Many thanks to the wonderful people who made our March 30 program on Writing as a Spiritual Practice such a rich experience! We spent the day talking about how all kinds of writing can be spiritual practice: fiction, essays, poetry, journaling, letters, blogging, and even ad copy.
A spiritual practice is something we do with the intention of coming closer to the divine. Anything, even washing dishes, can be spiritual practice—but writing is a particularly good one. (See “Why Writing is the Perfect Spiritual Practice.”)
HOW IT WORKS
I treated the writing of Chasing Grace: A Novel of Odd Redemption as a spiritual practice, and found that it worked a lot like meditation. The process boiled down to 5 steps:
- I wrote with the intention of practicing the presence of the divine, and writing in the Zone.
- Usually, mental chatter rose up to disturb that peace, and started barking orders at me: “Faster, faster! You should have gotten this done ten years ago!” “Nobody’s going to be interested in this. Who do you think you are?” When that happened, I just noted it with interest—realizing that it gave me a good window into how my mental chatter worked and what it was likely to scream at me all day, even when I wasn’t writing. I woke up to some of my “stuff” and learned more about where my potholes were, what attitudes I needed to adjust, and what old resentments or mental habits I needed to release.
- I gently let go of the chatter and re-focused, as in meditation—reminding myself that those thoughts were just the fearful ramblings of my mind, and not reality.
- If the Monkey Mind thoughts did not show up, I had a glorious experience of writing in the Zone! That reinforced the perks of practicing the presence, whether or not I was at the computer.
- Practicing the presence when I wrote helped me develop the habit of doing so more often over the course of the day.
CHOCOLATE!
Writing is like chocolate. Spiritual practice keeps us fit and feeling wonderful. Writing as a spiritual practice is like eating chocolate to stay slim and healthy. What’s not to like?