We can make idols out of all sorts of things. Sometimes we make idols out of the very spiritual practices which are supposed to help us not make idols. Which is annoying.

I’m thinking of things like meditation or mindfulness, or any of those practices, which have such a good root, but which can so quickly become just another consumer experience, just another wretched idol to sit on our mantelpiece.

Unless these practices challenge us, unless they demand that we cultivate an attitude of compassion and forgiveness, unless they provoke us and act as an irritant as well a balm, they are in danger of becoming a household god, a fetishized object which serves only to give us a false sense of wholeness while managing all the while to maintain our separateness.