Blog as Spiritual Discipline

I talked to Liz Simmons, vicar at Episcopal Church of the Apostles today about blogging as a spiritual discipline. We decided to do an adult Sunday school class together on the topic since she has been blogging too.

It is the perfect topic for Lent, the tradition in which one is invited to journey inward in a variety of ways. Blogging has been a good path inward for me. It is now a habit, and a discipline yielding several kinds of experience:

1. Being present to the kinds of things that show up here- things I have noticed, emotional and physical experiences, and thoughts about them.

2. Practice at saying exactly what I mean to say. I try to avoid sloppy writing, which means I edit out a lot. I learn by doing this.

3. Sharing myself with others, but only with those who voluntarily partake.

4. Occasionally having to come up with some courage in order to hit the "publish" button because I know that there are those who do partake once in a while, and I am by no means free of my ego.

5. A record of thought patterns which allows me to be an observer of my own thoughts, similarly to meditation.

6. Keeping my vocabulary intact while the rest of me is not.

I'll probably think of more.

All of these things have made blogging a transformative spiritual discipline for me. I look forward to telling others about it.