What We May Be . . .

The catch all phrase “spiritual practice” comes across as a kind of ritualistic notion that bears repetition like a mantra. In times gone by, and in some places even today, rituals like reciting the rosary are practiced together in a particular place. In secular settings the practice can look like yoga, tai chi (of which there are so many promotions with promises of weight loss), or, of course, a meditation practice. It is not the chosen form that matters, but the practicing…like learning to play the piano or hitting a perfect tennis serve. Practice makes sense if you aspire to some thing.

The older I become, the more I see why it matters that I have a spiritual practice, though I do not think of this in those terms. Years ago in a job interview for a Quaker Friends Youth Coordinator, I was asked by the sixteen-year-old boy on the committee: “Will it bother you to know that I do not have a spiritual practice”? I responded, “No. Will it bother you to know that I do”? Why does it matter?

As far as I am concerned, the time spent in solitude, morning and evening, are the bookends of my day, setting the tone for either the day ahead or the shift from day’s strifes. Who doesn’t need a little help with both nowadays?

It began for me during a crisis when a therapist asked: “Have you ever tried meditation?” WHAT? I am going out of my skin here! For some reason, I agreed to try it for three minutes a day. It was the longest three minutes of those days. My young daughter looked askance at me sitting on the floor. I had one eye on the clock. She did not have a spiritual practice like the Quaker boy—except that he actually did without naming it as such.

The other important thing that he said to me was: “Quakers appreciate long silences”. I knew we would get along. He taught me that one doesn’t need to name something in order for it to be a “practice”.

A few days ago when a friend and I talked over a looming situation, I remembered something that has sustained me since my early twenties—a book! Some people carry a Bible, I have carried and dog-eared and underlined and worn out the binding of What We May Be: Techniques for Psychological and Spiritual Growth Through Psychosynthesis. The essence of this so-called self-help book, is in the title: What We MAY Be. The possibilities for becoming all that we are meant to and might aspire to amounts to practicing a way of being.

This is a life’s work, if you ask me. But, never too late to start practicing that one thing that sustains the soul—-because when the time comes—and something will come— everything already learned and accomplished through practice will help you to “rise above” whatever has come your way.