Flunking Sainthood - Week 2

The two chapters we were looking at this week were Finding God in Daily Things and Lectio Divina.

The first practice is centered around doing everything that you can with the intention of finding God in it.  Find God in making dinner, find God in baking bread, find God in making the beds, find God in hanging out the wash.  You get the idea.  Pay attention to what you are doing and do everything to the glory of God.

The second practice is the reading of the Bible as prayer itself.  Done intentionally over time it is possible to pray a small passage of scripture for a long time.  We don't read like this too much any more- but with practice it can open whole new meanings from even familiar passages.

One of the things that struck me this week is that these - and all the other spiritual practices - seem to be perfectly designed to help people find God in the midst of life as it was lived for most of human history up to about 70 years ago.

Most people spent most of their time on the daily tasks of making food and clothing and shelter and getting fuel to make food and clothing and shelter.  For most people, even today for most people on earth, life has limited choices, the same tasks every day, and lived close to the edge of not having enough.  In those circumstances the "traditional" spiritual disciplines serve to use the reality of daily life as a way to draw us closer to God.  In a way they point to the presence of God in the midst of daily life.

For most of us that is no longer what life is like.  Our lives are composed of abundance, endless choices, global connectedness and the constant presence of others either virtually or in reality or both.  What would spiritual practices would point the way to the presence of God in the midst of our daily life.