Spiritual life rhythms

Some friends loaned me their copy of the 1992 movie Thunderheart, starring Val Kilmer, Graham Greene and Sam Sheppard. Kilmer plays a tough undercover FBC agent assigned to a murder investigation/clean-up on a Sioux reservation in the Badlands of South Dakota. During his tenure, he discovers the murder is part of a cover-up of a federal negotiation for drilling rights on the reservation.

For some reason, I enjoy movies about Native Americans and their ancient ways. Not so much because of the mysticism and animism of the various religions, but because Native Americans understood and understand what living with the land really was all about. I think this is what God had in mind for Adam and Eve in Eden. I don't think God meant for us to use the earth without any thought to the consequences of our actions.

Graham Green's character in the movie encouraged Kilmer's agent (whose family tree included Sioux blood...all the way back to Wounded Knee) to "listen to the wind; listen to the water." Apart from the obvious reference to the pantheistic god system the ancient peoples held, the idea that we can experience creation with all five sense is intriguing.

We watch a sunset and think "Cool." And we can hear the wind in the trees. One can even smell rain approach in the air. You can touch the velvet nap of moss on tree trunks. And of course, there's the eating: fruits, nuts, vegetables, etc. [I do eat meat, too.]

We recently visited our home church in Connecticut (we still think of it as our home), and the pastor is working through a message series on the spiritual disciplines, what he's calling "spiritual life rhythms." I like the word rhythm instead of discipline. Discipline carries an obligatory connotation, but rhythm suggests the ebb and flow of life, of breathing. Our spiritual journey with Jesus should be alive and breathing, not dead, cataloged, labeled and indexed. [Doctrine is important, don't get me wrong, but it's not the end.]

Between this idea of spiritual rhythms and the Native Americans' understanding of living on earth and with God's creation (whether they acknowledged him), gives me a new way to think about my walk with Christ.