The Power of a Spiritually Awakened Life

When you awaken to a vibrant spiritual life you're entering the fullness of life. You're not hiding yourself away in some interior cul de sac, avoiding the demands of daily obligations and roles. Spiritual transformation is not a dead-end street nor is it a private party. The heart is the abode of God . . . not exclusively, of course. The whole earth is full of the glory of God. But our bodies, our beings, our lives are a shrine. And when the light of God shines from within us, all things around us are affected.

The Butterfly Effect, or the ripple effect a single butterfly's wing movements on the whole cosmos, is now common science.  It shouldn't surprise us then to hear St. Seraphim of Sarov say, "Acquire inner peace, and thousands around you will find their salvation." It's one thing to hear such words coming from a monk. It's quite another to hear them coming from someone like Dag Hammarskjold, General Secretary of the United Nations (1953-1961), and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (1961).

Hammarskjold said, "Understand through the stillness. Act out of the stillness. Conquer in the stillness."

This was spoken by someone deeply involved in global politics and who lived a very busy and demanding life.

"Acquire inner peace." St. Seraphim of Sarov

"Act out of the stillness." Dag Hammarskjold

"The kingdom of God is within you." Jesus

There is no action more powerful than the action arising from a single spiritually awakened life.

Learning to Breathe All Over Again

How do we reconnect spiritually with our deepest selves? How do we get out of our heads and move past our relentless thinking? How can we find our hearts again when we’ve neglected them for so long? Your gut will tell you when you’ve over eaten, had too much to drink, or swallowed some virus that turns you inside out. Much the same way, I think many of us know when we’re screwed up spiritually. Sure our thoughts can pummel us relentlessly, but it’s the absence of a deep, inner peace that’s a telltale sign that we’re not finding what we need most.

“I’ve ignored my heart for so long,” someone said to me today, “that I don’t think I know how to find it again.”

The best way to begin is with the breath. Seriously. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Not just into your upper lungs so that your shoulders bunch up around your neck. But deep . . . into the lower reaches of your lungs. Your guts, entrails, bowels . . . feeling the life-giving breath fill you, then leave you again. It’s little wonder that the Hebrew word for spirit/Spirit is breath.

Breathing is a spiritual practice. If we’re not breathing well, chances are we’re not well—physically and spiritually.

There’s more to prayer than breathing. But without breathing, I can assure you, there’s no praying. When you breathe, you’re awakening your heart. You’re finding your center. And when you start praying from here, you’re coming alive spiritually again, and who knows what will happen then?

Breathe.

Spiritual Recovery Takes Guts

Dr. Michael Gershon has spent his career studying the gut. He calls the bowel the "second brain." Your core, your physiological center, the heart of your being holds as many nerve endings as that organ that sits on top of your neck--your brain. The two brains, the one at the top of your body and the one at the center, must work together if we're to live well. If they don't, well . . . you know what kind of misery and mess come your way when your gut is out of whack.

What's true physiologically is also true spiritually. If we live in our heads we neglect our hearts, our core, our center . . . the second brain. And the result is, well, you know . . . a miserable mess.

Most Americans experience some kind of gut trouble each day, and half of all Americans say their digestive problems affect their daily lives.

The basic point is this: take care of your gut, honor your second brain . . . or suffer. Too many people choose to suffer. We don't eat well. We don't relax well. We let our thoughts drive us relentlessly as if they command the helm of our lives.

It's little wonder, then, that our spiritual lives are out of whack.

The road to recovery runs through the center of us, and it'll take some real guts.

The first step is simply to acknowledge that you seek peace deep in the bowels of your being.

The Center is Not Where You Think

You know what it’s like to look in the wrong place…like the last time you looked for your car in the airport parking lot after a long trip.  Sometimes we think we know just where to look but we’re off by a mile. Most of us think our thinking is the center of who we are.  At least that’s what our thoughts would have us believe.  But when Jesus said, “the kingdom of God is within you,” he wasn’t talking about your skull.  St. Paul was more explicit.  He said that our hearts are the dwelling place of God (Ephesians 3.17-19).

For most of us the heart is a kind of airy-fairy name for our emotions.  But for a Middle Easterner, and therefore for the writers of the Bible, the heart is not merely emotion, nor is it the life-pumping organ in our chests.  The heart is the core, the guts, the abdomen, the true center of the body.

So, the center of who we are, the place where God dwells within us, in not in the head.  Despite what your thoughts want you to believe.

We modern people are not the only ones to be troubled by distracting thoughts that think they rule the roost.  But we modern people certainly weren’t helped out of that trouble by the 17^th century thinker, Rene Descartes who said, “I think therefore I am.”  Most of us also think that thinking defines who we are.

It doesn’t.  Our hearts do.  And the sooner we learn to draw our thoughts down into our hearts, but more whole we’ll be.

Remember, your center is not where you think.

So long as you think it is, your praying will be off by a lot more than a mile.  And you’ll not likely know much intimacy with God either.

The Mixed Life--Activity and Spirituality

We'll be better off if we don't divide what God's joined together.  In Christ, God joined divinity and humanity, the sacred and the ordinary.  By doing so, all of life is made holy. Ours is to be a mixed life.  Finding the sacred in the midst of every day life and experiencing the common life we share as a sacred gift. Recently, a woman approached me after a talk I gave and said, "I'm called to the mixed life, but I don't know what it looks like."

She is searching for a workable combination of contemplation and action–”The Mixed Life” in the language of 14th century Christian mystic, Walter Hilton.

Here's a video meditation on the path we might walk.  It includes some practical tips for practicing an active spirituality.