Summary: In our fragmented world, discusses how the idea of a rule of life, not as an ill-fitting structure but an intimate walk of listening and love with Jesus, may bring wholeness into our lives.

Imagine exiting a frenetic Texas freeway for the quiet of a retreat center. In the middle of it is a prayer labyrinth, a circular maze in which one follows a path with turns until one reaches a center, having prayerfully relinquished prayers and concerns along the way, trusting that the path is not a dead end, quieting oneself to listen to Jesus pace by pace, perhaps meditating on promises from God. At the center are benches where one may sit in quiet. Then one exits, reversing one’s path, praying to hold onto whatever the Lord has given as you walked and rested.

Tamara Hill Murphy offers this as an image of a life of practicing the restful way of Jesus through a rule of life. While we want to escape fragmented and frenetic lives, the idea of rule often seems confining, rigid, restricting. Drawing on the teachings of Benedict and the invitation of Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30, Hill proposes the idea of a rule of life as a spacious path, one in which we come to Jesus, learning from him the unforced rhythms of grace, the unforced life of obedience as we take his yoke, walking and working with him. It is a way of listening and safeguarding love for God and neighbor against both license and legalism. It is a way that is both contemplative and communal

Having established this spacious path of listening and love with Jesus and his people, she writes of how we center ourselves and our rule on that spacious path. She explores how we hold both spacious stability and change together within such a rule. We learn that what unites us as a spacious community is that we are the baptized beloved, drawn in all our diversity into relationship with the Triune God through our shared baptism and shared eucharistic table. As we center in Jesus, we learn to relinquish our religious false self–all the pretenses we keep up with each other. At the same time, she writes about discerning safe spiritual leaders, offering valuable principles.

Only then does she focus on settling into a rule. She explores ideas of spacious work with room for prayer and rhythms of work, rest, and sabbath including seven rhythms of sabbath time: sabbath as a day, daily rhythms of work, prayer, rest, scripture, and self care, and similar weekly. monthly, seasonal, annual, and sabbatical rhythms. She then explores how we may walk the path of the church year, and in Tish Harrison Warren’s words, the liturgy of our ordinary days with their routines. All these may be woven into the rhythm of a rule of life.

The final part recognizes that life can upend our routines, our rules of life when unexpected guests call out the practice of hospitality, when we are confronted with injustice in which we are all implicated, and when tragedies like a global pandemic strike. She explores how lament, repentance, and examen help us know the blessing of God in such times. In an epilogue, she proposes five best practices for beginning and beginning again on the spacious path. I love her first: begin and begin again with a rule for rest and prayer.

I found this a book that was “spacious” toward the reader. Murphy shows rather than tells, describing what for her and others life on the path is like, and how we might take our first steps to begin (and begin again) with Jesus. While offering both principles and practices, the sense in this book was of describing what life on the spacious path is like. This seemed to me a winsome and right way to invite people into the practice of a rule of life.

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review. ( )

I was drawn to read “The Spacious Path: ” particularly because of the subtitle and description.

The book explores how we can live each moment—whether good, challenging, or otherwise—centering ourselves in the truth that we are loved by God, walking with Christ from the place of rest and doing life with Him. This aims us toward rightly posturing our hearts and perspectives in daily life no matter the season.

This is beautifully written book is especially for those in need of refreshment and re-centering the posture of their hearts to rest in Christ while living a rule of life.

While reading I kept finding myself asking “so *how* does a rule of life affect this or that…?” in what the book mentions because, as someone new to this spiritual practice, I want to better understand what it looks like in the day-to-day. Thankfully, the book’s epilogue contained lots of resourceful information toward this. I honestly wish I had read that part first because it was very helpful.

Some things I highlighted in the book:

“…we aren't left to map out our lives by our own intelligence, self-discipline, or sheer good luck. We aren't even responsible for finding a grand scheme we might label as ‘God's will for our one life.’ We are invited to seek God. Even then, we discover that more faithful than our seeking is God’s commitment to finding us…”

“A Rule of Life is not a new system to initiate spiritual growth on our own terms but rather makes space to say yes to Jesus’ invitations to unforced rhythms of freedom and commitment.”

“Spiritual disciplines expand us, making space for the Holy Spirit to make us more spacious, open, receptive to God’s love, wisdom, and action in our lives.” ( )