On not getting used to this
My spiritual practices have long been communal ones. I love people—and their presence.
I am a pastor, and a failure at contemplative spiritual practices. The few meditation sessions I’ve attempted have devolved into list-making within minutes. One silent retreat led to existential navel-gazing. I suffer through silent, individual prayer— in it I find no joy.
Instead, my spiritual practices are material and communal. I bake bread for communion, kneading my way into a shared meal with the people who will eat the bread of life. I take walks, noticing the world given as a gift, with no other purpose than to be enjoyed and loved. I read books that unite me to beautiful, difficult, and complex thinkers who form a communion of saints.
But mostly I love people. My spiritual practice is to hold space for the celebration and sorrow of people’s lives. I love the pitch of human laughter and the varying temperatures of palms pressed into mine. I love textures of skin, the complications of long relationships, the tone of voices woven together in song, the tracks of tears on skin.
