This week: Spiritual Priority Edited by: Jeff  
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"Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief."
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About The Editor: Greetings! My name is Jeff and I'm one of the regular editors of the official Spiritual Newsletter! I've been a member of Writing.com since 2003, and have edited more than 400 newsletters across the site in that time. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me directly or submit feedback in the comment box at the bottom of this newsletter.
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Spiritual Priority
In the modern world, we talk a lot about priorities.
If someone at work asks you to help with something, you might say, "That's not high on my list of priorities." When talking to someone about what's important in your life, you might say something along the lines of, "My priorities are my family, my friends, and my work." When you're looking at your to-do list for the day, you might even think to yourself, "My priorities for the day are to do the grocery shopping, go to the post office, and take the kids to soccer practice."
What if I told you that it wasn't until the last century (1900s) that the word priorities was made plural?
Up until then, the word priority was singular. Derived from the Latin prioritas, it was defined as "first in rank, order, or dignity." In other words, it's the one thing that comes before anything and everything else. Other stuff may be high on your list of importance or urgency, but your priority is the one thing that takes the top spot and gets to cut in line.
In the modern world, there are no shortage of things in your life vying for priority. Family is obvious a big and important one. For many of us, career and friends are right up there, as well. You might even be thinking of something more general like money, security, power, beauty, or reputation. I have a feeling that, if someone were secretly observing us, it sure would feel like one of those aspects of our life is our true priority based on the number of times we drop everything else and fixate on shoring up that area of our life.
How many of us can honestly say that our faith, or our spirituality comes first?
A recent Gallup poll in 2023 found that 45% of respondents rated religion as very important in their own life and identified as a member of a church or synagogue. And yet only 21% of those respondents reported attending religious services every week. 20% combined reported attending nearly every week or about once a month.
The current common assumption in vocational ministry is that the average person now attends church just once a month.
Lifeways Research did a survey of pastors and other religious leaders, most of whom (55%) now consider "regular" church attendance among their congregation to be either every other week or once a month.
With all the necessary caveats about church attendance not necessarily correlating to how religious or spiritual may feel, and that organized religion has a lot of nuanced complications, I think we can all agree that if religious practices are something that you consider very important, attending a religious service just once every other week (or once a month!) is probably indicating that it's not your priority.
What, then, would it look like to instead have our faith, or our spirituality as our one priority instead?
At the bare minimum, it probably means attending regular services as often as they're held (i.e., weekly in many religious traditions), unless there's a major and unavoidable conflict (illness, travel, etc.). It would have to take priority over meal plans, watching the big game, or feeling too tired or unmotivated to go. It would mean looking at the things that happen in your life through the lens of your faith.
Do you read books? How often is that book your particular religious text?
Does your religious text provide guidance on how to respond to certain situations? How often do you put those lessons into practice?
Does your faith tradition have certain practices (e.g., prayer, meditation, service, etc.)? How often do you make time for those in your daily routine?
We're all faced with not having enough hours in the day to do all the things we both need and want to do. It requires each of us to make choices about the things we make time for, and the things we put off. And we each have a singular priority that we will not sacrifice for anything else. For those of us who consider ourselves deeply spiritual or religious, is that faith your one priority? If not, how far down on the to-do list is it, and what are you willing to do to move it up the order ahead of the things you're prioritizing above it?
Until next time,
Jeff
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Spiritual: January 22, 2025 Issue [#12947]
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