Uncovering growth
and nurturance from the routine practices of daily life has long been a reality
passed on from generation to generation. It is responsible for the development
of “tradition” in faith, philosophy, art, politics, and the sciences. It is how
we learn what it is passed on. Repetition builds continuity. It is a neural
thing. It also helps us open to greater things. Laws are fashioned by it, and
organizations are developed because of it. Routine practices keep us moored to
the safety of the dock of life.
The notion of
routine practice has its bearing on our individual daily lives. We live each
day enacting patterns or habits that we have allowed ourselves to accept as
meaningful. We go as far as to say that a day has been worthless because we
have not checked off one of the habits we hold dear. But, are these habits all
necessary? Are they all nourishing? Discernment would tell us, “No”.
We get up everyday
and have a cigarette with our coffee. The pattern, over years, weaves itself
into the meaning of what we call “morning”. The need for the nicotine is
wrapped around the need to repeat familiar events and we are hooked on a habit
that we cannot shake. We watch the news before we go to bed. The pattern, over
years, weaves itself into the meaning of what we call “bedtime”. The need for
tantalizing headlines is wrapped around the need to repeat familiar events and
we are hooked on a habit we cannot shake. We know these things are not healthy
for us, but we have woven them into our expectations.
We must develop
patterns that feed us and strengthen us. We must look for the things we need as
divine creatures and build them into habitual routine. This way (just like
returning to the prayer practice when distracting thoughts arise) we can return
to our core and avert building unhealthy routines. These habits entangle
themselves in both our bio-chemical make-up and our cultural patterns of
living. They can be at once a physical driving need and an emotional
attachment. Habits and routines can ride the crest between the body and mind
continuum.
Prayer is needful.
Silence is needful. Compassion is needful. Rest is needful. The practices we
develop around these needful things should reflect nourishment, health, and
wholeness. If we do not routinely make room for the needful things in life,
they will not just happen upon us. We do this by wrapping them in the myelin
sheaths of repetition.
The same sort of
practices should also be present in our lives together – as the body of Christ.
Fashioning sacred space and filling it with the heart and essence of prayer is
not a journey for the individual alone, it is a corporate practice as well.
Having prayer space and prayer time is good for the one; it is also good for
the many.
In a day and age
when people would like to lose any connection to a daily routine and be set
free to experience one new event after another (at least in our own estimation),
the need for a nourishing daily routine is great. Having a heart center and a
routine visit to that heart center is vital to an emerging stability and health.
It is something we can practice together and apart. It is something we can
build into the positive associations of what it means to be the Body of Christ.
Although people may verbally acknowledge that
routine is not necessary or a healthy requirement in daily life, they do enact
the need for routine on a daily basis. People often enact things they need even
if they cannot make a verbal or cognitive assent to the importance of the task.
They may not turn each day to the sacred routines
of old – prayer and or liturgy, but they do turn to the routine of reading
email, checking social media, and watching the news. We find comfort in
routines. Unbeknownst to most, we crave routine and create it whether we know
it or not. Routine finds a way in our lives until we are able to recognize and
give voice to the need. It is a myelin sheath sort of thing.
Routine is a cairn.
Routine is a marker in time and space that helps us to know where we are,
remember where we have been, and gain a sense of identity as we visit it again
and again over time. Routine digs down deep below the structure of past,
present, and future; into the reality of the eternal sense of NOW . Routine is a bridge that unites the dimensions
of time and space.
We transmit the
signal from axon, to dendrite, through a neural pathway wrapped in fat. We pile
the rocks – stone on stone – leaving a visible mark in space and time. Have we
discerned the soundness of the stones? Why were they placed? What do they sign?
Liturgy, tradition, and prayer are cairns . They help us gain
perspective in landscape of life. They mark how far and how close we come and
go as we journey. They are a gauge. And, by their nature they are seen as
repeatable events. We do them over and over again, wrapping them in meaning and
depth. We can do these things as individuals and as a corporate body.
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