Undone

A few years ago, I was fairly satisfied with my spiritual life. That may sound good or bad, depending on your theological slant, but generally I was happy with it. Then sometime, maybe five or more years back, it started to unravel.

I'm not having a crisis of faith or anything. I think I'm as close to God as I've ever been. What I've lost is religious practices. I don't go to church often. I don't read the Bible often. I don't pray often. And when I try to re-establish these practices, it doesn't stick.

Blogging isn't a very traditional spiritual discipline, but it's been very helpful to me in the past as a way to organize my thoughts about religion and about God. It's another indicator of how my religious discipline has been. I've tried to re-establish the habit a few times, but without much success.

I'm trying again -- not just with blogging, but the other spiritual disciplines as well, beginning with prayer.

Let us arise, then, at last,
for the Scripture stirs us up, saying,
"Now is the hour for us to rise from sleep" (Rom. 13:11).
Let us open our eyes to the deifying light,
let us hear with attentive ears
the warning which the divine voice cries daily to us,
"Today if you hear His voice,
harden not your hearts" (Ps. 95:8).
-Rule of Benedict, from the Prologue