Sacred Space

What's on my mind now is something I rarely talk about anymore, because it's so complicated for me: faith. Faith is something I really struggle with, because I am a consummate skeptic. I'm also generally very empirical, a self-described "information sponge" who is always scanning the world around me for truth. But I also believe that there is as much a source of truth within us as there is in the world around us, perhaps even more if you think of the created environment that humans have made largely as an expression of the various inner worlds of people. I think that for the past few years I've been gradually suppressing and neglecting the inner sense of truth that I used to experience so deeply and vividly. And at the same time, I've gotten farther and farther from an "organized" religious practice. I'm uncomfortable with prescriptions of the right way to be and feel and act, because I have seen so many lovely ways of being and feeling and acting that seem to have never been accounted for properly in any institution or system of organized thought.

That's all rather abstract, I know. But it's on my mind because it's Lent, and at the same time it's a tough and uncertain time in my life in pretty much every arena (work, relationships, inner life). I decided yesterday that I need to spend part of each day quiet, to calm the constant info processing that I tend to do. In the course of trying to find something to feed my meditative time, I rediscovered Sacred Space, a contemplative prayer and study guide that a Jesuit group in Ireland publishes (http://sacredspace.ie/). It reminds me of how much I love these Irish Jesuits -- for the contemplative approach that guides a person to be receptive and open, to ask for meaning rather than prescribing meaning, and to allow an honest emotional response to God and scripture. This is the only approach to faith that has ever rung true to me, and it's funny because it's so hard for me to practice: "shut up, relax, listen".