Swimming and I are only fair-weather friends. And to be fair… it isn’t swimming’s fault.
Many of you know that I’m an avid runner. If you head out to the boardwalk along the Mystic behind the Schrafft’s building on a weekday morning, in any weather and at any time of year, you’ll probably bump into me there.
Swimming gets about three weeks a year, when I’m a hundred yards from salt water that’s calm and warm, and that’s pretty much that. But when it’s swimming season for me, I’ll be out there every day.
This kind of exercise pattern has some strange effects. In a way, it’s not so different from prayer.
The first few days of swimming every day, I am elated. It’s new and refreshing and I’ve been looking forward to it for months.
The next few days, I’m sore. I go to bed with my arms and shoulders tired, and I wake up feeling stiff. The last thing I want to do is to go for a swim. (Ironically, the best way to loosen up the muscles and start feeling better… is to go for a swim!)
By the second week, I’m not sore every day, but I’m tired. Really tired, but in the good way—The way that says, “I used my muscles today,” not the way that says, “I didn’t sleep enough last night.” But still, tired, and the motivation begins to flag. The novelty has worn off, and it’s become a new routine. Maybe I swim a bit less, or take a day off because it’s cloudy. But I feel more or less okay.
By the third week, I’m back to normal, but different. I feel the same as I did a month ago. Not excited to be swimming, not elated. Not sore, and not exhausted. I’m just my baseline self. Except… There are muscles that I haven’t had all year, arm and shoulder muscles that don’t come from running or preaching or sitting on the couch, physical changes that I can actually feel. I am the same, but different.
Spiritual exercise sometimes works in much the same way.
Perhaps you begin to take on some new spiritual practice. You’re going to meditate for twenty minutes each day. You’re going to read the Bible three times a week. You’re going to write down five things you’re grateful for in a journal before bed each day.
Initially, you might be excited by the new adventure, elated by finally finding a way to become more grounded and more centered.
After a few days, the excitement wears off. It’s hard to sit in silence for so long. There’s weird stuff in that Bible on the shelf. Who’s really grateful for that many things each day? You’re sore!
And soon enough, you’re tired. What was once a new and exciting spiritual practice has become a routine. The Spirit feels less present. Your spirit is drained. You begin to skip a day, or a week, and then come back. You do your best to settle into a routine, but you no longer feel the deep spiritual satisfaction of the early days.
And yet you might find that you are changed. You have new spiritual strength, new muscles of calm or gratitude or love, that you did not have before. You may feel the same, but you are not the same. You just need to know where to look to see what’s different.
It’s incredibly common to give up instead, to ditch some new spiritual practice during the second or third phase (the soreness or the boredom), or even to look back from the fourth stage toward the first and wish we still felt that first wave of joy. It’s normal to go through cycles of excitement, to dive into something and then step back.
But if your spiritual life is beginning to feel routine, it’s might not be that you’ve failed. It might be that you’ve succeeded. A sense of routine in prayer doesn’t have to be a sign that there’s something wrong. Prayer isn’t like going to a rock concert—it doesn’t always need to come with a sense of awe. Prayer is more like swimming: if it’s no longer an exciting challenge, but just part of the rhythm of the day, it just might be a sign that you’re doing it well.