The Heavenly Cadence

When it comes to developing liturgies for our bodies, ways to get us up out of the pit, to center around Life, and not Death, we tend to get blanket statements, generalizations. We tend to get a narrow path, abstract yet absolute. And then we compare when we don’t do it like others. We think that we’re not doing enough because we don’t pray a certain amount of hours a day, don’t read a certain amount of Bible chapters in a week, don’t fast enough, take time for solitude enough.

And that’s easy, because spiritual formation is often packaged and sold exploiting our insecurities, our not-enoughness. But that’s all wrong.

You and I know what we need to do: read your Bible, pray every day, and you’ll grow, grow, grow. But we don’t listen, and we don’t follow. We don’t listen to our bodies, that maybe we are a bit weaker than we imagined. That we need a shorter prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. That we need to start with a psalm, or a proverb, or a short gospel chapter. That we need to build up the strength, that we need to develop a liturgy of Life.

I should say that the narrow path here is not an allusion to Jesus’ teaching about “the road that leads to life” (Matthew 7:14), but a kind of constricted view of what makes up formation. Yes, Truth shapes us. Truth is part of what forms a full and robust liturgy. But we need more. We need Good and Beautiful liturgies; ways of being that speak to our whole self. How many of us have read a book, heard a sermon, listened to a podcast that laid a foundation for teaching our bodies with Beauty? With Goodness and virtue? Very few, is my guess. We settle for that which is prescriptible. But to be molded and shaped by the wild adventure of Beauty? To be reconstituted by the rigors of Goodness? That is a different game entirely.

You see, rhythms, liturgies, are invitations, not competitions. They are ways we summon our body, our self, into the Life to come.

Dear Lord, thank you for welcoming me onto your path, the path that leads to life, not only for eternity but for today. Amen.

Was this plan helpful? We adapted this plan from Room for Good Things to Run Wild: How Ordinary People Become Every Day Saintsby Josh Nadeau, creator of Sword and Pencil. Check it out for more.