Classical Spiritual Exercises

Flesh. The sum of Christianity revolves around this little word. John said it best: “The Word became flesh (John 1:14).

Or to put it another way, God walked a mile not only in our shoes, but also in our feet—in our ankles, shinbones, kneecaps, and hip joints. At the core of the Christian faith is the Word that became skin and bones and blood. Prayer is a celebration of the incarnation. Because humans do not pray in the abstract—in the absence of a body or context— prayer becomes an embodied activity in which Christians pray in the flesh to Christ in the flesh. For this reason, prayer can take many physical forms. Protestants bow their heads for prayer. The Orthodox and Catholics bow their bodies for prayer. In Ghana, Africa, the Asante tribe kicks their prayers to God. “Yey boe m pie ey,” as they say—“let us kick prayer.”

Kate Campbell is a spiritual writer who draws on deep Southern roots. Born in New Orleans in the 1960s, Campbell is a songwriter whose music illustrates the power of her Baptist upbringing. Her father was a pastor, and she still loves and reflects much of the beauty of her heritage. Yet she also writes in the context of the conflict between Southern generations in a profoundly moving way. Kate Campbell is drawing on spiritual, cultural, and historical memory. She is taking a chance that memory might be the way to speak to every soul.

Campbell’s debut album, Songs From the Levee, was released in 1994, and she has released more than 10 albums of music that ranges from Southern folk to country to Delta blues to gospel and back again. She has collaborated with artists of deep faith, such as songwriter Pierce Pettis, whose iconic lyrics have spoken to thousands of believers for decades. Her distinctive style and willingness to approach issues of race, inequality, spirituality, and tradition blend to produce music that comes out of contemplation but leads into movement for change.

Campbell has been influenced by the South in many ways. For example, take the Southern literary tradition and Campbell’s fondness for authors such as Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty. Then there’s her Southern Baptist heritage with its strong biblical formation and the importance of hymn singing. Another major factor in her music came from growing up in the midst of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Out of her Southern past, Campbell has addressed racial tensions head on throughout her recording career. “These issues with race are things I feel strongly about,” Campbell explains. “I keep writing about them as a way to reflect upon the past and to hopefully dialogue toward a better future.”

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How does a song become a prayer? Perhaps not every song can lead us into prayer or deep reflection, but some do. One way this may happen is if we practice a kind of lectio divina when we listen.

Lectio divina—it’s a Latin expression—means holy or sacred reading. It describes an ancient discipline in the prayer life, especially practiced by Benedictine contemplatives. Usually the text chosen for prayer is not a hymn or song, but Scripture, often the Psalms. Of course the Psalms themselves are actually songs, originally meant to be chanted or sung.

When I interviewed the singer-songwriter Kate Campbell, I began to muse on how her song “In My Mother’s House” had affected me. Was this profound experience of memory and reflection somehow a clue to a deeper experience of God?

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Often in my talks and lectures about Christian life I mention the example of William Wilberforce, who became the instrument for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire because of his passionate faith. William Wilberforce spent 18 years of his life regularly introducing anti-slavery bills in Parliament, bills that were regularly and repeatedly dismissed. Colleagues often mocked him; however, each bill he introduced represented another acknowledgment that slavery is an unacceptable way to treat other human beings. These “small victories” of perseverance in the face of enormous opposition ultimately contributed to ending the trade in slaves throughout the British Empire. Wilberforce changed the landscape of his generation and set thousands of men, women, and children free to live according to the way God saw them instead of how they were defined by society.

Wilberforce’s belief in a God who was so much bigger and greater than himself enabled him to see that small, tenacious acts could and would ultimately lead to victory. Facing a society that seemed to be arrayed implacably against the rights of those who were enslaved, Wilberforce nevertheless chose to fight for what was right. Instead of abandoning hope at insurmountable odds, he chose to put his faith in God and let his Creator determine what the impact of his thousands of small choices would be. We in the 21st century can learn from his example.

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Every moment and every event of our lives on earth plants something in our souls. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in our minds and wills. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because we are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love.

—Thomas Merton[i]

While waiting in line to pay for my wife’s birthday gift, I spied something called “Lavender in a Bag.” Liz loves lavender, so I had to get it. The directions were simple: “Empty the seed pouch into the soil bag, and add water.”

Upon seeing Liz’s joy over the brown bag, our two-and-a-half-year-old son, Tyler, was confused. “What is it, a bag of dirt?” he asked.

We thought about it for a minute. “Well, yes and no.”

“What do you mean?” he pressed.

“The seeds and dirt in this bag represent how everything in the whole world works.”

His big green eyes lit up.

“Just like you, these seeds need food and love and care. If we put them in the soil and water them, over time a plant will grow. Eventually the plant will sprout pretty flowers that smell nice.”

“I like flowers,” he said before peppering us with more questions.

When he’d exhausted our knowledge of the natural world, we explained that each day he could peek inside the bag to see what was happening.

For the first week, Tyler checked the bag every day to find only dirt. He was disappointed, but he held out hope that something would happen.

And something did. When he peeked into the bag on the eighth day, he was thrilled to see small sprouts pushing their way through the soil. Each day thereafter, the lavender plants continued to grow, and so did Tyler’s enthusiasm.

Driving to work each morning after checking on the lavender plants with my son, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace and clarity. It was good to see my son so excited by nature and to be able to teach him. It was nice to remember my own wonder as a child experiencing things for the first time. And it was important to be reminded that at its base, life is as simple as seeds, soil, nurturing, and growth.

Then one day, Tyler asked, “Where did the seeds go?”

Trying to recover from pride in my son’s insightful question and its philosophical magnitude (out of the mouths of babes!), all I could think to say was, “Well, honey, they became what God intended them to be.”

The moment my son asked that question, I felt as if he’d just put into words the essence of my spiritual quest. What seeds has God sown all around me? What has become of them when they hit the soil of my life? Who does God intend for me to be? How might I be more open to transformation?

To hear an interview with author Jeremy Langford, please click here.

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Arthur Paul Boers is an associate professor of Pastoral Theology at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana. He is the author of several books on prayer. His most recent book is The Way Is Made by Walking: A Pilgrimage Along the Camino de Santiago (Baker Books, 2007). After reading it, Jeannette suggested that our readers might enjoy this conversation as much as she knew she would.

Jeannette Bakke: Arthur, in The Way Is Made by Walking, you describe walking 500 miles “to go to church.” What made you decide to undertake the ancient pilgrimage to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, Spain?

APB: In 2000, I visited Taizé, Iona, and the Northumbrian Community. As I traveled, I read about pilgrimages and about the Camino de Santiago. It was the third most important pilgrimage route in medieval times, and I learned that it was becoming popular again. After I came home, I found out that somebody I know had walked it, and I read his book. I wondered, “Why would anybody do that?”

Then I read a newspaper article about middle-aged women walking the 500-mile-long Bruce Trail in Ontario. I’d lived most of my life near this trail and decided to walk on it, a day here and there as I was able. I soon discovered it was reorienting me. I was seeing things differently—time moved more slowly when I walked. Days would stretch out. The scenery surprised me. I was stunned by how beautiful it was. Then I noticed that what happened to me was very similar to what happens when I go on retreat. As I walked, I started to recognize where life was off balance. I was reminded of my priorities and made resolutions to live according to them. I became convinced that long-distance walking was a spiritual discipline. Remembering the Christian tradition of pilgrimages, I quickly decided to go to Santiago. And within a couple of years, I did.

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The rite of baptism is a snapshot of the transformation that God seeks to work in us throughout the rest of our Christian lives. In the Christian churches, the rite of baptism is both a rite of entry and an instrument of transformation. But because we are taught that baptism is a one-time act, we may not know how to use this rite fully as the formational help it is intended to be.

I’d like to suggest some ways we can experience our baptism again, intentionally, on a daily basis. As Martin Luther observed, our baptism—however long ago the event—offers “a garment which the disciple is to put on every day, each day putting the old person to death a little more and nurturing the new person toward maturity.”[1] By holding our own baptism regularly before our eyes, by returning again and again to its implications for our lives, we become more fully each day the new person who came to birth by water and the Spirit.

In the words of Michael Green, “the whole of the Christian life in time and in eternity is, in a sense, encapsulated in baptism. The Christian life is a baptismal life, and it is all about dying and rising with Christ, in this world and hereafter.”[2] The rite of baptism initiates us into this baptismal life. It sets out the contours of a transformational process that we are intentionally to engage each day.

In my own spiritual journey, both Scripture and the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer have been equally formative for my understanding of the baptismal life. Scripture provides the primary images and expresses the essential significance of baptism; the liturgy (itself infused with Scripture and sound spiritual counsel) offers a means by which people can grab hold of that significance, begin to live it out, and return to in order to find help for the ongoing journey.

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[2] Michael Green, Baptism. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1987, 50.

Elijah is a stirring figure. His name, which means “Yahweh is my God,” says much about his character. Some of us, like Eugene Peterson, were influenced by Elijah from childhood and youth. Others discovered him later. Either way, he has something vital to give to us.

Elijah teaches us about the undivided heart. He is all about being God’s person, God’s servant, completely obedient to him. This single-minded character is the governing quality of Elijah’s life, and it should be ours as well.

In his book The Jesus Way, one thing that drives Peterson’s discussion of Elijah has to do with worship. Worship, it seems, is one of the ways we may lose focus in our service to God. Distracted by pomp and circumstances, we fall in with false expectations of worship. We think large congregations are more impressive than small ones. We think renowned preachers are more important than simple ones. We plan our worship to impress others and to impress God. Most of all, we fall into ways of manipulating God. We judge the worth of our worship by what we “get from God” rather than how we give ourselves to God. Yes, this is a problem today, but it was also a problem in Elijah’s time. We want to take God captive, to put him in service to our needs and wants, when in fact it should be the other way around. We should be completely surrendered to God, completely attentive to him. That is Elijah’s message. That is the Elijah way.

“You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable
seed, through the living and enduring word of God.”
1 Peter 1: 23, NRSV

“Anyone wishing to save humanity today must first of all save the word.”
Jacque Ellul

At the beginning of time the debar Yahweh, the Word of the Lord, brought the universe crashing into existence. God said, “Let there be light,” and the Big Bang occurred. This ever-living, ever-speaking, ever-creating Word of God is “quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thought and intents of the heart.” As Dallas Willard has put it, God is “our communicating Cosmos.”

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