We  marked the end of summer at our house by taking down the pool schedule from the refrigerator. It was the day after Labor Day. The pool was closed. Summer was over.

But I lingered a while in my bare feet in the kitchen resurrecting all the past summers of my life.

I grew up in Florida, back when the sun was still our friend, and as teenagers we spent three months lying on the beach in the hot, hot sun, trying to get as tanned as we could. Baby oil with iodine in it was our favorite concoction to slather over our bodies. The purpose of the torture was, of course, to attract THE BOYS. Does anyone remember the movie “Where the Boys Are”? That was my era.

Every week culminated in the Saturday Night Dance at Lake Park Ballroom. It wasn’t a very large or grand ballroom, but there was a huge mirror-covered globe hanging from the middle of the ceiling that reflected colored lights onto the walls as it turned in the darkened room. Saturday afternoon was devoted to picking out just the right spaghetti-strap dress that showed off your exquisite tan.

Saturday nights were make or break events in the continuing saga of teenage romance. Did he ask you to dance? Did he ask for your phone number? Did he (giggle, giggle in the girls’ huddle) hold your hand?

Sometimes he did, and all was right with the world as you dreamily planned out the rest of your life with your prince charming.  Sometimes he didn’t, and life ended. Your friends comforted you in the ladies room, then surrounded you as you wept your way to the car where your father was waiting to take you home.

It’s funny now; it was not funny then. Therapists make a lot of money from the scars of teenage years.

What we did not know as teenagers – how could we know? – was that those years were just one stop on our life’s journey. We could not forecast our lives as “old” people (in our twenties or thirties). We could not grasp the concept that each of life’s seasons – childhood, teenage years, young adulthood, middle age – offers take-aways for the next season, there to be ripened and reflected on and learned from.

And that, dear reader, is the purpose of this new magazine. The church calls us – every one of us — to holy lives, to deepening relationships with God our Creator, through Christ our Mediator, with the help of the Spirit, the Revealer.  That is excruciatingly difficult to do in the midst of living out our lives in whatever life-era we currently find ourselves. Our society has become frenetic in its busyness, its drive to accomplish and acquire.

Reflections calls us to stop. Stop and reflect. Stop and see where God is revealing Himself in our lives — in your life and my life. We hope the articles and stories and suggestions and thoughts in Reflections will assist you in that. That’s all; it’s a simple agenda.

We will pay particular attention to where we see God acting in our life together in South Central Texas, our ethos that so often reflects a blending of two traditions, two languages, two cultures.

You will see two issues of Reflections in 2010 and, we hope, quarterly issues eventually. Each issue will focus on a topic, this month “Finding hope in hard times.” You will also continue to see The Church News.

We invite your participation. We invite your stories and your comments and suggestions. We covet your prayers for God’s continual unveiling of how we can speak his word to his people.

May God bless us richly in each of our life’s journeys, and may we each take time to stop and reflect on those blessings.

By Marjorie George. 
George is the Communications Officer for The Episcopal Diocese of West Texas.

This article first appeared in the first editon of Reflections magazine, Fall 2009 issue. To read the entire Reflections issue, click here http://www.dwtx.org/index.php/prayer/Reflections_Online_Fall_2009

When I think of the words “Spirituality and Religion” I think of them as two sides of one coin.  And I believe that when we separate them we actually weaken our spirituality.

Bill Hybels, the pastor of Willow Creek Church, said that for many years when people told him they did not believe in God he tried to persuade them about the existence of God. But then it dawned on him one day to ask those people, “Tell me what this God you don’t believe in is like.”

He discovered that for many people their image of God was not the God he believed in either!

Almost 20 years ago, Dr. Robert Bellah,  a sociologist, did a sweeping analysis of religious life in America, “Habits of the Heart.” 

One of the striking things about the book was the number of people who treated their spirituality in a sort of grocery store way. They took a bit from this religious tradition and bit from that.  When asking one of the people interviewed what her religion was, she finally came up with “Nancyism.” Her name was Nancy.

I must confess that I am deeply attracted to “Supermarket Spirituality.”   I am an American, and in the 21st century that means that I have “mega-choices.”  I have multiple options for cars, groceries, games, movies, sports, media, clothing, cosmetics, medicines, travel, and on and on. 

And yet I am rooted in a church that has a long tradition of a particular understanding of the nature of who God is, and how to worship. I think of these phrases:

“You shall have no other God’s before me.”

“Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one.”

“I and the Father are one.”

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

I meet people who tell me they are “spiritual” but not “religious.” When I explore what that means, it usually means that they do not wish to submit themselves to any particular religious or faith tradition.

Yet, to be deeply spiritual, to connect to God in a way that is transformational, not just sentimental, requires religion.

I have a friend who takes prayer very seriously. He is so serious he devotes a room in his house that is only to be used for prayer. He attends worship at least once a week. His spiritual life is deep because he takes the religious part seriously. He is a devout Muslim.

I have another friend with whom I have celebrated several important religious events: a bar mitzvah, an anniversary, and others. Each time I go to the synagogue I am struck by a sense of coming home. It is clear to me that my Christianity is deeply rooted in Jesus’ Judaism.

And it is clear to me that Jesus’ disciples knew that the disciplines of worship, prayer, praise, scripture, charity, were to be passed on with the additions of a new understanding of baptism and the Lord’s Passover supper.  They did not form a spirituality think tank, or a spiritual society, but a community rooted in a long, disciplined, and vibrant religiously disciplined way.

To grow spiritually, to become a person who is transformed by God, means being part of a disciplined life.  Attending worship, confessing my sins, receiving forgiveness, giving charitably, reading and digesting the Scriptures, feeding on the sacrament, praying and giving thanks are the disciplines that form me.

When I am confronted with the need to forgive, or the need to give sacrificially, or the need to be faithful in some area of life, it is that life shaped by my religious discipline that gives me the strength to follow through.

This shouldn’t surprise us. I am a bad golfer. Part of the reason I am a bad golfer is because I rarely practice. Now, with practice I will not become Tiger Woods, or Vijay Singh. But I will become a better player.

The analogy holds true for faith as well. To grow spiritually means to be religious about growing spiritually. To take spirituality seriously means to tend my spiritual life, and to do so in a regular disciplined manner.

For people like me, who want all the choices in the supermarket this is hard stuff. It means I must focus on a particular church community, particular times of worship, prayer, and sacrament. I must have a systematic form of reading the Bible, a disciplined practice of giving.

If I am disciplined in my religious life, I will not likely become the next Mother Teresa, or Saint Francis. But I will grow spiritually.

I own golf clubs. I just need to use them.

I have a rich and rewarding religious tradition. God give me the grace to exercise it. 

by the Rev. Paul Frey.
Frey is rector of Christ Episcopal Church, Laredo TX

This article first appeared in Reflections magazine, Fall 2009 issue. To read the entire magazine, click here: http://www.dwtx.org/index.php/prayer/Reflections_Online_Fall_2009

For more reflection:  
From Love’s Redeeming Work by Rowell, Stevenson, and Williams:
“A doctrine-free spirituality risks descending into sentimentality, to the level of what makes us feel generally better about ourselves or reminds us in a wholly unsystematic way of the mystery around us; it is a weak support for resistance to the political and cultural tyrannies of our day. Without the structures of both discipline and doctrine, ‘spirituality’ can be vacuous and indulgent.”

Do you agree that effective spirituality must include discipline and doctrine?