Sunday
No matter the religion or denomination in which we are raised, our spirituality still comes through the first filter of our own life experience.
—Richard Rohr
Monday
Only when inner and outer authority come together do we have true spiritual wisdom. Information from outer authority does not necessarily lead to transformation, and we need genuinely transformed people today, not just people with answers.
—Richard Rohr
Tuesday
By seeing themselves in biblical stories enslaved Africans engaged the Bible as a living text. They were in relationship with the Bible, talking back to its stories and its God.
— Alexia Salvatierra and Brandon Wrencher
Wednesday
In the end, what I’m supposed to walk away with from reading the Christian Scriptures is a sense of astonishment about God’s love. If they’re not coming across as astonishing, then I need to take another run at it.
—Carmen Acevedo Butcher
Thursday
I think what we are all really seeking is a living and healthy tradition, something that isn’t just about words or arguments, but that is about life in all its fullness and about deep, deep love—a love for this earth, a love for each other, and a love for God who we experience both within us and all around us.
—Brian McLaren
Friday
I trust and hope that my writing and teaching contain more than my own little bit of experience and truth, precisely because I have found some serious validation in both the Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures, along with the testimonies of many other witnesses along the way.
—Richard Rohr
Week Twenty-One Practice
Experiencing Ourselves, Experiencing the Holy
Honoring the spiritual tradition of not claiming to know who God is, spiritual teacher Mirabai Starr encourages us to know and honor our lives and experiences more fully:
In many mystical traditions, across the spectrum of the world’s religions, we find a paradoxical teaching that says the most reliable means for knowing God is by unknowing. Christian mysticism uses the Latin term, via negativa. We are encouraged to actively dismiss any words or concepts to define the vast mystery of the divine, resting in what we cannot say about God, rather than what we think we can say….
I invite you to turn this stark technique on its head. While unknowing has its place on the path of awakening, it can be a disembodied practice that leads to checking out of reality (sometimes called transcendence) rather than fully inhabiting the holiness of your life.
Try this: Sit in a comfortable position with your back straight, allow your eyes to close, take a couple of deep, slow breaths, and ask yourself the question “Who am I?” Rather than responding in the negative, say yes to whatever arises. I am a mother and a daughter, a sister and a lover: yes. I am a cabinet-maker, a gardener, an activist: yes. I am a sensitive person, a drama queen, a tortured artist: yes. I am someone others can come to when their hearts are broken because I listen with love: yes. I am a part of the vast universe, no more or less important than an aspen tree: yes. Now, get creative: I am sunlight on water, a breeze that lifts my hair, the stillness of midnight, a symphony: yes.
You are all of these and beyond them all. You get to be both vast and particular, formless and gloriously made. By accepting all the scruffy and magnificent details of your human condition, and allowing seemingly contradictory things to be equally true, you banish the conditioned voice that designates some things as holy and others as profane. Set your intention to welcome everything you are and watch your life open like a fist, like a flower, like a gate.
Reference:
Mirabai Starr, Ordinary Mysticism: Your Life as Sacred Ground (HarperOne, 2024), 46–48.
Image credit and inspiration: Taylor Heery, untitled (detail), 2021, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Dynamic movement requires balance and respect, guided by ever-shifting balance points—like riding a tricycle—through a process of constant learning and continual growth.
