Ah, svithing. Invented by an old internet acquaintance, it’s like tithing, but instead of dedicating a tenth of your goods to God, offering a seventh of your weekly writing. Lent feels like an appropriate time to revive the svithe, don’t you think?
Tragically, though, I’m very much out of practice. Not only have I not tried writing a coherent essay on faith in ages, I worry I’ve lost my ability even to outline a decent Sunday School lesson. This may get rambly.
(Confession: teaching the Gospel Doctrine class in my congregation is my absolute favorite calling. I’ve held it twice, and both times I was released shortly before we got to the Old Testament curriculum. If we keep following the current pattern, next year will be OT. I’m putting into the universe now that I would like that calling again by January, please and thank you.)
The concept of the svithe reminds me that, like Lent, there are so many spiritual practices Mormons* don’t even acknowledge, let alone observe. We don’t do Easter well. (This year we’ll barely do Easter at all, since it falls on the same day as General Conference. Last year was the same.) We do Advent all wrong. We talk about “meditating on the scriptures” but I have yet to be instructed in a church setting how exactly to do that. I always just assumed it means you think about them real hard. Which isn’t necessarily helpful.
Things like lectio divina or contemplative prayer or sacred imagination or pilgrimage or or or… Mormons all know we’re supposed to “liken the scriptures unto ourselves” but do we ever really imagine ourselves into them? I mean, I guess we sort of go on pilgrimages to temples or church history sites or even something like girls camp. Missionaries arguably practice a form of monasticism. And we are very good at almsgiving and participating in our own sacraments.
Still, there’s a lot we don’t try.
Not everyone experiences the divine in the same way, and not everyone learns the same way. Diversifying our approach could be really helpful in deepening our collective faith. Plus it would save us from reinventing the wheel all the time. Early saints found so many ways to commune with God; what if we simply followed their example?
When we start “church history” in the 1800’s, we’re cutting ourselves off from the long and rich heritage of Christians who came before us. Beyond that is an even longer tradition of Jewish study of the Torah. There’s so much good stuff in the Talmud and Midrash! Just the art of questioning and debating finer points of scripture would, in my opinion, do wonders for our current tendency to read and interpret the same passages the exact same way every single time.
(And don’t even get me started on opening a Christian faith up to non-Abrahamic practices. Zen Buddhism, anyone? There’s SO MUCH THERE.)
It’s been eleven months since I attended a “normal” sabbath service. We watch sacrament meeting on Zoom every Sunday, and we have the sacrament as a family every week around the dinner table. The change of routine has only heightened my holy envy of other traditions. I miss my rituals and rhythms. I also crave more than what they can offer. I’m trying to teach myself some of these other spiritual disciplines to help fill the void…but I wish I didn’t feel like I was fumbling in the dark.
What if we practiced studying in new old ways together? What if we learned from Francis, Julian, Ignatius, Therese, Augustine, Origen, Hildegard, and others alongside our modern prophets? What if we actually acted like a restoration of Christ’s ancient church by connecting to some of those ancient ideas and practices?
I don’t want to be Orthodox or Catholic or even Jewish because I cannot give up the Book of Mormon. There aren’t many things I’m willing to be wrong about, but that is one. And yet…my faith has been strengthened more by listening to podcasts from other Christian perspectives, flipping through my Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, and flora leggia-ing my way through Psalms than most of the practices offered within Mormondom.
I know I’m not a traditional Mormon. That’s more obvious than ever these days. I also know I’m not alone in trying to cobble together a faith practice that works for me within a broader, prescribed tradition. It’s weird, sometimes, but if you’re like me, there’s not really another option, so it’s worth the effort.
*Calm down, I know “Mormon” is taboo these days. It’s easier to type than COJCOLDS and gets my point across just fine.
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