Spiritual Discipline

But I said spiritual discipline, not moral discipline. There is a difference.

And what I mean by spiritual discipline is this. It’s a method by which we can approach God. Not emulate God. Not imitate God. Not be like Jesus. Not be good.

And what better way to approach God than by telling the truth, to the best of one’s ability? What better way to approach God than by fitting the words one has been given exactly to what is, what has been, and what might be. To say the world with an immediacy, a verisimilitude, a concision, an incisiveness, an honesty, and a freshness that makes this articulated world impossible to ignore.

Getting the world right is the objective. Honoring God’s creation is the objective. Making a secondary linguistic creation that has illuminative power upon the first is the objective.

Why do this? Why go through the agony of this? And the joy of it? The great disappointment and difficulty of it? What’s supposed to happen? Why bother?

Because getting the world right. Making the world right. Saying the world right. Gets one involved with the mind of God. With the creative, active, seeking, loving mind of God.

It gets one involved with God’s creation, which is where he is. Where he creates and seeks and encourages and loves. So it gets us involved with his work and with understanding his work as he sustains and makes and remakes the world. And us. And all his creatures. Everything.

God’s own life and home. Our own lives and home. This. Right here. This and what this has been and what it might be. All of this. Together.