Self-Care as Soul-Care: a Core Spiritual Practice

image by chris neufeld-erdman, Woodend Farm, high on the Birker Fell, Lake District UK

On November 19, Davis Community Church journeyed thematically from the first key spiritual practice, Sabbath, into the core practice of Self-Care. 

Sabbath, we learned in week one is not so much about rest, nor it is a legalistic loyalty to a dry and duty-bound discipline.  Rather, it’s about a way of life that’s woven with wonder and awe; it’s about living in time differently, weaving a tapestry of time that is life-giving, that unites us with the rhythms of nature, and that is health-giving to ourselves, and naturally, then, to others and to the Earth itself.

In week two, Chris Stone told the raw, brave, and vulnerable story of his journey through pain and brokenness and into a deeper sense of his own identity, dignity, and purpose.  I also told the story of Audrey Lippman, one of our congregational treasures, who recently told a group of young adults that her advice to her 30-year old self (from the vantage point of her 94 years of living!) would be to “find out who you are and live that . . . and to live in community” so that you can sustain that sense of your sacred Self.  

And so, the practice of Self-Care is not primarily about tending the body (though habits that do that are essential to this practice); it’s about Soul-Care, finding your way into your inner life, and there to discover meaning, purpose, and dignity for living.

I ending the sermon will the stunning, lyrical inspiration of Mary Oliver’s “The Journey.”  Listen to Chris Stone’s story, Audrey Lippman’s wisdom, and my sermon here.

On the New Sabbath: Weaving a Life of Wonder

Image by Chris Neufeld-Erdman, Wastwater, with a view toward Scafell Pike, Lake District, UK

On November 12, Davis Community Church began a three week series last week called, "The Three Practics: Sabbath and Self-Care and Service". Here's is a link to my sermon on Sabbath. 

And here's a tidy summary: 

Sabbath is not so much about rest but about a way of life that is woven with wonder and awe. By practicing some kind of sabbath regularly we find our bodies and souls opened to a sense of the Eternal--the "intimations of immortality" that come to us through wonder. Sabbath is about creating space-in-time . . . about living in time differently, weaving a tapestry of time that is life-giving, that unites us with the rhythms of nature, and that is health-giving to ourselves and naturally, then, to others and to the Earth itself.

Abraham Joshua Heschel's remarkable and thin little book, Sabbath, takes pride of place in reflections on the practice of Sabbath.  Find it here.

An Easter Acclamation: Cosmic and Evolutionary

After searching for an opening Easter Acclamation that is progressive and cosmic in nature, and finding nothing that went where I'd like to take the congregation this Easter, I decided I'd just have to write one.  

So, here's an acclamation/invocation that draws on themes found in the high Christology of Saint Paul (Colossians) and well as the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas; it's also drawn from the medieval mystics Meister Eckhart and Hildegard von Bingen, and the modern evolutionary theologians, Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry.  I also hope it has some of the poetic flare of that great earth mystic, Saint John (Muir) of the Mountains.  

O Radiant Light, 
O Flame Divine, 
as shines the light of Easter’s dawn—
Come, bless the embers of the earth,
sparks flung from our eternal birth.

O Word of God, 
the Source of Life, 
you rouse us from the night of fears
to open souls and minds and ears
and hear the music of the spheres.

You are the Fire that birth’d all things,
the Force that spins the galaxies;
you are the Flame within all flames,
the Hidden Power that knows no name.
From you all things that are were sent,
and into you does all extend.
Peel back the bark of any tree,
lift up a stone—they blaze with Thee!

O Risen Christ,
you shine in us,
the radiance of your holiness;
despite the sting of death and strife,
we rise to dance this Dance of Life.

The spiritual life, the downward path, and the values wisdom brings

View fullsize

Down is the way into the soul

Thomas Merton once wrote: “People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.”

It's also true that most of us spend our time climbing the wrong direction; one friend recently told me, "I climbed to the top of the pinnacle only to sit down and realized how much it hurt."

Every spiritual tradition, at its heart, offers a downward pathway into the temple of the soul.  If we cooperate with the life-journey, we may well learn the values of true wisdom: 

depth rather than acquiring

awareness rather than ambition

wisdom rather than being right

humility not arrogance

gentleness not force

love not security

growth not comfort

relinquishment instead of clinging

A different, but wholly transforming way of being in the world.

And frankly, these are values not often learned until we travel the second half of life--a downward journey into limitation, physical decline, suffering, and eventually the final letting go, death.