OK. Normal service has been restored. Putting prose on the back-burner for a day or two. Today's piece is actually a product of a session I led with our current cohort of ministerial students looking at written and unwritten liturgies, and how we use different physical spaces in worship. But as I prepared I reflected on what reflects and shapes our priorities in the everyday. Some contemplative Christian traditions and other faiths are much more conscious of this (and groups like 24/7 Prayer have made some from an evangelical tradition more aware), but everyone, including those of "no faith" have habits and rituals that mark out our days, weeks and years. Indeed "Daily Rituals" has become a minor growth industry in the secular lifestyle gurus/self-help sector over recent years, and I suspect that for some of us who claim to be Christian those habits and rituals are more secular than sacred in origin. But even where they are "religious" the question is whether they are essentially Christian and/or helpful? So here's a few questions to reflect on...
What everyday offices,
What unwritten and
perhaps unspoken,
quotidian liturgy,
and secular sacraments
express our personal priorities?
To what domesticated deity
do we express daily devotion?
What household gods
are honoured in niches
built in to the architecture
of work and home?
What profane prayers
have we inherited
from our mothers and our fathers
who were on earth?
Did they dedicate us
in infancy to a demanding god
unwilling or unable to offer
a suitable bleating substitute?
Or did we rather, in rebellion,
Convert to a rival idol?
Perhaps,
just perhaps
might we dare allow access
of the omnipresent
into the mundane?
Selah
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