Exercising
Spirit
“The
spirit is not a thing we display but an activity we exercise, in
favor of which we choose and on which we gamble. It exists only for
him who wants it and, in wanting it, brings it into being.”
Louis
Lavelle
Is
there something that compels you to get up each day and go to work? I
don't mean your job so much as something that feels essential for
you? Maybe it is meditation, or prayer, or jogging, or, like me,
writing. Perhaps you arise each day and read something that inspires
you, that you think about and hold in your heart throughout the day.
Whatever the exercise is that connects you to yourself, that is
spirit at work.
When
I first started writing, I wanted to discipline myself to write at a
certain time every day because that's what I'd heard other writers
say they do. I got up, poured my coffee, and sat down at the computer.
Sometimes I worked for an hour and sometimes for four or five hours.
But it was me imitating someone else. I had no idea that at some
point the writing would take control; that it would acquire a life of
its own and guide me toward its own goals. In many ways, the writing
creates me rather than the other way around.
I
know runners who feel the same about running, and people who meditate
who feel compelled to rise at 5:30 so they can get in an hour before
doing anything else. When something prevents it, they feel out of
sorts all day. All practices are difficult in the beginning. Runners are sore, people are distracted during meditation. But, gradually, one settles into the routine and it feels easy and normal and necessary.
One
learns about oneself, and one's relationship to the divine within
through the repeated exercise of a spiritual practice—regardless of
what that practice is. 'Seek and you shall find' becomes keep seeking
and you shall find ever more. Within a daily practice, there is depth
deeper than the ocean, and width wider than the sky. All you have to
do is show up and do what is required.
In
the spirit,
Jane
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