“Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. identified the most segregated hour of the week as 11 o’clock on Sunday morning.  Our churches are still, for the most part, segregated by race and social and economic class when we gather for worship despite some genuine efforts to embrace racial and cultural diversity. 

It is exceedingly rare to find a church that pursues a policy of segregation.  You would be hard pressed to find a church that intentionally seeks a homogenous ethnic or racial membership.  We may be segregated, but we are not segregationists.

We may not be racial segregationists, but we frequently act like religious segregationists.

By this I do not mean that we look down our noses at people from other denominations or other religious faiths.  I mean we segregate our spiritual and religious lives from our so-called ‘ordinary’ lives.

We limit our religious life to specific times like Sunday morning and we circumscribe our religious behavior to specific places like church buildings. 

But our spiritual lives were never intended to be segregated.  God meant for the people of God to lead spiritual lives that were integrated – integrated into every place of living and working; integrated into every relationship; integrated into our friendships; integrated into our citizenship; integrated into our family life.

Walking with God is not something we do here and there, now and then.  In order for our religious life to be vital it must be part of the rhythm of our lives, present at home and away, from our rising up to our lying down.

Prayer: Beloved Companion, is this loneliness I feel because I have shut you out?