Christ’s whole Ministry was an exhibition, first in one way and then in another, of this mysterious truth. It is through all the circumstances of existence, inward and outward, not only those which we like to label spiritual, that we are pressed to our right position and given our supernatural food.
For a spiritual life is simply a life in which all that we do comes from the centre, where we are anchored in God: a life soaked through and through by a sense of His reality and claim, and self-given to the great movement of His will.
The Spiritual Life, by Evelyn Underhill
Because God is bringing “unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (Eph. 1:10), such that “ Christ is all, and is in all” (Col. 3:11), Underhill declares that this means that God “is the reality and controlling factor of every situation, religious or secular.”
So we can’t make hard and fast distinctions between
the sacred and the secular,
the spiritual life and the practical life.
Indeed, without reducing one to the other, we must affirm that “we are creatures of sense and spirit, and must live an amphibious life” in and between the two.
A new Attaching to God Learning Cohort is forming, focused on Quieting an Anxious and Avoidant Faith. Get the details here.
I love the image of amphibious life. Reminds me of one of the most thought-provoking quotes I’ve read in recent years from Balthasar: “The split between the senses and the spirit rests on sin.” I wrote about that briefly here: https://open.substack.com/pub/onceaweek/p/sensing-the-spiritual?r=16589c&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post