Our daily spiritual practice

Photo by Zac Durant

Growing up in the West of Ireland in the nineteen fifties there was a lot of emphasis on spiritual practice.  Mass on Sundays, Sodalities, Processions, Benedictions, Angelus were all part of life.  Some of us found these practices to be very rewarding and life enhancing.  

However, time goes on and we live and learn and one important thing to learn is that spiritual practice doesn’t have to be a big deal.  It can be something as simple as saying ‘thank you’ before enjoying a good meal or taking a breadth to enjoy the setting sun.  A walk in the park enjoying the children having fun in the playground or the joy of the puppies dragging their owner’s arms as they pull on the lead, these can all bring us a moment of transcendence.  

For some, it can be the cycle to work and for others hearing that piece of music which gives them goose bumps transports them to a place of expanded consciousness, peace and joy.  

What is really important is to notice what it is that gives us joy, that moves us beyond our regular over-thinking activities to a quieter more relaxed moment. 

So, meditation, meditative walking, mindfully washing the dishes, can all be a moment of ‘Amazing Grace’.  In his loved little book ‘the practice of the presence of God’, Brother Lawrence writes: ‘The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament’.

Many of us hold the idea that spiritual practice is separate from our ordinary lives but as we known in Our Spiritual Earth every moment offers the possibility for connection with the higher and better part of ourselves.