Lessons from a Bible Study flunk-out
Spiritual practice for people who suck at spiritual practice
When I was a junior in college, a young couple local to UNC-Greensboro tried to start a branch of Campus Crusade for Christ1. I joined a small group of students on the leadership team, and every week during our planning meeting, we’d go around the room and ask each other how our “Quiet Time”2 was going.
At every meeting, when it was my turn to update the group on my Quiet Time, I went into panic mode. I’d been too busy. I struggled to focus. I found the Bible kind of boring. Mostly I just forgot. The shame that came along with admitting - very defensively, I might add - that I’d dropped the ball 6.5 out of 7 days every week was too much to bear. And as a member of the Leadership Team (heavy use of air quotes here), the expectations for my Quiet Time commitment were sky-high.
This never changed. For decades, from church to church, from one small group Bible Study to the next, every time someone tried to keep me accountable3 for a regular Quiet Time, for Bible-reading time, for a regimented prayer life, I felt the same embarrassment and inferiority for just not being good enough to bend myself to my own will.
I never got good at Quiet Time, but what I did finally do - after much trial and error, after a spiritual awakening and deconstruction and a nervous breakdown - was find a way to incorporate spiritual practices that truly feel, well, spiritual into my everyday.
So whether you, like me, were a Quiet Time flunk-out, an A+ student who just can’t stomach it anymore, or a spiritually curious person to whom the term Quiet Time sounds like Latin - and you’re looking for a way to adopt a new spiritual practice for this season of your life, I’d love to share a few things that have been helpful to me as I’ve sought out practices for my ever-evolving spiritual life.
Let go of what you once considered “spiritual”.
What can be a spiritual practice? Literally anything.
A few of my favourites include: making coffee, practicing yoga, writing, reading a book, lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling, doing my skincare, breathing, swimming in the river, going for a walk, cooking dinner, laughing with friends.
If the faith you once knew was mostly black and white, consider it a discipline to let the boundaries between what is secular and what is spiritual fade away, and practice embracing anything that has the potential to bring you a sense of presence or joy as a “spiritual practice.”
I believe we know in our bones when we’re in a moment that transcends this one; that holds some divine, eternal significance. Pay attention. Notice what moments in your otherwise normal life feel transcendent. Then get intentional about allowing yourself to have more of those.
Try this: Think of something you enjoy doing - something that, when you’re doing it, makes it easy to be fully present in the moment. Bonus points if it has never occurred to you to consider it “spiritual.” More than one? Wonderful! Write them down.
Learn to play.
One of the many reasons I fell in love with yoga is that it helped me remember how to play. In so many of the poses - or asanas - we put ourselves in positions that we haven’t been in since we were children: legs up the wall? Are you kidding me? Child’s pose? The clue is literally in the name. Re-learning to play again through moving my body connected me to an old version of myself that felt naturally closer to the divine - before I was given a list of all the things I had to do in order to become close.
Try this: Think of something that makes you feel like a kid - something that feels playful. My friend Allie started skateboarding when she was 42, and she says she feels about it the way I feel about yoga - it connects her to the version of herself that trusted her own voice and her own body before anyone told her not to. What’s yours? Dancing? Riding a bike? Singing? Jumping on a trampoline?
Don’t be afraid to do nothing.
When I stopped sitting down to read or pray, and started just drinking lemon water and staring out the window - that’s when my spiritual life truly deepened. Lists of to-dos put the pressure on some external force to show up and do something in order to make our practice worthwhile. But God (or Love or the Universe or whatever name you want to give to Mystery) is not some external force, far away from you, that has to be manipulated and cajoled and convinced to communicate with you.
Being is the name of the game.
Try this: Make yourself a drink you love. Sit by a window. Leave your phone in another room. Don’t say a prayer. Don’t journal. Don’t read. When you’re done, don’t think about whether it has been a success or not, or whether you felt something specific - it’s a success because you did it.
Take the pressure off.
No rules. No sense of obligation. And no expectations of an outcome. Forget everything you once knew about Quiet Time. No one is going to “keep you accountable” with thinly veiled judgement about how you can’t get your shit together. There are no punishments for only showing up 1/100th of the time4.
Try this: Every day, think of a way to squeeze a minuscule practice into your day, and count it. You drank a coffee this morning and daydreamed for a full three minutes? Congratulations! You’ve completed a spiritual practice! You watched a bird at your bird feeder for 30 seconds, noticed its colours and maybe smiled a little smile to yourself? Spiritual practice complete! You laid in bed with your child and ran your finger along their nose until they fell asleep? You are a spiritual giant!
Engage all of your senses.
For me, activities like making coffee or cooking dinner cease to be spiritual practices when I rush through them, my mind elsewhere - which is okay. Life is life! But when I can ground myself into a moment by honing my awareness through using all of my senses…that’s something special.
Try this: Pick a task, like making coffee. How can you use every one of your senses to cultivate a sense of presence? Take a deep inhale of the grounds before you pour them into the Mokka pot. Listen to the sound of the water running into the machine, to the click of the igniter on the gas stove, the percolating that lets you know your coffee is ready. Choose a beautiful mug, cup it in your hands and feel the warmth in your fingertips, let it spread into your body. Mindfully take the first sip, noticing the depth of flavours as it rolls over your tongue. Take a deep breath in, and a long, slow exhale out - notice your connection to your body, to yourself, to your feet on the floor and the way you are held in this moment.
I’d love to know if you try any of these suggestions - or if you have an unusual spiritual practice you love. Comment below to join the conversation!
xx
Faith
PS: Interested in learning more about spiritual practice? Or in processing where you are on your own personal journey? In being supported and companioned as you explore a new way to be spiritual?
I have space in my spiritual direction practice, where I accompany deep listening with my training as a yoga teacher to help you find a whole, embodied approach to living a more connected life. You can find more info here.
If you grew up evangelical, you will most likely know that “quiet time” is a time set aside daily to pray, read your Bible, maybe listen to worship music…in short, to do something Christian.
I just threw up in my mouth.
Literally no judgement for not showing up. But I will say that I’ve never, ever regretted showing up.