(no subject)

[rivka]

I've realized that one of the things that makes SUUSI a good experience for me is a higher religious content than I get in my everyday life. I liked starting out my day with a ministerial Theme Talk and breaking for a worship service after dinner. That level of involvement would be way too much for my normal life, obviously, but since I got back from SUUSI I've really been thinking about ways of incorporating religious experience into my daily life.

There have been times in the past that I've decided to meditate regularly, or something similar. That never works. I don't have the time or space in my life for that, and - to be honest - I don't have the discipline to make time and space. If incorporating religious practice in my life requires finding twenty uninterrupted minutes when I don't have anything else I'd rather be doing (that's the hard part)... it's not going to happen. So I needed to find other alternatives.

Michael and I decided to start a family practice of saying grace before dinner. The inspiration for this was Alex coming home from nursery school repeating a non-theist grace they sing before lunch. I hadn't really thought about there being UU-appropriate graces out there, but I liked the idea. So we've picked two sung graces to begin with, the one Alex brought home and another one that I found online, and each evening we intend to hold hands and sing grace before we eat. We'll see how that goes.

I've also been experimenting with listening to religious material on my iPod during my morning commute - either music, or sermon/essay podcasts. It feels like a good way to start the day, but I'm not sure how well it will wear.

I'd be interested to know whether and how other people incorporate religion or spirituality into their everyday life. Do you have a regular religious or spiritual practice? Do you want one?

Comments

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I don't have or want one, but I grew up in a very religious family and was raised as a practicing Muslim, both doing all the daily things entailed by that and also attending conferences and participating in the wider community. Although I don't want those things again, I sometimes miss them. (It's in many ways the same feeling as feeling wistful over someone you once dated but who you still know you don't want to get back together with.)

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

Currently, I use Sacred Space every day. I am trying to add walking meditations to this, since I walk almost every day. I also do an Ignatian exercise called an "examen" once a week and post it to examen. Once every four to eight weeks, I post more generally about my Ignatian practice on a special filter. I would like to do more, but find it difficult due to scheduling and logistical issues.

[jenett]

One other podcast to consider is Public Radio's Speaking of Faith (Which happens to be produced in Minnesota, but it's available online these days.) It's a really fascinating overview of different religious topics - everything from stress and health to Vodou to different perspectives (i.e. different religious traditions) on prayer. She gets really interesting guests on.

I do a *lot* of different stuff, and have recently been working on slightly more formal stuff (the deal with seeking clergy-level recognition is that, theoretically, I should want to do this enough to make the time/discipline).

Daily practice:
I have a major water affiliation, so every morning, I drink a small amount of water (a few swallows at most) out of a glass flask that lives on my altar. I've been charging the flask out in the moonlight for the past few full moons, and really like that connection. (Each moon, I also think about particular connections, goals, etc.)

I'm also using scent as part of it: I'm one of the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab perfume people, and the scents are very evocative. I just made up index cards for each scent I have (about 45ish, in small quantities), and pull a card each morning, and think about why that might be relevant for my day. (I just started the cards part on Friday, but so far, they've been quite relevant to the day at hand.)

Playlists
I have a complex collection of playlists on my iTunes for different religious-related things. I have a series of 5 elemental ones, as well as ones for the eight major celebrations, and I'm toying with putting toegether a few more. It makes it easy to pull up a soundtrack appropriate to other things I'm thinking about.

Every few days to week:
I listen to the Speaking of Faith podcast, and read a number of religion-focused blogs (well, when I have home 'Net: mostly, I'm not reading them this summer). Most of mine are Pagan-focused, but I know there are UU ones and good general ones out there.

I also do some general reading: I've usually got at least one book going that's relevant to ongoing religious work, but not generally obviously so (by which, I mean it's not a book about religion or religious practice, or liturgy, or whatever my current projects are).

While I was planning our bread baking ritual, that included books on honey and salt, for example. You can see some other titles that have been relevant to me over at http://limen.gleewood.org/books

I do also do some meditatation and related work - maybe once a week to less frequently, depending on my level of exhaustion and heat and so on. (When it is 85+ degrees out, my brain goes fuzzy, and so on.)

[kiya]

Let's see.

My regular, explicitly religious stuff that I actually do:

- minor religious ritual every two weeks (purification, water and incense offerings, prayer). I find that this regular ritual helps control my depression, among other things, but itloses efficacy if I do it constantly. I do it new moons, full moons, and Whenever Else Seems Necessary.

- maintenance of several small shrines:
* the Osiris shrine is a large potted jasmine plant
* the house altar has a lamp, a fountain, and an oil diffuser; the fountain gets consistent maintenance, the oil diffuser irregular usage when I feel the need (I need to get back into a regular offering schedule), and the lamp needs to be filled with oil before I can light it.
* the Feri shrine gets intermittent use, mostly an occasional candle lit

More intermittent stuff I sometimes do:
- running pentacles (this is basically a meditation, but not one that requires any particular stillness or activity; it can be a walking meditation, a working-on-other-stuff meditation, etc.)

Stuff I almost never do but should:
- sitting practice (a still meditation)


This doesn't get into specific holy days.


There's also a sort of mindfulness of recognising the faith-related stuff as an everyday thing. There are particular pieces of music that I associate particularly with various gods, and thus when they turn up, my mind goes that way; there are particular activities that are within the purview of those gods, and thus, say, I recognise my current need to sculpt as being in part a Khnum-devotional urge and try to address it in part by acknowledging Him in ritual elsewhere. And so on.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

No religious or spiritual practice, nor do I want one, but like epi_lj, I grew up in a home with a very structured religion.

I do, however, take joy in nature (new house finch fledglings today!) and life and mark the Earth's movement in space. A lot of people seem to think that solstices and equinoxes are given to pagans, but they're scientific facts.

(News is saying Justice Roberts had a seizure and fell at home, but is awake and coherent.)

[lcohen]

i sing!

but seriously, even though the singing that i do is seldom representative of my faith, having regular times that i sing means having regular times when i have a spritual experience and i think it has added a lot of joy to my life.

hmm...

[librarygrrl]

I want, and have at times had, one. It's fallen by the wayside lately, but I intend to get back into it. I enjoy saying a condensed version of the Jewish morning prayers, wrapped in my tallit (prayer shawl), but mornings tend to be hectic, so it is too easily skipped. If only I could drag myself out of bed sooner... We also light candles for Shabbat fairly regularly, but not as regularly as I would like. Need more candles! :)

[bosssio.livejournal.com]

I don't get into rituals so much (the secular humanist/anthropologist in me gets too analytical to allow me to create new rituals - I get all meta about it). I do explore philosophy/anthropology to help myself understand the world around me, other people, meaning of life, etc. The amazing world of nature - watching things grow, seeing how much just exists and lives and thrives, is thrilling to observe.

I also try to let myself just be still, to live in the moment, to enjoy the small pleasures of a beautiful day or playing with my kids.

I also love the concept of taking gratitude as a central part of my belief system. We, as humans, have created so much (as well as destroyed so much - anything powerful must be respected) that our world has been totally transformed from where we evolved from. For me, there is something deeply spiritual about observing what humans have managed to create (the good and the bad) without any sort of central plan - just by struggling, and trying, and failing and trying again. Feeling connected into that long history of human endeavor makes me feel connected to the universe.

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

I'm a practicing Catholic, so I have that regiment going on. I just got back from a 3-day retreat and intend to find the time to just be still every day. Spiritual directors have told me in the past that you should meditate for 20 minutes twice a day, and I just can't find the time to do that. But I think that if I work at it, I can maybe find 10 minutes once a day. And be happy and regular with that and maybe I can expand from there. If not, it's better than nothing. (I pray without being still, too. Being Catholic, I say the rosary most days and often pray in the car. It's the finding time to do absolutely nothing that's so hard.)

[tchemgrrl.livejournal.com]

When you mentioned listening to podcasts on the bus I thought of my own bus commute. I wouldn't call it a formal meditation, but most days I do think about my day in a non-list-writing way--what challenges do I need to be mindful of, what's been bothering me that I can fix, etc. Or I think about a book I've been reading, or what someone said at church.

I think it would be a small step to, say, read or listen to a short piece on the ride to work, think about it on the ride home, and write about it on the way in the next morning. It doesn't take much time out of your day, since you're already sitting there.

[telerib.livejournal.com]

I'm also looking (albeit not very hard) for religio-spiritual touchstones to add to my life.

I'm reluctant to return to daily formal prayer; raised Catholic, went to Catholic schools where we'd say prayers before every class. Eventually, it devolved into meaningless repetition of words for me.

And while I miss the theatre of Catholic worship sometimes, I have a mindset like bosssio's that wants to take any ritual apart and examine its guts on a meta level, which kind of destroys any sense of wonder or mystery that it might have been able to evoke. But a strictly intellectual worship doesn't totally work, either.

I do think I do a decent job of staying aware of the beauty around me. Music is important to my spirit, and I find bosssio's comments on "taking gratitude" to be inspiring. lizw's examen caught my eye as well. I'm not sure what I can make out of that, nor whether or not it would be something I could easily share with my family (solitary practice vs. group, I mean).

[ink-monkey.livejournal.com]

I'm not particularly religious anymore, but I have a fairly large collection of religious music (Masses, mostly). Missa Papae Marcelli is particularly good, and available on iTunes.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I attend church regularly -- usually Bible class and service Sunday morning, service Sunday evening, and class followed by a brief congregational service on Wednesday evenings. I pray before meals and before bed, and at other times as I wish.

I sometimes study religious materials during the week -- the Bible, commentaries, etc., but this is not as much a part of my routine as I feel at should be.

My yoga practice is not explicitly spiritual, but I think it does enhance that portion of my life, among other effects.

I do my best to put my beliefs into action, as well; one thing I'm working on right now is not ignoring those in need. I'm far from selfless, but I'm working on sharing what I can, when I can, without fear of consequences.

[sciamanna.livejournal.com]

I don't find that being a buddhist stops me rejoycing in scientific facts :-)

This seems to apply to a good number of pagans I know, as well.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I think you may have a different value for "pagan" than we do in the US. It's usually used for witches or other people who do magic.

But what I was saying is that most people, at least in the US, consider marking the solstices and equinoxes to be the purview of pagans, when it's actually a scientific fact, so anybody could. It's not just linked to paganism.

(I usually tell local people, at least, that I'm a godless heathen because they laugh and then realize what I meant. If I tell them I'm an atheist, they get mad.)

[sciamanna.livejournal.com]

Well, I know several self-identified pagans from the US who don't do magic: but I can easily believe that the term is generally used as you say.

I thought that was what you meant about equinoxes/solstices, but I wasn't sure from the original formulation, therefore the comment. And I think we're actually agreeing, though coming at it from different perspectives.

I am perpetually bemused at the taboo status of "atheist" in the US. On the other hand, getting people to think is always a good thing in itself. And I've sometimes used the label "godless heathen" for myself as well (as well as "atheist", since it doesn't draw the same kind of negative reaction over here). Explaining that I am a religious atheist is where the fun really starts :-)

[sciamanna.livejournal.com]

I was telling a friend just this morning that what my practice needs most right now is more of it (= more practice). So first of all thanks for giving me an opportunity to focus on this issue.

Here are a few things that I have done as practice (aside from formal sitting meditation).

- General awareness: picking one activity that I'm going to do anyway and do it with awareness.
- Bus stop meditation: when forced to stand or sit around doing nothing (e.g. bus stop, waiting rooms, waiting for pasta to cook), using the time for some meditation. (Some types of meditation work better than others for this.)
- Wearing a mala ("prayer" beads) on my wrist: because bracelets annoy me, this would frequently draw my attention, at which point the fact that it is a religious object would remind me that I'm supposed to be mindful -- if you see what I mean.
- Taking one of the training precepts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Precepts) and making a point of practicing it whenever possible for a week (next week, next precept); occasionally making notes each evening about the practice.
- Same as above with the "perfections" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramitas)
- Reading appropriate material.
- Reciting mantras (which hasn't done a lot for me, except as an "easy" form of meditation for when my brain is really refusing to sit still -- easy because it provides a stronger focus than other methods).

As is probably clear by this point, my spiritual practice is buddhist -- but I think most of the things I've listed would have appropriate equivalents for other spiritual traditions.

[selki.livejournal.com]

I also love the concept of taking gratitude as a central part of my belief system.

A friend of mine uses meditation stones. A word is written on each stone; each day (week?), she draws out a stone/word to think about.

I think I like the idea of a jar of gratitude stones, to draw out on a regular basis and remind myself to be thankful for different things.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

You might be interested in a couple of articles I've found about how a UU religious home might look: This piece (http://www.uuworld.org/2003/04/feature2.html) by Meg Cox, and the "Best of Log" section of Phil's Little Blog on the Prairie (http://home.earthlink.net/~psdlund/id2.html). Both of those were good starting points for me.

The grace we sing comes from Phil's blog:

For each new morning with its light
For rest and shelter of the night
For health and food, for love and friends
For everything that Goodness sends
Thank you.

I can see how it might eventually devolve into meaningless repetition. My idea is that we'll gradually add in different graces until we have a moderate repertoire, so that - hopefully - each one retains meaning.

[telerib.livejournal.com]

Those look great, thanks! I will read them.

I didn't mean to be discouraging about rote prayers - the idea of "mindfulness" wasn't really something my RE stressed, whereas you're very aware of it.

Also, now as a grownup, I notice that it's not always about what you say, but that you're saying it. Moe's parents say grace before every meal, typically muttered at top speed. But, they do wait for everyone to be present before anyone eats, and drives home the idea that grace is being said. It doesn't seem to matter much that the words are on autopilot; having to stop and say them is a reminder that there is much to be thankful for.

And PS - thank you so much again for looking after Spud on Saturday. The class ended up being 30 min longer than I was told it would be, and traffic coming back was atrocious - I can only imagine what a fuss he would have put up if we'd had him along. We'll be actively childproofing soon in the new place, so we'll be much better equipped to return the favor someday. :)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

What a great Spud icon! Taking care of him was fun, and a good reality check about what it might be like to have another baby. I had forgotten some things, like the adorable soft squeaky noises they make when they're asleep. I took a great picture of Alex holding him - they both look absolutely thrilled with each other. I'll try to remember to send it this evening.

Also, now as a grownup, I notice that it's not always about what you say, but that you're saying it. [...] It doesn't seem to matter much that the words are on autopilot; having to stop and say them is a reminder that there is much to be thankful for.

Yes. Getting dinner on the table is a chaotic activity. I'm finding that it's really nice to take a moment to stop, and hold hands, and sort of compose ourselves for being together. There's also the fact that singing requires you to slow down and take deep breaths. At least in our first week of practice, singing grace before dinner has just created a little moment of awareness in the middle of a busy and hectic day. I like it.