Hello, this is my new blog. Welcome. I would LOVE IT if you read it and leave comments. Feedback and interaction is the whole point of posting it rather than just keeping a private journal. I'm doing an "individual contract" this quarter for college (TESC). The primary objective of this blog is to report my work and findings for that contract. But this work means so much more to me than just college credit. I feel that I am in a new phase of my own "faith formation," and I'm working hard at investigating spiritual practice and issues of embodiment.

 The name of the contract is "Spiritual Practice in the 21st Century - Public and Private." I have committed to doing some research and reading about spiritual practices, and I have committed to keeping regular daily spiritual practices, including trying new things. I should give a little bit of background. I have been studying religions and spiritual practice for a few years now. I started reading important ancient spiritual texts about 10 years ago, and I started studying religion at college about 2 years ago. I have read Buddhist scripture, Hindu scripture, Daoist scripture, Confucian scripture, most of the Hebrew bible and the New Testament, and various other ancient sacred texts and wisdom literature. I focused on Judaism and Islam for the first two quarters at college. The next two quarters I focused on communities of faith. Last quarter and this quarter I am especially engaged with Christianity, although I am considering any and all spiritual practices, Christian or otherwise.

 Here are the things I'm doing for reading and research:

 1) I am participating in a Faith Formation group at an open, affirming Christian church that I would describe as "progressive."

 2) I am participating in weekly Bible Study at the same church.

 3) I am helping to organize a social justice action with the same church.

 4) I am helping to record stories in a church oral history project, interviewing church members about their life and church experiences.

 5) I am visiting other places of worship or community spiritual practice, not all of them Christian.

 6) I will conduct an informal survey about individual spiritual practices, through a church and also on the internet.

 7) I am reading these books: "Beginner's Grace: Bringing Prayer to Life" by Kate Braestrup, The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life by Tony Jones, and Everyday Spiritual Practice: Simple Pathways for Enriching Your Life, edited by Scott W. Alexander.

 Here are the spiritual practices that have already been a part of my life prior to this contract:

 1) I sometimes pray spontaneous prayers that I improvise.

 2) I sometimes read prayers from books, or repeat rote prayers that I have memorized.

 3) I attend a Unitarian Universalist church and sometimes participate in Sunday Worship services, which includes something that I see as group prayer, although some others participating might object to the word "prayer." I also consider the singing, the liturgy, and listening to a sermon all to be spiritual practice.

 4) I study ancient texts - right now I'm reading the Bible, almost every day.

 5) I have a regular practice in which I attempt to regularly take a personal inventory, and when I'm wrong, promptly admit it. Sometimes this inventory is mental, but at other times I do it on paper or share it with someone I trust.

 6) I sometimes meditate.

 7) There are other practices in my life that I sometimes think of as spiritual practice - exercise, eating right, service to others, carrying a message of recovery from addiction, breathing deeply.

 I hope to write a blog post about this "other stuff" at some point in the future, and about the definition of spiritual practice. I really should stress that this is all about practice, rather than belief. Christianity is generally seen as a religion of Orthodoxy, which means "right belief." Judaism, in contrast, is generally seen as a religion of Orthopraxy, i.e. "right practice." But I believe that even though Christianity has creeds and frequently focuses on beliefs and the authority of the Bible text, there are also a lot of spiritual practices in the Christian tradition and other orthodox traditions. I am concentrating on learning how do DO spirituality, rather than merely on WHAT I believe.

This is what I want to commit to doing: I want to continue my practice of reading sacred text each day, but I want to spend more time contemplating the text and possibly writing about it. I want to pray every day, possibly on a fixed schedule. I want to meditate regularly. And as I study other practices, I want to experiment with new practices or new ways of doing the practices I've tried in the past. And I want to commit to reporting about all this on this blog. Watch this space, subscribe to the feed if you can, and please feel encouraged to give me feedback.