Spiritual Life: Clearing Away the Poop

Everyone poops.  Most TV shows leave out characters doing mundane things like using the bathroom, cleaning their homes, because they want to suck you into a world that you want to escape to.  I watched a lot of Star Trek: the Next Generation, and I don't know if anyone poops or pees in the future.  Similarly, great works of spiritual writing and theology often leave out the very practical mundane reality of our existence like cleaning up a 6 months old baby's poopy cloth diaper, after she has started eating solids.  Maybe the early Church Fathers and Mothers did not have this problem, but they do talk about daily tasks in the monastic setting.  However, my community like the majority of us does not occur in an Christian monastic setting, Buddhist monastery, or in an Ashram.

My immediate community I wake up to everyday, the people I am sharing life together in a very intimate way, consist of my wife and daughter.  I never imagined while I was studying theology at Duke Divinity School, which for the most part was really academically focused, that my prayer life includes wiping my daughter's rear and spraying off her poopy cloth diapers.  What am I ranting about you ask?  Simply put, my spiritual life is here and now in my very reality.  I pray now, connect to God at this very moment as I write this blog, as I laugh with my daughter, and when I practice forgiveness.

I think God is with me even when I get angry or say a hurtful word to the very people I love, but in those moments I choose disconnection and separate from a loving God that holds me and others gently.  I can choose to reconnect, sometimes slowly and other times quickly by looking at my part and admitting where I was wrong.  If you know me, I rarely like to be wrong.  I am always trying to figure it out and talk my way into being right: a way of being that served me well before, but does not create a happy or healthy marriage.  Sometimes the most spiritual thing to do is hold my tongue and swallow my pride, and just shut up and listen.  It sounds simple, but really difficult to do in the moment when you are sleep deprived, and start taking everything personally.

I wonder if the Buddha or Jesus ever changed poopy diapers?  Jesus was not married, but surely he must have been around little babies.  The historical Buddha was married and had kids before he awakened, but he probably had servants who did all that stuff since he was a prince.  Most of us are not the Son of God or the awakened one, but like them we can embody love in the here and now, even at the most difficult moments.

I used to think I would become a spiritual person by becoming a monk, then  later by living in community at L'Arche.  What I am experiencing now is that God, which I prefer to call the Divine Prescence invites me into holy silence in moments of boisterous cries from my daughter, to the still quiet mornings when my wife is asleep upstairs, and I am holding our daughter, Winnie. close to my chest as she peacefully naps.  Like I said before, it's not all about cleaning poop, but my life includes the day to day stuff that needs to be done.  I can't always see the everyday stuff as spiritual. I don't always experience how sacred this very moment is, but sometimes my heart breaks open for just a little bit and I truly experience everything as a gift.  But if I am not careful, I collect resentments, fears and judgments that turn the very things and people in my life I am grateful for into burdens and hassle.  Sometimes, I need to clear away the "poop" within myself, metaphorically speaking, to be open to gratitude for my life as it is.  It's much easier to live life clear and free, so I can be grateful for now instead of living in the past or living in the future.