A few weeks ago, Rabbi Rachel Gartner, SCS Senior Advisor for Pastoral Care, invited us into the summer months with a spiritual challenge for how we can spend this season of the year. Rabbi invited all of us to ponder the deeper significance of the summer by cooperating with the season’s unique rhythms and opportunities for rest. She wrote: “Now, as the summer arrives, and time opens and slows, perhaps you too might slow down and open up. We wonder whether returning to some of these ideas might help you do so. We humbly and prayerfully hope they might.” Rabbi Rachel’s post ended with some reflective questions that might help us take advantage of the summer’s opportunities for uniquely long, loving, looks at the real.
In this week’s post, I would like to revisit some older posts on the Mission in Motion blog that might help you put Rabbi’s invitation into spiritual practices that meet your desires. I would like to focus on three past posts and their three distinctive practices as a set of suggestions for how to make your own long, loving, look at the real come to life in the next few months. I draw your attention to these three suggestions: “This Summer: Learning to Pray,” “This Summer: Read Slowly, Spiritually,” and “Exploring Nature: A Healthy (and Holy) Response to Zoom Fatigue.”
Learning to Pray: Inspired by the recent book of the Jesuit Fr. James Martin, S.J., Learning to Pray: A Guide for Everyone, I encourage you to commit to some set of interior prayer practices. Fr. Martin’s book recognizes and affirms a diversity of spirituality and religious understandings of prayer that can all offer insights into this interior practice. One particular suggestion is to try out the Ignatian Examen, a method of daily self-examination and reflection that can help a person live out their deeper calling. If you’re interested in the Examen, consider signing up for the SCS Daily Digital Meditations which take place Monday-Friday at 12 p.m. ET. The final weekly meditation every Friday is reserved for an Examen.
Reading Spiritually: We often assume that spiritually significant texts are limited to the holiest books of religious traditions. And while texts like the New Testament, the Torah, the Quran, etc. carry special meaning, it is possible to read other texts in spiritually meaningful ways. I suggest that you find something to read this summer that enables you to read more with your heart than with your head. Read in ways that allow you to be moved and stirred by the words, facilitating potential transformation of your mind and heart.
Exploring Nature: One way to read the world is to read the natural environment that surrounds you. I invite you to take some time this summer to simply sit in awe and wonder of the natural world. Grow your awareness and attentiveness to the majesty of the world around us. This habit of attentiveness can both grow our gratitude for the gifts of nature and motivate us to protect it from the threats it faces.
I hope this manageable list of spiritual practices, inclusively presented in a way that can register across our diverse community, adds some depth to the rest and relaxation that summer often affords.