Laser Tag and Spirituality

Tomorrow I’ll take my three grandsons to play laser tag…

I’ve been told I enjoy doing things like playing laser tag and Marco polo.  And I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy doing these kinds of activities, it’s just that I know myself well enough to know that I won’t actually realize that I enjoyed doing them until sometime after I’ve done them.

Somehow in the afterglow of a rousing game of “wrestle Pa Pa to the floor and tickle him till he can’t breathe,” it dawns on me; hey, that was a lot of fun!  I feel better now!

It’s a little bit hard to explain (or for that matter understand) but an activity that doesn’t appeal to any of my senses and doesn’t feel like fun somehow becomes fun afterward…typically after I take a nap.

You may be able to relate to the phenomenon I’m trying to describe.  You engage in some activity that possesses virtually no energetic appeal during the course of the event but then, inexplicably, sometime later (depending on how soon you get to take the nap) you say to yourself, that was really fun, and mean it.

And it’s not just physically demanding activities you do with your children or grandchildren.  It works for things like lifting weights or going to a museum.

I’m thinking there might be a lesson about spirituality here…

What if healthy spirituality (specifically, Christian spirituality) works like playing laser tag with my grandsons or spending thirty minutes on an elliptical machine or reading poetry?  What if, sometime after engaging in a spiritual discipline (sometimes quite a while afterwards) you say to yourself, hey that was good for me.  I can feel it!

The ancient tradition of practicing spiritual disciplines is based on this idea.  The church fathers and mothers, including people like Augustine, St. Francis and Teresa of Avila understood and taught that practicing spiritual disciplines has this same kind of after effect.  (For a good list and explanation of spiritual disciplines read Richard Foster’s classic work, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth.)

As we begin a new year you may want to seriously give this some thought.  A tool that I have found helpful is The Daily Office (“office” comes from the Latin “officium,” meaning “duty, service or function.”)  The Daily Office is a prescribed set of scripture readings and written prayers that you simply incorporate into your daily routine, kind of like exercise.

The process of practicing The Daily Office may not be thrilling.  It may even be boring.   But over time you find yourself saying hey, this is good for me.  I can feel it!