I got home with our two-year-old around 5:45pm the other night. Quickly, I set him up with some peanut butter crackers to tide the inevitable dinner hunger that I needed to get ahead of so that I could, of course, cook dinner.
“Yeah!” he knew he’d won.
A bowl of peanut butter crackers is not supposed to happen at 5:45pm, and even two-year-olds know this.
He smiled, ate, and spent the next three minutes telling the dog to stay away from his food.
I began preparing the vegetable lentil soup we had scheduled to make for that evening.
I diced an onion and winced as tears formed. I peeled the carrots and lamented how long it took. I then enjoyed renewed energy when the celery chopped in no time flat.
Eventually, I poured these first three ingredients into our Instant Pot while Logan hugged my leg with a mix of the 6pm sillies and “I’m getting tired” neediness.
A few minutes later Leo and Michelle got home. I finished the recipe, Insta did its thing, and the four of us shared dinner. I’m not sure there’s really any huge story to tell.
Except…
Thomas Merton once told a room of new monks-in-training at the Abbey of Gethsemani, “Before you can have a spiritual life, you’ve got to have a life!”
(Merton)
Merton is observing the fact that it is common for us to want a deeper, richer, more meaningful life.
At least in the times when we slow long enough to reflect, we recognize that there is an inevitable spiritual hunger that exists - one that wonders what it would look like to know itself deeply satiated.
This hunger for a deeper spiritual life can mean a lot of different things to people, but generally it probably sounds like…
I want to be more in tune with God.
With nature.
With my own heart.
With Life.
With my sense of purpose/direction.
With the movement of things deeper than the senses.
With perception more than only sight.
With wisdom more than only knowledge.
I want to be more spiritual!
(Occasionally all of this is sometimes followed with sentiments like Maybe I should have gone to seminary/been a monk/lived off the grid?!)
(Photo by Alex Bierwagen on Unsplash)
And Merton’s point about this spiritual hunger is this: all spiritual life of any depth or meaning is found in the everyday life that we already have.
No need to go on a pilgrimage, join a monastery, or engage a rigorous meditation practice every single day. These can be good things - absolutely! I myself have done a version of all of them at some point (usually in an attempt to be more spiritual, quite frankly).
But… we are fooling ourselves if we think the spiritual life is found by getting away to some holier, loftier, ethereal space.
The portal to the spiritual life is Life itself.
One of the most important Scriptures in all of the Christian tradition says that God (in Jesus) became flesh and lived among us. Which is to say, God communicated the fullest, clearest expression of Spirit-filled life (spirituality) by way of…
The ordinary.
The concrete.
The mundane.
The human.
Looking for more depth? Vitality? Spirit-filled energy and promptings and insights?
Pay attention to…
The 2-year-old who knows he’s won.
The onion tears.
The slow carrots.
The easy celery.
The life hanging from your leg.
The lives around the table.
The table itself.
Any spiritual promptings in there?
You know, like a…
nudge of gratitude or
angle of insight or
tear of surprise or
opening of self-knowledge or
sign of direction or….?
We may or may not be able to name it right away each time, but of this I am confident:
There is a nourishing meal in there. And it’s much more than the soup. But it’s also the soup.
Spiritual Growth Exercise: Journal for 10 minutes today.
Set a timer, pick up pen-and-paper and heed one rule: keep writing for all ten minutes (no matter where you go or don’t go).
The prompt? Tell about the last meal you had. Whether fast food, a breakfast bar, a 7-course meal or otherwise, tell about the meal. The experience. Or whatever aspect of it you want to write about! Bottom line: go with the most recent meal. And see if there isn’t nourishment to be found.
Last night's soup supper comes to mind! Bless this food and the hands that have prepared it, and also the lovely faces that happen to be sharing a table this time. All enhanced by the larger gathering of church friends in the room, lively discussions of weather, since rain is such a novelty these days, and other events of the day. All in anticipation of the meaningful Maundy Thursday service to come. It was a beautiful evening to share with family, but this exact combination of people and events will never happen again. Appreciation is called for.
My most recent meal. I almost wrote my last meal which is grammatically correct but sounds weird. Because I am invalid or at least a recovering invalid Genia prepared the meal. In fact, since the knee replacement, she has prepared most of the meals. She had made corn muffins to go with a goulash a neighbor had lovingly prepared for us. Cornbread, honey goulash and big sliced tomatoes was a feast because of the love it was connected to.
As we ate in the room that looks out on the garden after the rain, Gods amazing bounty was so evident. Bobby’s story about the soup has been more present to us during this time of limited mobility. We had to move more slowly. We have had to plan to accommodate how long it takes me to walk anywhere. The Lenten study has been more focused on living pour life thoughtfully in the middle of the amazing world God has provided to us.
Genia once commented, as we were driving back from Houston in the spring that God could have stopped with Green, and instead he gave us all the colors to remind us of how precious we are to him. Something about a rain bow.
God (in Jesus) became flesh and lived among us. Which is to say, God communicated the fullest, clearest expression of Spirit-filled life (spirituality) by way of…
The ordinary.
The concrete.
The mundane.
The human.
We have been watching and discussing The Chosen in a life group we have been part of for 15 years. The comment above is why I really look forward to the series. It portrays Jesus as flesh living among us and reminds me of how living my daily life in gratitude allows me to exp3erience and reflect the Grace we are given.
Jim Blanchard