March 29-Jer. 31:31-4
is one of the lectionary readings. It has the famous line of God
inscribing the law (or teaching) on the human heart, so that no need
for teaching would even exist. What has been inscribed on your heart,
never to be erased? Are some virtues so ingrained that we don’t
have to teach them?

Monday-Calvin wrote
extensively on prayer, “the chief exercise of faith.” For
someone with such an elevated view of deity, it is a miracle that God
is willing to accommodate divinity to our fumbling limitations. When
it doubt, he pointed people to careful consideration of the Lord’s
Prayer as a model, and often the psalms, “the anatomy of every
part of the soul.” He saw these as examples of prayer for us to
structure our own prayers, as a fund of images for our own prayers. .

Tuesday-Spiritual
discipline has an odd sound to it; it vaguely sounds like
self-flagellation. The root of discipline is Latin for student, the
same root as disciple. We often learn well by doing, from moving to
the abstract to the practice of an idea. Take forgiveness. We all
know it is a vital part of the faith, but is practice is daunting. I
do think that the more we pursue the practice of forgiveness, the
deeper our insight into its powers.

Wednesday-Stress is
less made of danger and deprivation now and more about work and
worry. It can eat away at our living fully and well. It can suck the
life out of us. We can retreat to a place of serenity by careful
attention to our prayer life. Many psalms come out of a position of
distress. Alternately, find a passage that you find restful. I always
go back to Mark when Jesus tells the waves, “Peace, be still.”
Examine a stressor in your life and consider ways to combat it.

Thursday-Weavings is a
spirituality publication. In the first issue of this year, they have
a good article on the spiritual struggles of Mother Teresa. In her
spiritual journals, she describes a darkness. Saralyn is learning a
lot about mystic saints in school. The saints often had deep
spiritual turmoil. Part of her struggle may have been ‘the dark
night of the soul.” Some think it was a reflection of a world
for which god is indeed absent. God is both elusive and ineffable but
also as near as our next breath.

Friday-Being stuck is
frustrating, even infuriating. That applies to being in a snow bank,
in an endless task at work, or in a spiritual rut. We get caught in
the trap o f doing more of the same, only more insistently, and
wondering why we feel stuck. It’s been said that a rut is one
foot in the grave. We are made for life, new life, abundant life.
Life is too precious, too short, to allow ourselves spinning on the
same treadmill.

Saturday-In Listening
for God (vol. 1), Annie Dillard is in the tradition of Thoreau as a
close examiner of nature. She notices the tension of the order and
beauty of nature and its terrible, impersonal violence. One time as
she was walking in a field, the silence was overwhelming. It had real
force. “It gathered and struck me. It bashed me broadside.”
We may crave the presence of God, but whenit arrives, we shrink back,
as frightened children. We have a friend in Jesus, but the divine is
also always transcendent.