Practice

“Spiritual practice is like a relationship. We fall in love and then find out that loving is harder than falling. We get to the point of realizing that we’re stuck with a regular old human being instead of the god or goddess we thought we were getting, and we sometimes want to rethink our decision. At this point it can be helpful to remind ourselves: this is what I wanted. I wanted to love and be loved. This is a good, decent, human, human being. This is what it means to be a human loving a human. It’s not easy and it’s worth it. I’m probably not going to find anyone better (over the long haul) so I might as well be where I am and do what I’m doing.

“The same is true with meditation.”

I laughed out loud as I read this passage on page 40 and 41 of Cheri Huber's book, “Nothing Happens Next: Responses to Questions About Meditation.”

I wanted to take my mind off my unsettled heart by getting closer to God through meditation and “Nothing Happens Next” leaped out at me on my bookshelf. I figured that a book with that title might help me to stop craving Ms. Right and start again receiving the love that's all around me.

The point of my spiritual practice isn’t to bring about what I don’t have in my life but to accept, love and be grateful for what I already have. That’s why the book’s title appealed to me.

So I find it hilariously ironic that Cheri’s analogy of spiritual practice being like a romantic relationship blew me out of my funk about not having a girlfriend and rejoined me to my spiritual practice with a lighter heart.

I’ve been mad at God for a couple of weeks now because I’m not working on a romantic relationship with another. I think I’m ready. I’ve even had specific women in mind. I was so frustrated this weekend that I wanted to chuck my spiritual practice. I wanted to give up. "To hell with it!" was my attitude.

Cheri's metaphor helped me see that my two year daily spiritual practice IS a successful relationship and no matter how I am feeling at any given moment, I'm not going to give that up.

My practice contains many of the elements necessary for a successful romantic relationship: daily commitment, honesty, mutuality, sharing, individual work, work in pairs and work in communion with others, responsibility, friendship, patience, listening, giving, receiving, being there, placing principles above personalities, loving.

Wow! I’ve been doing this for two years now and each one of my existing relationships has improved and new relationships have emerged.

Realizing that I’ve been working a really good daily program of spiritual recovery gives me hope that when I do have another romantic relationship I’ll have this successful experience to draw upon and many more tools to use.

Love wants what love has. There's a lot in my life that I do love, including my spiritual practice and my developing relationship with God.

Thank you for the reminder, Cheri.