One of the best things about teaching at the university level is the opportunity to experience so many new beginnings. This is probably true in other contexts, too, but I am most familiar with my own context. At the university we have semesters and each represents a beginning. When I first started teaching at college, we were on the quarter system, which meant three beginnings each year. And if you taught during the summer, that was at least one more beginning.
Beginnings offer the chance to think about how you want to proceed with what is to come. If it is a new course, you plan a syllabus. Essentially, the syllabus is a promise to students concerning what will happen over the course of fifteen weeks or so. There are books to read, discussions to engage and a chance for reflective learning. One of the things I learned from the very beginning of my teaching career was I would learn as much or more than the students. In fact, my parents thought I had opted for being a perennial student. They were correct! Today we simply call it “lifelong learning!”
One of the classes I like to teach focuses on spiritual disciplines. The idea of discipline has been around for a long time. Disciplines certainly are spiritual in nature. It is easy to come up with some of the classical spiritual disciplines---things like prayer, meditation, etc. But discipline is not only religious. Anyone who has ever played music or sports knows a thing or two about discipline. Discipline is typically embedded in some form of practice. No one gets better without practice---without the discipline of repeating performance.
There are other places of discipline in our lives, but often we don’t even think about the discipline inherent in our actions. For example, we are better off when we are disciplined in our eating habits. Part of the threat of obesity in our contemporary world stems from poor food habits. If we think about habits, we can conclude a habit is nothing more than discipline which has become routinized. Or of course, if there is a lack of discipline, we fall prey to bad habits. This happens with the intake of food and countless other ways.
Seldom would we give any thought to beginning a new discipline. An exception to this is when a student signs up for my spiritual disciplines class. In this case they know they are agreeing to practice spiritual disciplines for a semester. I offer a range of choices. No one has to do prayer if she does not want to do it. There are always surprises. In the beginning of the semester almost no one would think he would choose fasting. But by the end of the semester, it is typical for two-thirds of the students will have opted to do fasting for a period of time. The key is the students new understanding of the helpful role fasting can play in changing a bad habit. It might be related to food; often fasting is related to an unhealthy attachment to social media, phones, etc.
If you think about it more deeply, discipline is a way to extend a choice through some duration until it becomes a habit. For example, if you want a life of prayer, you have to pray the first time. But one time does not constitute a life of prayer. You have to pray again---and repeatedly until it becomes a habit. And if you do it habitually, then you probably have developed a life of prayer. Choice turns out to be a life-style.
The key is to learn to begin. But you also have to begin well. Too many of us begin things in ways that make continuing the activity quite unlikely. For example, if I am out of shape, but want to run a marathon, I need to be careful about how I begin. The temptation is to be too ambitious. A marathon is a big goal. And in our initial wave of enthusiasm, we try to run five miles the first time out. We nearly kill ourselves and maybe even hurt ourselves, which makes it unlikely we will go out again. In this case our choice is derailed! We fail and forsake our good desire.
I try to be sensitive to the various beginnings that happen in life. New beginnings come with birthdays, seasons in the weather, seasons in life and many more. To be spiritually growing, I try to pay attention to the new beginnings and attempt to begin well. What do I want to do with new opportunities? I look for ways to weave a spiritual aspect into my beginnings. It can be fairly simple. For example, we typically eat three meals a day. We could link a discipline of prayer with a meal.
I have found that my desire to live a spiritual life might be easier than we fear. I look for the ways I begin things. And I try to take advantage of the repeating things that I do---like eating three meals per day. If I begin things and repeat things, then the issue is how do I do this well? To do it well means I have found a way to link to spirituality.
Doubtlessly, the easiest place to begin is with each new day. Every day is a gift of beginnings. Seize the opportunity and begin well. That can lead directly to the spiritual.
Those of us who have read theology or, perhaps, those who are people of faith and are old enough might well recognize this title as a reminder of the late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Martin Buber. I remember reading Buber’s book, I and Thou , when I was in college in the 1960s. It was already a famous book by then. I am not sure I fully understood it, but that would not be the last time I read it. It has been a while since I looked at the book. Buber came up in a conversation with a friend who asked if I had seen the recent article by David Brooks? I had not seen it, but when I was told about it, I knew I would quickly locate and read that piece. I very much like what Brooks decides to write about and what he contributes to societal conversation. I wish more people read him and took him seriously. ...
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