Past exercises
8/25/08: What sound do you associate with home? A late-summer cricket is singing in my lilac bushes right now--a sound that wraps the house with familiarity. Describe your sound, any memories it conjures, and explore how it grounds your spirit in a particular place.
8/18/08: Choose a small but significant memory from your childhood. Write it three times, first in present tense from your childhood point of view; second in a close past tense, recreating your childhood experience from an adult point of view; and third from a distant past tense, allowing your narrator self to reflect and interject about the childhood experience. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using different tenses?
8/11/08: Recall your freest, wildest moment of dancing. Take time to describe that memory in detail--your muscle movements, the sensation of air on your limbs, another person's touch, your breathing. Through your description, can you illustrate what was happening in your spirit at that moment?
8/4/08: Thanks to Susan in Rochester, MN, for this exercise: When has your imagination played a vital role in your spiritual growth? See if you can write this experience as a story, located in a specific time and place. Describe your imaginative work in as much detail as possible. What changed?
7/28/08: Community life--in a religious institution, in a neighborhood, in a workplace--is so hard! And yet our communities nurture our souls in extraordinary ways. This week I invite you to explore this paradox. Write about an occasion when you were simultaneously hurt and fed by community.
7/21/08: Write a summer memory from your childhood. Be sure to describe your physical being and your young relationship to the physical world.
7/14/08: I'm curious about how an active imagination feeds or impedes the spiritual life. Recall a dream, fantasy, or imaginative riff you've experienced in your life. Describe the scene, paying attention to both the exterior and interior worlds. Then reflect: Did this dip into the imagination impact your being? In what way? When and how do you see the results?
7/7/08: Well, the strawberries are just about done berrying and the tart cherries almost ready for picking...what an abundant season! Find a fruit or vegetable currently in season and take a bite. Pay close attention to all your sensations--feeling, smelling, tasting--and describe the experience as best you can. Then keep writing, wherever the writing takes you.
6/30/08: As we head into the week of July 4th, I'm thinking about the relationship between faith and patriotism. How does your spiritual life inform your feelings toward your country? Recall a specific instant--a moment serving your country, marching in a parade, pledging allegiance describe what happened in your spirit.
6/23/08: Choose a part of your body--a hand, your eyes, a scar on your left elbow; begin by describing it in detail. What stories are attached to this part of your body? In what way does this bit of flesh reveal your spirit?
6/16/08: To (belatedly) honor Father's Day, consider one attribute you share with your father. Observe this attribute in yourself in writing, and link this to a memory of your father.
6/9/08: After a weekend of heavy rains, the air feels washed and new--a baptism of sorts. When have you felt cleansed and renewed? What caused you to feel this way? Write that story.
6/2/08: Yesterday I helped a committee at church remove all the pews from our sanctuary and rip paneling off the communion rail--a terrifying, destructive act in our community's sacred space. Consider an experience of tearing down, ripping up, smashing, or destroying something of value. Write the physical details. What role does destruction play in your spiritual journey, or in your community's spiritual journey?
5/26/08: Silence is a central experience of many spiritual practices. Take a moment of quiet, paying close attention to the nuances of this particular silence. Then describe the "silence" in detail. What happens to your body? What do you hear? What internal events occur--thoughts, feelings?
5/19/08: This weekend I had a chance to walk for miles across an open prairie in southwest Minnesota. I was struck by how profoundly our connection (or disconnection) to the land affects our spiritual lives. Describe a moment of profound relationship to land, be it a planter hanging from an apartment window, a neighborhood park, or a grandparent's farm. How has the land linked you to the divine?
5/12/08: In honor of Mother's Day, consider one way your mother helped shape you. Can you write a specific scene showing how this happened?
5/5/08: Because we are human, we are full of contradictions. Choose a value you hold dearly that you regularly fail to act upon. Perhaps you value love of neighbor but never speak to the person next door. Perhaps you value unconditional love but have high expectations of your children. Begin by describing yourself in action, in a scene. Then use reflective writing to explore your inherent contradictions.
4/28/08: Strong emotions can open up secret passages into the past. The next time you're overtaken by a powerful feeling, ask yourself when else you have felt this way. Can you remember the first time? Write that story. Can you remember your most potent experience of this emotion? Write that story. It's also fruitful to journal about what spurred the feeling recently. How might these memories inform your understanding of this emotion today?
4/21/08: Raking leaves off of the garden yesterday, I uncovered a breathing brown lump--a toad. Poor thing wasn't yet ready to end his hibernation. It makes me wonder: when have I been uncovered before I was ready? And what were the consequences? How do we know when it's time to wake up? I invite you to write on an unasked-for awakening.
4/14/08: To write well, we must pay close attention to the world. But writing helps us pay attention. Consider an ordinary task you've already performed today--brushing your teeth, heating water for tea, feeding the cat. Describe it with attention to the layers of meaning within the task. What does it say about your values? About your relationship to the bigger world? About hope or love or endurance?
4/7/08: Articulate one belief you hold dear--a belief about how the world works, a belief about divinity, or a belief about yourself. Then identify some moment in your life when this belief played an active role. For instance, when did this belief take shape for you? When was it tested? When did you lean on this belief? Write that scene.
3/31/08: Write out in dialogue a significant conversation in your life. Then go back and rewrite it, adding body language. Revisit it a third time, adding the inner story--what was your emotional journey through this conversation? Note how the bare bones of a dialogue can evolve into a story.
3/23/08: Attend to the first signs of spring. As we thaw out, what makes your heart quicken--robin-song? a hint of green? the angle of the sun? Take time to describe one slight change in the season and its impact on your being.
3/17/08: Remember a favorite food from your childhood. Describe it--and the circumstances of eating it--in as much detail as possible. In what ways did this food nourish you?
3/10/08: Describe an encounter with a creature in the wild. What happened in that brief (or prolonged) moment? What changed in you because of it?
3/1/08: Consider an object from your childhood that you felt was holy. It might be ordinary, like a teddy bear or picture on a wall, or it might be connected to your religion of origin. Begin by describing the object. Allow yourself to digress: What else do you remember? How did you interact with this object? What did it mean to you?
Writing Exercise 1:
Write a metaphor describing your spiritual journey. Perhaps it is like peeling the layers of an onion, or walking the labyrinth, or wearing out a pair of shoes. Linger with your metaphor, allowing it to teach you about your spiritual journey. Later, return to your metaphor for the spiritual journey. Using this same metaphor, apply it to your experience of writing. What does this metaphor have to teach you about the writing journey?
Writing Exercise 2:
Consider a simple memory that haunts you. Make two lists: What you know and what you don’t know about this memory. What interests you most from each list? Write a short paragraph reflecting on these two items.
Writing Exercise 3:
Create a list of names for the sacred, particularly those taught by your tradition. Then create a list of images of the sacred taken from your life. Note how the personal images create an emotional reaction alongside a visual picture, while the abstractions remain vague, heady concepts.
Writing Exercise 4:
Childhood epiphanies are a great place to start because the intervening years give us perspective. Recall an epiphanal moment from your childhood. Perhaps you realized something was beautiful, or you came into a sudden consciousness (I remember the first time I realized that I was thinking!), or you learned some terrible truth (about death, about Santa Claus, about your family). Perhaps you had a religious awakening. Write that story.
Writing Exercise 5:
Choose a small part of your home (a corner, a window, a wall) and describe it in detail. What fills this space? How? What are your emotional responses to it? After creating a clear picture and reflecting on your relationship to the space, ask yourself, “How does this external space reflect my internal space?”