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Somewhere in the third decade, or maybe the fourth, a dawning recognition devastates the priorities of the young son of Adam: life takes constant maintenance. We all learn this in small, almost invisible ways as we brush our teeth or wash our hands. Life is slowly building up on us throughout the day, moving the tame to the wild and tearing down the house where we live.
For me, that moment came standing in the garage of our salmon-colored house in a Michigan fall. I was staring up at the subtle shadows of watermarks under the roof’s plywood and wondering what all I needed to do to get ready because winter was coming. A long list started with marking those watermarks to ensure they were old and not continuing to grow.
As the things around us slowly drift from order toward chaos, there is an equilibrium we are all trying to find, a balance point between enough order to not worry about the weather and appear in public as a responsible citizen of the world and enough chaos to be able to walk to our own rhythm and occasionally dance in the rain. Life takes maintenance.
Our spiritual life is the same. Stuff builds up on the soul, like the grime of acceptable grievances and the black mold of justifiable sins. Our internal peace needs maintenance, just as surely as the garage, our self-righteousness, just as much as our rough fingernails.
The Daily Offices, that round of Morning and Evening Prayers that mark our lives in the Anglican tradition, is the regular maintenance of the spiritual life. We may think of the spiritual as merely spontaneous whoops and swoons of joy from sunrises over mountain vistas and those rare afternoons with tea on a vacation back porch, but the truth is we are always spiritual beings, even when we are just standing in the garage or buying soap. The questions are whether we are alive spiritually and are we healthy.
Our creation is marked in Genesis 2:7 as formed of earth and God-breathed. There is something of the dirt in us and something “of the breath of God” that makes us human. It is always there in human beings. We are made to bear the image of God as an act, to be as if God were present in us as we live in the creation, but we also are created with some element of God’s breath in our being. We are spiritual.* So we no more get a day off of the spiritual life than we do breathing or tending to our fingernails.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus tells Nicodemus that we must be “born again” spiritually. This telling confuses Nicodemus, but it surely implies that we must all be reborn as spiritually alive human beings. Therefore, we all have to learn like children the habits of healthy spiritual life as we grow up again.
What happens if we go a few days without brushing our teeth or wiping down the counters in the kitchen? We survive, but it gets gross pretty quickly. If it goes on for longer, things get really bad. Eventually, we have to use words like “infection” and “disease.”
That is why the hygiene habits of life are taught and reinforced from such a young age. It is essential for the spiritually reborn person to put regular practices in place for spiritual health.
I am tempted to write “internal” for “spiritual,” but what is of the spirit becomes external very quickly. A lack of peace or forgiveness is evident to those close to you. Internal chaos becomes visible eventually to anyone who can see.
So what are we doing in Morning and Evening Prayer? We begin with soul hygiene, called confession. We reorient toward God in praying and reading Scripture. We then move deeper in prayer with the Lord’s prayer, responsive and collected prayers that push us to pray through essential topics we may not otherwise remember.
At home, we regularly begin with a sentence from Scripture, confession, and the *Venite* (Psalm 95), assigned Psalm and a reading, usually but not always the Gospel. Then we pray the Lord’s Prayer and pray extemporaneously about the day ahead, issues in our family or around the world, and prayer requests. We usually close with the blessing.
I offer this as an example. We are not legalistic about the structure. The point is to reorient our spirits to God in prayer and hearing the Scriptures. Sometimes we discuss the readings, and other times we do not. We always pray the Lord’s Prayer. Sometimes I throw in the collects of the day.
During my personal Daily Office time, I follow the text straight through. If I am using an app on my phone, I pray the collects of the day, especially holy days and saints, and then I skip any others except the collects for mission.
“Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. *Amen*.
All of this may seem complicated when it is new. But it is just the habit of spiritual life upkeep, the tooth-brushing of the soul. There are definite moments of sunset awe and afternoon swoons in the life of the God-breathed, but it is hard to pay attention with a toothache.
Health makes it possible to experience the sublime, and health takes choice and maintenance. So do the house where we live and the relationships that inspire us. If we want to dance in the rain but not sleep in it, we have to find that balance between acting and taking the time to be.
Be well, and I will see you along the Way.
+Daniel
Morning Prayer begins on page 79 of the BCP 1979. You can also use several apps and websites to lead you through the same printed text. I commend missionstclare.com and their iOS app, but others offer more customization. The text requires you to make choices that may not be obvious when just beginning. If you do not have Morning Prayer offered in your parish, ask your priest to walk you through a time or two.
If I am traveling, I download the text onto a Kindle for the month because I am less tempted to get distracted by my phone. But I also enjoy the pleasure of holding the book and remembering in the body all those who have done this before me.
This week the Bishop has the first of two ordinations. Garrett Ayers will be ordained at Trinity Cathedral to the transitional diaconate on Saturday, 4 June 2022, at 11 a.m. Next week at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, 9 June 2022, Deacon Fergie Horvath will be ordained to the priesthood at St. Christopher’s, Spartanburg.
The Bishop will be at St. Bartholomew’s in North Augusta on Pentecost Sunday, 5 June, for Eucharist and Confirmations, and the following Sunday at Church of the Good Shepherd, Columbia.
All are welcome.
*The word “spirit” is the English of the Hebrew word *ruah* or breath/wind. In Greek, the same relationship appears in the word for spirit *pneuma*.
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