What experiences have most shaped your spiritual life for the better? 

What has sparked transformation? 

What’s moved you from head to heart, from abstract to concrete, from God-out-there to God-right-here?

As I reflect now on those questions, specific seasons and moments come to mind: 

• Hiking with my dad
• Listening to Liturgy, Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band
• Enjoying simple meals with safe friends
• Being held by my wife
• Hearing my songs come alive in the hands of skillful musicians
• Feeling the tangible presence of God at a Jason Upton concert
• Entering into Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son through Nouwen’s book

Everything in that list is sensory; much of it involves the arts. My internal world has been shaped significantly by my body experiencing beauty (and hardship, of course, which runs in between the lines of that list — but that’s for another newsletter). 

“A practical spirituality,” Arthur Roberts writes, ​“acknowledges that God is in the communications loop made possible by our senses.”

“Practical” may not be the first word that comes to mind when we think of the arts and engaging the senses. But ​“practical” means pertaining to practice. Hands-on. Experiential. And in that sense, both creating and taking in art is intensely practical. 

In an article called Artful Discipleship, Carolyn Arends shares four ways that the arts train us in the spiritual life. That’s a good warm up for Tuesday’s webinar where Carolyn, a gifted singer/songwriter and author herself, will be joined by fellow author-songwriter Andrew Peterson and poet Luci Shaw. They’ll be talking about how creativity can help us and the world in unsettled times. I hope you can join us.