Everyday Spiritual Practice: Simple Pathways for Enriching Your Life

by Scott W. Alexander (Editor)

Have you wondered how to integrate your heartfelt beliefs into your life? In this thoughtful collection a wide range of contributors describe the small everyday practices that bring meaning to their lives.

What shapes your efforts into an everyday spiritual practice is your commitment to making the activity a regular and significant part of your life. Forty inspiring contributors share their personal, daily spiritual practices—from meditation and prayer, to recycling and vegetarianism, to quilting and art. This collection suggests a wide variety of ways in which you can spiritually examine, shape and care for your life, to achieve wholeness and happiness.

Genres: Spirituality, Religion, Nonfiction, Paganism, Prayer

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 1999

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.


Rev. Alexander is the editor or author of five books. He wrote The Relational Pulpit: Closing the Gap Between Pulpit and Pew, and edited four popular Unitarian Universalist volumes: The Welcoming Congregation: Resources for Affirming Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Persons; AIDS and Your Religious Community: A hands-on Guide to Local Programming; Salted With Fire: Unitarian Universalist Strategies for Sharing Faith and Growing Congregations; and Everyday Spiritual Practice: Simple Pathways for Enriching Your Life.

Reviews

[Adele · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like most anthologies by multiple authors, this was uneven. There were a few essays that I found thought-provoking and inspiring, and a few others that were interesting and fun to read even though the spiritual practice described was not a good fit for me. Then there were a few that I found irritating for one reason or another. The majority of the essays were just okay - forgettable and tending to kind of blur together. This was not an especially enjoyable read overall, but it did serve the purpose for which I was reading it.

[Andria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really nice collection from multiple writers and multiple perspectives on how they have fostered spirituality in their own lives. I liked seeing other people's ideas on what spirituality is to them and how they have been able to grow in their lives through meditation, art, family, charity, and a wide range of other methods. The writing is mainly from a Unitarian universalist perspective but I think readers from many religions backgrounds would be able to connect with this book.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

One Sunday morning while I was attending the church, a student minister came to the pulpit to give a sermon on finding spiritual practice in the mundane moments of our days. She quoted several passages from Everyday Spiritual Practice that really resonated with me. Soon afterwards, I bought a copy of the book and I’m very glad I did.

This is a wonderful book, which I’ve read over the past several weeks, taking slow sips from it every morning before my daily meditation practice. It’s a book to be read in small doses. The book has 37 short chapters written by various authors, primarily Unitarian ministers, and is divided into six sections: “The Basics,” “Engaging the Mind,” “Engaging the Body,” “Engaging the Heart,” “Engaging the Will,” and “Engaging the Soul.”

Each chapter provides a thoughtful discussion about a common aspect of daily life or a practice that we can embrace in daily life that can help us to become more present, in touch with ourselves and our spiritual nature. For example, the chapter on “Adversity” explains how welcoming difficult experiences can enhance our spiritual journey by helping us to accept the nature of being human and make way for new beginnings.

There are also discussions on using gardening, art, and cooking as ways to find contemplative moments in daily living, as well as doing the same with yoga and martial arts.

Writings concerning “The Middle Way” I found very thought provoking. As the author explains, living a life that avoids both extreme abstention and indulgence in any aspect of life, whether it be in eating or exercising or working, takes diligence. I also found the chapters on “Mindfulness,” “Sacred Reading,” and “Prayer,” also very valuable.

This is a book that I will dip into again and again to help cultivate my spiritual practice.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Think of this book as a sampler platter of spiritual practices. While each activity described is part of somebody's spiritual life, some will be more familiar to the reader than others. For example, I'm guessing most people reading this book won't be surprised to find chapters on prayer, sacred reading, or meditation, but the chapters on marriage, quilting, and recycling may be unexpected. And somehow I doubt taking up yoga or a martial art would be as "simple" as the subtitle suggests!

I like the range of activities covered in this book. but this really is a sampler platter: to incorporate any one of most of these activities into your own spiritual practice, you're going to have to do more research elsewhere. And as is probably inevitable in a book with this many contributors, some chapters are more engaging than others. Still, it's a good introductory guide to practices both on and off the beaten path.

[Mitch Dubeau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyday spiritual practice is a collection of essays written by universal unitarians on how they perform spirituality in their everyday life. Before reading this, I knew quite little about universal Unitarianism other than the basics of unitarianism was similar to my own personal spiritual beliefs (that being a weird blend of perennialism and panthiesm). The things the authors use to focus on the spiritual practice range incredibly from quilting to cooking to eating to meditating to walking. The common theme is using these things that are already part of our daily life in order to connect us to the world around us, our community, and to the divine. No matter what your beliefs are, no matter what model of divinity you use, there are simple ways you can connect to the divine that is already part of your life. Spirituality does not need to be a massive labor, if you have time to meditate for several hours a day then good for you, but unfortunately I have responsibilities and a family to tend to so this book is absurdly helpful. 8 out of 10.

[Taquiena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a broad range of spiritual practices that engage mind, body, and creativity. It acknowledges challenges that interfere with more engaging daily, including stage of life and daily responsibilities of work, family, partners, and other relationships. It goes beyond meditation and spiritual traditions to creativity, gardening, art, and cooking. What’s missing for me are considerations of how to adapt practices to cultural and economic concerns, admittedly difficult to do without risking misappropriation. However, practitioners may adap some practices such as building an altar, art, cooking, and those centered on creativity and relationships to fit their cultural contexts.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for my UU Wellspring group and found it very inspiring. It has a wide range of spiritual practices for the body, mind, heart, and soul, and discusses their implementation in a practical way. I'm looking forward to using this as a springboard toward new daily spiritual practices of my own.

[Pamela Huffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am reading this book for a spiritual development class through my church and it was excellent. So many brilliant ideas on how to integrate spiritual practices into your everyday life. There is something here for everyone. Highly recommend.

[Amorina Carlton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Spiritual Read

Great book for those looking for unique new ways to explore their spiritual side. There is definitely a practice for everyone hidden within the pages of this book!

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great food for thought. It is great for inspiring your own everyday spiritual practice. However, some of the entries are a bit dated at this point. I would love to see a new edition.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought provoking book. I read it slowly on purpose.

[Dogsandbooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely collection of short essays about various ways to find a mindfulness practice. Some known, some unexpected. Part of Wellspring 2020, ACS on Kindle.

[Glenn Pearson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was hugely helpful to me as an important step in exploring spirituality in Wellspring.

[Isabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than I thought for a religious book.

[Darryl Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part of my spiritual library. A great starting point for exploring spiritual practices. I have read it several times and I expect to reading many more times.

[Natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Am I the only one that was taking note on new ideas to strengthen one's own spirituality? I love how each idea was written by a different person. It manifests how that person practices, and their perceptions of it. There were new ideas, such as developing a spiritual maintenance schedule. There were also new ways of practicing what I am already doing, such as exercising. Although this book has a Unitarian Universalist focus, the writers reference other faiths, such as Christianity and Judaism. I feel that anyone who practices a faith, or does not practice a faith, can benefit from this reading.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of essays by Unitarian Universalist reference offers something for everyone. The authors write about their spiritual journeys and daily practices ranging from yoga to prayer to a vegetarian lifestyle. Highly recommended for anyone looking to start a spiritual practice. Some resources from this book will be shared at 8/2/09 fUUsion Circle Worship.

[Gabriella Gabriel Dillmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful!!! This book was so liberating! It makes you realize that a daily spiritual practice does not have to be some profound religious ritual. It is anything that makes you pause and with intention re-center yourself. It is anything that gives you peace. It is anything that lets you find calm and re-frame your thoughts.

[Matthew Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

All of the chapters have different authors with different perspectives on spiritual practices - very interesting and insightful. Even just reading it helped me be more reflective and mindful in my own daily routines that I guess really were spiritual to some extent, or at least became that way with a little extra thought and effort.

[Daniel Jackoway · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written essays. Some gave cool little pictures of a spiritual practice, but it didn't feel that helpful for finding spiritual practices to add to my life. Some of the essays were also a bit cliche and didn't teach me much.

If I could give 3.5 I would.

I'll admit I haven't read the whole thing, but I jumped around reading about half and reading the start of some others.

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did this as part of a spirituality book group and it was great. It's a great book to read alone or work through with a group.

[Sistercoyote]

So far, the essays in this text have been intriguing and not very heavy on the God-talk.

[Jeannine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, easy to read book. This is one I'll be returning to again and again.