Illuminated Life

This summer has been full of crossover moments where the seemingly mundane have become sacred to me. I've been using Joan Chittister's Illuminated Life as a resource and frame for weekly spiritual practice. Just in case that sounds too churchy or too pious, please know that her goal is to support us where we are as a people fully engaged with a very demanding and complex world. She believes that to lead a spiritual life is not to withdraw or escape (no cloistering here), but to live a full life. Reading Chittister has given my soul a jolt!

Souls die from lack of reflection. Responsibilities dog us and tell us we're too involved with the "real" world to be concerned about the spiritual questions. But it is always spiritual questions that make the difference in the way we go about our public responsibilities. Marriage, business, children, professions have all been defined in ways that keep contemplation, but no one needs contemplation more than the harried mother, the irritable father, the ambitious executive, the striving professional, the poor woman, the sick man. Then, in those situations, we need reflection, understanding, meaning, peace of soul more than ever.

Religion is about rituals and morals and systems, all of them good but all of them incomplete. Spirituality is about coming to consciousness of the sacred in the secular. It is in that consciousness that perspective comes, that peace comes. It is in that consciousness that a person comes to wholeness.