“So easily ‘spirituality’ becomes a cafeteria through which we walk making selections according to our taste an appetite… confinement turns into concentration, illusion transmutes into hope, death changes to resurrection.”
– Eugene Peterson

I’m a bit of a vagrant when it comes to the work of discipleship.
I wander from tool to tactic to grow in my walk.
Some days its a chapter of a book early in the morning.
Other days a reading plan from Youversion.
And still others its simply burying my head in the busyness of the day ahead.

The reality is, as Peterson writes above, I often make spirituality about me.
Where will I connect the most?
What will feed me?
What are my favorite “dishes” to consume?

And so I trudge on, wandering the streets hoping that somewhere along the way something clicks and I can intangibly measure my walk with Christ in ways that show me stepping closer and closer to God.

Typically, this fails.

Spirituality is a rhythm.  A surrender of rights to the heart of God.  It is a place where we should become less about our tastes and more still in him.  It is a formation of our being, not a performance of our doing.

And this is so freaking hard to believe.

I am consumed with lists, projects, things to manage and people to call.
I am constantly about forward momentum.
I want to grow, solidify, and gain  in my own vocational world.
And Jesus says simply, “Quit it.”

Yesterday I watched a famous comedian depicting the human reliance on smartphones, and his own frustration with it.  He shared poignantly that we have lost the ability to sit with our hands in our lap in a way that truly makes us human.  I’m shaken and guilty of that, and it plays into my spirituality.

May we become the people of stillness, of rhythm, and of confinement, illusion, and death.  For these are the elements of true spirituality and rising hope.