Liturgies of Life

Dear Friends,

There's a common refrain in the Episcopal Church that we show our beliefs through our worship. There's a lot of truth in that statement. And not just for Episcopalians, but for all kinds of Christians. You learn a lot about what's at the core of our life by looking at the prayers we pray, the hymns we sing, the sermons we give—by looking at our liturgy.

Liturgy, of course, doesn't just express what we believe. It also shapes us and forms us. Over the years, the words of worship are meant to slowly but surely reshape us like water flowing over rock into more faithful, loving, and hopeful people. We can see the way this works in the great saints, and maybe on our better days we can even recognize that transformation in the mirror.

But, the liturgy of the church—our life of prayer and worship—is not the only thing shaping us in that way. Every week, every day, we are consciously and unconsciously giving ourselves to other liturgies of life. Some are wonderful, even holy—a regular coffee with a friend, a weekly hike in the woods, a group of fans who gather on Saturdays to cheer for this or that team. These mundane liturgies have the possibility to expand our sense of God's presence in the world and in our lives.

There are also those other sorts of liturgies that work their way through us, poisoning us, making the world smaller and more bitter: the daily news cycle of outrage, shock, and breathless straining at some new detail, some new story that will finally prove the "other side" wrong, which can leave us angry and cynical; the liturgy of endlessly scrolling through the lives of other people, which can bring us to envy or a needless sense of shame; the liturgy of needing to be the best, of constant comparison, of busyness.

There are so many rituals to choose from. But some sort of practice, some liturgy, is going to form you.

Reject those liturgies that diminish your ability to see God's work in this world. Choose those practices that enlarge the world, that give you eyes full of wonder, that break your heart with love for others.

We are, at the end of the day, those things we habitually do. We are those liturgies we choose. Choose wisely.

God bless,

Fr. Quinn+