what is happening in your spiritual life?

Famously bad at question text, I’ll let the title spi. I wonder if the ilx cognoscenti make time for this

Growing desire to serve people. Feel like I need to move churches in the near future for the sake of more personal"discipline." Yet to convince the wife though.

I'm super into meditation and woo dharma stuff (see meditation people roll call thread) but right now my spiritual path seems to mainly consist of regular old mental health stuff and trying to act like a decent human being towards myself and others.

I've had multiple meditation teachers tell me I should be more concerned with self-compassion than being able to focus on the breath. It took me a while to even understand what self-compassion is and what it feels like. I still can't conjure it on demand but I'm way better now at noticing when I'm doing the opposite.

I will say meditation helps along the way. When life seems really hard, sitting still for an hour can be really healing.

330 am bio break / prayer worship moment

Growing desire to serve people.

can relate! I wouldn't say serve people exactly but I am def feeling like I wanna be more supportive of my friends and others and make fewer demands on them... one effect I feel after quitting weed in the very long term is I'm more aware of how demanding I have sometimes been in the past and especially more aware of others' sensitivities and like all this stuff should have been obvious to me when I was 25 but I was quite out of touch with reality then, so it wasn't. Things are more lucid now but it's sorta crept up on me. I feel like I can be really gentle now in a way that I didn't know how to before, at least I hope so.

I've largely stopped listening to rock music which I love but I guess it can trigger some reactions in me that don't seem totally healthy.

Reading a couple of research papers by (redacted) in September has reaffirmed my view of the Zhouyi text as a kind of ideographic, polysemous symbol matrix. I've excelled at this approach to divination in the past but it's something I've struggled with since I got a smartphone in late 2020. the interpretive rigmarole of it and internet brain are not a mix, so I'm committed to spending way less time on the internet.

I guess the thing I have to be careful of with divination is thinking too much and fueling introspection. It's always a struggle to be more present and think less. I think I've got better at catching myself going down that wormhole.

so I'm committed to spending way less time on the internet

i really struggle with this!

breaking habits is hard!

So urantia…almost finished

Growing desire to serve people. Feel like I need to move churches in the near future for the sake of more personal"discipline." Yet to convince the wife though.

― H.P, Saturday, April 27, 2024 8:54 PM (three weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

something you could elaborate on? as a lapsed catholic i've realized as much as i'll try... escaping some higher being may be a timeless challenge.

That challenge? I just decided to give in. It's just much easier (YMMV). Aesthetically, life is richer for it imo. Prayer, service, liturgy, confession, tradition: I find them to all be life-giving. Understand that's not the case for all... it's a matter of personal conviction. Yeah you gotta put up with some nonsense every now and then, but you've got to put up with nonsense wherever you land in life, it's just part of living is it not?

At the root of it all, it's philosophical conviction (unshaken since childhood!) coupled with family influence, cemented by positive lived experience

^

Re: moving churches. I'm a prot, was born prot, raised prot, but I'm disillusioned by prot theology and practice. Currently getting paid by the Catholic church to play piano for their liturgy once a month and.... yeah it's a long convo, but the orthodox Church and the Catholic church speak to me. Connection (however strenuous) to the apostles and 2000 years of church history + a concrete, spiritual practice to participate in daily? I want to pray the Heyschasm. I want to be part of a church calendar with its unified daily readings and remembrance of saints long gone. I want to have institutionalised confession. I want Lauds, Sext and Vespers.

As said, it's a long convo! Forgive me overshare

^

I have found a church community where I think I belong, but I am still discerning where I belong within that church community.

I spend a lot of time lately helping out with childcare, and it doesn't always fill my cup. A couple of weeks ago, I missed an excellent guest sermon on the matter of gender, because I was downstairs minding the little ones -- it almost felt like God's idea of a joke!

But last week, at our covenant ceremony to welcome new folks into our congregation, I heard a mom with two under-5s share her heartfelt gratitude for the way that our church has embraced her family, and that restored me. It's important for me to remember that the God I love is bigger than me, and serving others is the only path that consistently brings me nearer.

wow that’s excellent

xp (I didn't even really miss the sermon, because like all of em it was recorded and posted online. But I missed getting to sing, wahh!)

Looks like a wonderful church snowy.

To the extent possible I try to be or at least aspire to be a spiritual presence at the bar

lol whatever

Secular Buddhist who applies chaos magick principles in daily living

Example?

The ideal of “living a life of service” resonates with me but I am far away from it

https://i.imgur.com/FvJhHnm.png

Is meditation just prayer without God?

No, meditation is inward, not outward. You focus on the tangible

There are types of meditation like loving kindness where you direct love towards other people, and in some traditions you wish for good things for them (without expectation.) Similar.

Had an hour long conversation with my wife about God. “in a car with you for the next two hours” vibe

lol

There's Buddhist tonglen meditation where you breathe in the pain and suffering of others and breathe out the good things you wish for them. Pema Chodron (in particular) has written and spoken about it a lot. I don't meditate so this is really not my wheelhouse, of course
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x95ltQP8qQ