One of the blogs I skim regularly is known as Zen Habits, which sites Aristotle as inspiration:
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Aristotle
...that's not a bad start, in fact, for thinking about Christian living and discipleship (plenty of passages spring to mind, from the gospels to Paul, 1John and James...).
I was struck today by yesterday's post on 12 Ideas for Establishing a Calming Routine - and just how much his list has in common with what would, in any other era you care to mention, be associated with a distinctly spiritual/religious (even monastic) outlook on life. Here's the bare list with a couple of his comments. You can read the rest (including his full explanations/comments) via the link above:
- Morning Coffee (he gets up at 4.30am - clearly doesn't have young kids keeping him up at night!!)
- Exercise
- Meditation
- Gratitude Session - "...every day, take a couple of minutes to think about everything and everybody you are grateful for in your life... it is an amazing ritual" - in fact, it reminds me of part of my sermon on Sunday!
- Goal mantra - i.e. helping you to stay focused on who you are and what's important to you.
- Evening Review - in monastic regimes, this might be the "Prayer of Examen".
- Bath time & after work unwinding.
- Pre-bed ritual
- Journaling or writing
- Conversation
- Reading time
The highlighted ones in particular could come straight out of a workshop on Christian spirituality and disciplines.
That shouldn't surprise us, of course. We tend to think of spirituality as something unique to us and our faith - but Christianity claims to be true because it's God's truth about the God who is really there and who made all people (not just the Christians) and knows how we "tick". In other words, it should be that we find many parallels between different (secular and religious) approaches to life since we're working with the same raw materials - i.e. people.
The crucial issue is whether people are using exercises to merely explore themselves and their interior lives - or to get to know Jesus and be known more by Jesus - ultimately our true purpose and goal.
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