The invitation of Jesus to “love your neighbor” is misaligned if we hear that we should care for our neighbors, friends, family, or coworkers at the expense of caring for ourselves. This unhealthy approach can generate anxiety about our performance rather than abiding as the Beloved.

K.C. Ledgerwood is a Licensed Professional Counselor and has worked in community mental health and trauma-informed work since 2011. Her background in mental health, alongside her history in teaching fitness, provided the foundations of a personal practice she developed. The somatic practice was first shared with friends, then formed into classes she began teaching in 2021.

Sharing plants is more than just sharing the organic material. It is sharing a living connection with family, friends, and neighbors. Geoff Ledgerwood’s roots are in rural Washington state. It’s there that he inherited generational wisdom about the neighborly practice of dividing plants. 

I would like to suggest collage as a practice to be present to God, to yourself, and others. It’s an opportunity to bring out all your kindergarten skills: cutting, gluing, and arranging. It’s surprisingly peaceful and fun and doesn’t require any refined artistic skill. Invite a family member, a neighbor, or a group of friends to join you.

The practice began with a question. “What can we do to share the Easter story with people in our neighborhood?” Mark Grapengater had recently moved to the Hampden Heights neighborhood, but in the Spring of 2020, navigating the early days of the pandemic, a neighborhood gathering on Easter Sunday was unlikely. Mark considered the art installation, Stations in the Street, “I think this is something we can do.”

Providing food for those in need is a universal practice of those who follow the way of Jesus. From the very first expressions of the Church in the first century to every expression of the Church across continents and cultures today, providing food is a tangible practice of loving your neighbor. “The one thing I think it's impossible to get away from is Jesus' command to care for the person who is not like you and who is close to you. I think that is the best definition of neighbor, right?” says Alex Walton, Lead Pastor of South Fellowship, with a grin and an engaging English accent.  

Fireplaces served as the primary way to warm homes during the winter before boilers, furnaces, and space heaters. For generations, there was a rhythm of preparation established by cutting wood for the winter. Wood cutting remains an embodied way to love our neighbors in our modern age. The labor of cutting, hauling, stacking, and storing firewood demands sacrifice. It is a physical and practical act of caring for our neighbors each winter.

Most of us don’t consciously choose our screens, we drift into them; first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and in every moment of stillness in-between. Stillness becomes uncomfortable, like entering a room with the lights on, where worry, grief, or restlessness might be waiting. Our screens offer a quick and painless escape—a thousand tiny distractions that keep us from simply being.

Live music uniquely connects us to both people and place. It’s a communal experience that not only creates a connection between artist and audience, but those in the audience to one another. Shared music has been central to civilizations for both ceremonies and celebrations. Among the earliest expressions of humans, shared sounds formed communal bonds and reinforced beliefs. In a cultural moment where AirPods and headphones isolate and insulate us with sound, the practice of listening to live music invites connection, creation, and celebration.

Being freely & lightly attuned to the natural world around us reminds us of the patient pace of the Creator. This is not something to accomplish, but something to enter into, because it’s all happening anyway, and we aren’t at the center of any of it. We are invited to meet God in the wonder, enjoyment, and grief of it all.

A Rule of Life is ancient language for spiritual practices to organize your life around what you love. We all have, consciously or unconsciously, created rhythms of life to protect and preserve what we value. Regardless of our age, gender, or personality type, we all have a Rule of Life. We all have practices we form. And those practices form us.