I work in a retreat centre, where people come to find space for quiet, for reflection, for rest. It’s an extraordinarily peaceful (and beautiful!) place. As I connect with people who come there, and go home at the end of the day to my family, I have been thinking a lot about the distance between our spirituality and the rest of our lives. This has been a historic tension between what we must do, the “worldly” concerns and the things of God. And I think there is something to wrestle with here, because our lives are not, fundamentally, an obstacle to our spirituality.

This is not a new tension. In the Gospels, Jesus settles an argument about taxes by telling people to give to the government what belongs to them. The early disciples were asked to leave their professions and families and leave to follow Him. And at the end of His public ministry Jesus prays for his disciples – that they would be sent into the world and not removed from it. That we would be in the world but not of the world. That we would travel through the world and then into eternity.

And all of this suggests that the world is not getting in the way of a spiritual life. The world is, in fact, the context for spiritual growth. It hardly seems to make sense, on one level, that all the moments that make up our lives could hold such significance. I think about how many minutes of my life I spend asleep. Brushing my teeth. Tidying up. Driving to and from events. Waiting on hold with customer service. Surely these moments could be better spent when we think about spiritual progress.

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So often, I am seduced by the conviction that the present moment is not worth my time and energy. Wouldn’t it be better if I didn’t have to wait in line? If there was an app, a machine, a life hack that would remove me from this undesirable moment? It must be better to spend an hour in focused prayer than shopping for my own groceries, surely.

So much of the world we are living in is racing towards solutions for inefficiency. And I am increasingly convinced that many of these conveniences are actually taking me further away from myself and my life. I might have more time, but the list of things to do just gets longer. If access to a washing machine just gives me more time to scroll and consume, something is terribly wrong.

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As I reflect on Jesus’ prayers for us, it strikes me that it is a mistake to compartmentalize the areas of my life. There are lots of things that can be neatly sorted, but the dimensions of life are not among them. Our spirituality is not accessed only when we sit for focused prayer, attend churches, rituals or ceremonies, or find ourselves talking to God.

The world is full of divine presence. Walking through it with attentiveness wakes me up instead of numbing me out. Because I can so readily practice disconnection, distractions, and avoidance, it can be easy to set my spiritual practices on a shelf.

But my life is overflowing with opportunities to practice spirituality. To wait with patience and humility. To bring curiosity and compassion to discomfort and conflict. To listen deeply to what isn’t being said as well as what is. To be stretched and invited to grow. To serve others and be served by them.

As I walk barefoot through this season of my life, I am paying attention to the places where I feel like my time is wasted or I want to run away. Where have I abandoned myself? What am I failing to notice? How can I touch and taste, hear and see the Life that is brimming around me?

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There is not a single task in my day that is not worthy of loving care and attention. There is no place in my life that the Divine is not at work. 

My life is not getting in the way of my spirituality. My life is the stuff of Divine presence and love. May I always enter in.