.  Simply sit, with no agenda, with no notions of what will occur.  Simply sit in an attitude of openness.  Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to judge, slow to define.  Simply ask God to be fill the quiet space, and expect that in God's own way, God will do so.  After the 5 minutes are completed, then rise and continue on in the day, yet attempt to keep the inner quietness, cultivated in the space of external quietness, with you.  Over time, this will become increasingly easier and a source of constant nourishment and power for your Christian journey.

Week #13: Drive the Speed Limit

I used to receive speeding tickets fairly regularly.  I used to view the ‘Estimated Time of Arrival’ display on my GPS as a challenge to overcome.  I used to relish at my ability do a 7 hour road-trip in a little less than 5hours. Each time that ETA time decreased I felt a jolt of victory.  I say 'used to' because the attempting to live within the Discipline of Simplicity has caused me to slow down.

You may have never thought that the speed at which you drive may be a spiritual issue.  I certainly never did.  Yet desiring to live a life of single-hearted focus upon God lead me to wonder if my speeding was merely a product of having a ‘lead foot’, or whether there could be an underlying spiritual issue at play.  Does our speeding speak to the manner in which we spiritually approach life around us?  Could the act racing through the streets of our cities actually be a symptom of the manner in which we try to race through the activities and duties of my day?  Could the desire to get to our destination as quickly as possible actually create an inability to acknowledge the presence of God in the beauty of the moment?

See, we live in a face paced world and it is easy to get caught up with the quickness of it.  It is easy to see every time-frame as a challenge to be met.  While we race to one event or task, our minds are already dwelling on that which we need to do afterwards.  We never focus, we never rest, we never sit still.  The rush rush of life forever rips our attention onto the next thing.

This is not the way that God wishes us to live in his presence.  The call of God on our lives is not one in which we are called to rush toward a perceived goal.  We are called acknowledge that God is alive and present in this moment.  God does not call us to rush to him, as some destination held out for us in the future, but to realize and enter into his presence and activity as it is presently.  In his book, "A Testament of Devotion", Thomas Kelly writes "I find He never guides us into an intolerable scramble of panting feverishness.  The Cosmic Presence becomes, in part, our patience, for after all, God is at work in the world." God is active in us and through us, and his blessings are bountiful.  We risk missing all of this when we speed through our lives.

The act of slowing down allows us to remove ourselves from the expectations and deadlines to which we constantly racing towards. That internal clock - the one continually telling us to be quicker, more productive, more efficient or generally 'better' - is silenced as we engage in the intricacy of the present moment.  Slowing down allowed us to recognize the great spiritual truth, that God rarely calls us to ‘go faster’.  Instead He calls us to ‘be still’; to ‘consider the lilies of the field’, and to ‘wait for the Lord.’

So the next time you are in your car, try slowing down and Drive the Speed limit.  Try not to justify rushing ahead through the rhetoric of 'keeping up with the flow' or '70 really means 80'.  No.  Keep to the limit, and try not to concern yourself with how people around you may be responding.  In this exercise, they are not your concern.  Slow down not just your speed, but also your perceptions and attitudes as it relates to how you interact with the tapestry of life around you.   Attempt to be conscious of the moment, and of God's presence in the intricacy of it.  As you make your way through the streets, attempt to be still and wait for the Lord.  Who knows, you just might find your car to be a place of powerful communion with God.

Week #12: Engage in the discipline of Morning and Evening Prayer

Prayer is essential to Christian living.  This is true of all areas of our life of faith, but is especially true as we attempt to live out our Christian life through the discipline of Simplicity.  There is simply no possible way that we can seek first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness, apart from an active prayer life.  A single hearted focus on God's kingdom is a prayerful focus.

Prayer calls us to a deeper reality of life.  Through prayer we become open to the pulses of God's spirit; we become attuned to the whispers of God's voice.  No longer is our Christian life merely a matter of dry belief or disassociated religious doctrine.  Rather, our life of faith becomes a life in the Spirit.  Through the discipline of prayer, our inward selves remain open to the graces of God, which then effects the manner in which we live our outward lives.  The choices we make, the expressions of our desires, the very essence of how we engage in the life around us begins to change as we approach these things not solely in our own power or understanding.

It is through prayer that we are formed more deeply into the image of our Christ.  It is through prayer that we hear the voice of God, a voice which directs, guides, challenges, convicts, and comforts.  It is through prayer where we find the ability to more deeply enter into the reality of our healing and forgiveness.  It is through prayer that we enter into an ongoing conversation with our Lord, a conversation that is the foundation of every faith-filled desire or activity.  It is in prayer that we receive the strength to stand against temptation and live lives of obedience to the will of God.
 
The practice of morning and evening prayer, sometimes done through the use of liturgical rites, is an easy way to develop a deeper habit of prayer in our lives.  Importantly, there is no legalism here.  The practice of morning and evening prayer is not about the mere filling up of time or the lifeless recitation of words.  Morning and evening prayer is less about the form we use and more about the focus which shapes our life.  We are lead into freedom as the practice of prayer calls into a radical centredness, shaping us both inwardly and outwardly.

Through the practice of morning prayer we are able to lay before God our hopes, our anxieties, and our questions concerning the day which lies before us.  We take the needed moments to enter once again the the mercies of God which are new every morning.  We seek God's face as that which is our first priority, and our ultimate aim in life.  We listen to God's voice, spoken in scripture and in silence, and we anticipate the Spirit's leading.  The grace of morning prayer is that it aids us in our continual and day-long desire to be open to God in our lives.  Having taken moments to ground ourselves in the desire for God's kingdom to be done on earth as it is in heaven, we are more apt to see expressions of that kingdom as we go through our day.

Through the practice of evening prayer we again approach this radical centredeness, this time examining our past thoughts, words and deeds in light of the call of faith.  We thank God for the expressions of God's mercy and grace throughout the day, for the strength and peace that He brought.  We ask God to bring to mind any ways in which we fell short of the glory of God, and we humbly confess those things before God, confident in His mercy.  We lay our questions, our concerns before the one who never sleeps, thus freeing us from the habit of taking our concerns and worries with us into our night-time rest.  We end the day in the same way as we began, in the place of freedom.

Without prayer, we have to ask ourselves, what does it mean to seek first the kingdom of God?  How can we possibly seek God's will and kingdom in our life without developing a habit of continual, focused prayer?  These things make no sense, and bare no concrete reality in our lives, without having a solid footing in prayer.

Find a liturgical resource that includes a form of morning or evening prayer and resolve to engage this practice for one month.  While you do not want to be legalistic about it, understand that developing a habit requires a certain degree of discipline.  Try to focus more on connecting with God than 'getting through' the liturgy.  Reflect on your ability or inability to carry this prayerfulness with you throughout the day.

Week 11: Carry a cross in your pocket.

Simplicity takes dedication and some focus.  It is not something that we can just jump into and expect that we be able to master this discipline.  The reality is quite the opposite.  Simplicity, like each and every discipline, is not something we master.  Simplicity is a way of ordering the entirety of our life, our bodily life, our thought live, and our spiritual life, around the one foundation of seeking first God's kingdom.  In this sense there is a sense of progression as we learn how to live out the discipline of Simplicity.

A necessary part of this learning concerns the need to train ourselves to be attentive to the divine kingdom around us, and the divine voice within.   For many, we simply have not developed the ability for such single hearted focus.  The world of distractions, in which we are immersed, has provided a different sort of training.  Our focus continually shifts from one thing to the next.  The ever shifting landscape of images, sounds, and slogans constantly barge in upon us.  Thus, so often the Kingdom of God gets squeezed out of attentiveness.

Thomas Kelly writes: "There is a way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at once. On one level we may be thinking, discussing, seeing, calculating, meeting all the demands of external affairs.  But deep within, behind the scenes, at a profounder level, we may also be in prayer and adoration, song and worship and a gentle receptiveness to divine breathings."  It is, what Kelly describes, as living from a 'divine center' in the midst of the tapestry of our regular life.

This centred living, however, while life-giving when it is achieved, can take some time to cultivate.  Physical reminders, such as carrying a cross in your pocket, can serve as a needed reminder to refocus our lives and re-engage in a life of divine attentiveness.  The manner this takes place in our lives can take many forms.  You can use the physical presence of the cross to remember a Bible verse.  In this manner, whenever you consciously recognize the cross in your pocket, or put your hand in your pocket and feel the cross, you inwardly repeat the verse of delay.  Similarly, the same practice can be done as a reminder to pray.  Here you may take a few moments, attempting to again enter into the 'divine centre' that Kelly spoke of.  Or, you may simply hold a loved one, or a particular situation in prayer.

A contemporary version of this may be to use a religious picture as your cell phone screen. Many people today  have smart-phones with personalized home-screens.  What is more, for many the cell-phone is the tool which links them to the world around them.  The cell phone is the tool for e-mail, messages, social media interactions, shopping, research, games, and host of other activities.  Because of this, the cell-phone is perhaps the biggest tool of distraction in this modern day.   It is simply the case that people are always on their phones. Changing the home-screen image to something that will remind you of the need for a single-hearted focus upon God's Kingdom is a wonderful way to interrupt the flow of distractions that come from the phone.  Amid the dings and beeps of notifications, opening the phone, and seeing religious image on the home screen, calls us to you take a moment to be look to the Spirit of God, to root ourselves in the presence of God, to meditate, to pray, to look for where the drawing of the Spirit, before we look at the email or notification.

The beauty of this practice, whether a physical cross in the pocket or an image on our cell-phone, is that it only a second.  It's strength, however, is found in training ourselves to be open to God's Spirit.  In the midst of a hectic world it bares the constant reminder to step out of a life in which we are be distracted and consumed by the things of the world, and into a life in which we consciously open ourselves, single heartedly, to the things of God.  Furthermore, born out over time, this practice equips us to not be 'distracted by many things', as we find ourselves being able to focus on 'the greater thing' for longer periods of time.

Week # 10: Meditate on Scripture

It is easy to think that reading the Bible is a fairly strait forward practice.  Open the book.  Read the words.  Close the book.  It's that simple, right?  In reality, reading the words of scripture is a lot more involved.  Reading scripture is not like reading any other book.  We read scripture as a spiritual discipline - a devotional act in which we live out our longing for God in our lives.  Psalm 1 declares that the blessed of God are those who 'delight in the law of The Lord, and on his law they meditates day and night.'  Similarly, Psalm 119 is an extended meditation on God's word.  We simply cannot deny our calling to live to a life of continual immersion in the word of God.

The term meditation can be  confusing word in our time and culture, particularly because of the ways meditation is treated in other religious contexts.  We must realize, however, that Christian meditation differs from the more 'eastern' understanding.  Christian meditation is not an act of emptying - it is an act of filling.  We do not attempt to jettison ourselves of everything we are, rather we engage in the activity of filling our lives -  our minds, hearts, and souls - with the things of God.  Richard Foster writes that 'Christian meditation, very simply, is the ability to hear God's voice and obey his word'  Thus the call to meditate on the God's word day and night is, at its heart, the call to listen to God's words.   For the psalmist,  the law's of God were not just the dry commands as written in the Torah - they were the voice of God detailing how to live in covenant relationship.  The words of God are to be listened to as an act of faith and love.

So how do we meditate in the way that the Bible instructs us to?  A cursory look on the internet will uncover many different systems and styles to choose from.  The most famous way to meditate on Scripture is what is known as 'Sacred Reading' or Lectio Divina.  This practice occurs in four distinct movements.

The first movement is to read a passage slowly and thoughtfully. Importantly it should be a chunk of scripture - not just our favourite verse.  Importantly our attitude is not to simply read the words of the text, but to listen to God's voice as He speaks.  We imagine God speaking to us through the words of scripture.  In this movement we listen for a word or phrase that jumps out at us.  This isn't about understanding or definition.  We seek not to 'study' anything.  We simply remain open to whatever in the reading seems to grab our attention.

The second movement is to read the passage again, this time focusing on how the reading touches our personal lives. Instead of the question 'what strikes you in the reading' we ask ourselves 'what is Jesus saying to me?'  We don't force this, or rush past it, for our desire is to interact with God's voice in a very personal way.  This may mean we may have to sit in silence for a while until we hear the text 'speak' to us personally.  That's ok. Time we spend in this movement is never wasted.

The third movement calls us to ponder what this reading calls us to.  There is a sense of prayer here.  We offer ourselves to God in response to what we hear God speak to us.  We can understand this as a pondering of the question: 'what does Jesus want us to do?'  We allow the words of God that we have read and listened to, to touch us and change.  We amend our lives in response to what was spoken to us and sit with the practical implications of God's words.  We seek to be formed by the words of scripture, and the voice of God spoken into our lives.

The last step in meditating on scripture is to to sit with it.  We carry the words of scripture with us throughout the rest of our day. In his 'Introduction to the Holy Life'; Saint Francis De Sales instructs us to 'carry our spiritual bouquet'  Just as the fragrance of a bouquet of flowers fills a room, we allow the God's word, listened to and reflected upon, to linger in all areas of our life.  Importantly, this is not a conscious pondering of the scriptures.  There is no intentionally mindful reflections that takes place.  We merely rise from our time of meditating on God's word, and carry God's voice with us as we enter into the rest of the day.  We proceed with our tasks of life  attempting to be open to God's voice, still living and active.

Meditation on God's word is essential to the discipline of Simplicity because it is only through opening ourselves to God's voice that we can truly say we seek first the kingdom of God.  What is more, as Psalm 1 so vividly images, this desire for God's word to be spoken personally into our lives, and the cultivation of it, is to be a continuous habit of our lives.  We are called to meditate on God's word 'day and night'.  The person in blessed relationship with God is imaged as a stalwart tree, one who is continually and constantly feeding from the ever-flowing streams of water.   So too, we are called to the devotional act of sitting with, listening to, and living out God's word in our lives.  It simply is a practice and an habit that we cannot deny.