My summer reading (Nouwen) has been quite reassuring. And perplexing at the same time. It seems that living spiritually in the everyday is much more difficult than in the set-aside sacred.
For example, when do you feel more holy, more devout? When you are having your devotions, praying fervently, and/or participating in the church service or a ministry to others. Right?
But what about when you are washing dishes, mowing the lawn, running errands, paying bills, changing dirty diapers or the oil in your car?
How about when someone pulls out in front of you? Takes your parking place? What about when your check book accidentally bounces? Or your children forget, it seems, everything you tell them, almost every day?
Oh, I really feel spiritual then! (I try to claim "righteous indignation," but it really isn't righteous at all.)
If any of this is remotely familiar, then you understand that living spiritually in the everyday can be very difficult.
This summer, I have set aside extra time for prayer, meditation, Bible reading, Bible study, contemplative readings. I have become a student of Bible teacher Priscilla Shirer, of Mother Teresa, Brennan Manning, and Henri Nouwen. All respected, some revered, for their spiritual wisdom and godly living.
But I still find myself just as easily peeved at annoying drivers, just as impatient with loved ones, and just as frustrated with God's timing as when the summer started.
I want so much to live spiritually. Without having to check myself into a monastery. Or, um, a nunnery. And that brings to me Henri Nouwen's revelation during a seven month sabbatical at a Trappist monastery in Genesee, New York in the mid 1970's.
In a lesser known work, Genesee Diary, Nouwen records his daily activities living temporarily as a Trappist monk. He did not intend to become a monk, but he wanted to have spiritual direction from the abbot there; and he wanted to enrichen his spirituality without the demands and distractions of teaching, traveling, and ministering.
What he found to his dismay was that in spite of a spiritually healthy environment with assigned manual work (helping in the bakery or quarrying rocks from the creekbed), daily spiritual lessons, and helpful counsel from the abbot, Nouwen struggled to live spiritually in the simple everyday.
He attended all the scheduled religious, liturgical activities. He observed extended times of prayer and fasting. He faithfully and transparently explored all his words, attitudes, actions, and reactions. Practiced confession. Repentance. Still, he found himself restless at times. Sometimes agitated over little things. Basically, sinful. Not spiritual.
In short, the time away from his usual busy schedule only served to heighten his human condition. Or at least his awareness of it.
In a similar way, I guess I have been on a brief sabbatical of a sort this summer. No graduate school. Not working. Recovery from minor wrist surgery. Two kids busy with camp.
And I have been reminded of my sinful condition. How desperate I am for God, just to live spiritually, in the everyday. I am reminded of how many other passions compete for my one true love, Jesus Christ.
It is tempting to measure one's spirituality by the extent of one's devotional life, the level of service to one's church, or even the desire to walk faithfully with God. It is humbling to realize that the real measure is in the everyday: how I respond to others' sinfulness and how I respond to my own.
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