Taking Care of ALL Your Temples
Thinking about these definitions, what are your temples? Where are the places, systems, and organizations dedicated to the service and worship of The Divine? Should we not be serving Them all the time? Temples need caretakers, and you are your own. This is what I do in coaching: help people identify and make sacred changes in their temples.
Here are a few starting ideas:
Mind and Soul
How are you taking care of your mind and soul? These can be interchangeable, or not, depending on how you see it, but I think of them together as a pair.
Are you challenging your mind by trying something new?
Are you soothing your mind by only feeding it what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely?
Are you praying without ceasing? Memorizing a breath prayer truly helps me keep my mind in the right place.
Are you taking your meds, going to therapy, practicing mindfulness?
Body
Your body is the physical place in which you serve Love. No matter where you are, your body is with you, a completely portable temple.
Are you keeping it clean? (Preaching to myself here… but FLOSS!)
Are you feeding it well?
Are you moving your body to keep it strong and flush out the yucky stuff?
Are you taking any needed medication like you should?
Are you honoring it as a sacred space?
Home
Another physical location of worship. If you have a separate altar, that’s great! Take care of it! But also keep in mind that, in some way, your entire home is an altar. Keep it clean and simple so you can focus on what really matters to you.
Time
How do you use your time? I don’t believe there’s a difference between sacred and secular in the use of our time, only sacred and desecrated. There are plenty of things that you may use your time for that aren’t necessarily religious, but are sacred (reading a really good book falls there for me) Are you using your time sacredly? Here are a couple of examples:
Laughing with friends in real life: sacred
Getting in arguments with people on the web: probably desecrated
Keeping your house clean enough and in working order: sacred
Keeping your house spotless to the point it takes over your life or alienates your family: desecrated
You get the gist. Look at how you are spending your time? Is it sacred, or is it something that was meant to be sacred, turned desecrated?
Work
There are two aspects to the work temple. The first is, is it actually a temple? Are you serving Love there? Does your career influence the world in positive ways? Some careers do not, and that is something you can only decide for yourself. (As much as I’d love to get all judgy-pants and declare that Christians should NOT be in x, y, or z careers, I’m not sure I’m ready to do that publicly yet, and ultimately it’s not for me to judge anyway.)
If your job is not outright wrong, Colossians gives some guidance:
23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
Work as for the Lord. Whether you are teaching, doctoring, waiting tables, or attending a laundromat, do it as if you are serving the Holy, and you are! Each person you come in contact with has a little spark of the Divine, and you may make someone’s day with the attitude you bring to work.
(As a note: I’m not real big on capitalism as a whole, so this doesn’t mean just keep your head down and do your job serving “the man.” Screw “the man.” How can you love the people you encounter at work?)
Finance
Finally, let's talk finances. Yes, your finances are a temple. They are a system or organization that serves, or does not serve, the Good.
Ask yourself: Am I contributing to the exploitation of others by buying this product, investing in this company, giving to this cause? Sometimes the answer is yes, and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s the system we live in. But often the answer is yes, and there IS something you can do! Buy secondhand! Shop small businesses, craftspeople, and artisans! Invest ethically! Do some research before you donate!
You can’t fix the whole system yourself (there is no ethical consumption under capitalism), but if you are privileged enough to have some choices with your money, make them as ethically as possible.
