Bringing religion into your daily life

Part of the reason why I started writing this course was that I wanted to find a way to build a regular meditation practise that would help to integrate religion and spirituality into our daily lives instead of reserving it for special holy days. This week, I want to have a look at the interaction of our religion and our life.
In my Wiccan tradition, one of the first things we ask our students to do is to analyse a news story from a religious point of view. This week, we are going to do something similar: each evening, analyse your own story, the story of this day, from a religious point of view.
That, of course, raises the question: what is your religious point of view? This is a question everyone has to answer for himself. A good starting point would be the ethical guidelines of your religion. They might include the Wiccan rede (“If it harms none, do what you will”), the law of return (“what you send out will come back to thee”), and the fact that your actions, your choices, are your own responsibility.

To start, make sure you have about 20-30 minutes of uninterrupted time. Get comfortable. My recommendation is to have pen and paper ready and write everything down, but you can also do this exercise in your thoughts only if you want to.
Mentally, walk through your day: what have you experienced? What might be the deeper meaning of your experiences? Of course, not everything has to have a deeper meaning – but some things might, and you will never find it if you do not start looking for it. What have you, yourself, done? How have you interacted with other people? What choices did you make? What will be the consequences of your actions, your choices? From a religious point of view, based on your own moral and ethical guidelines, were your actions, interactions and choices the right ones? Or did you cause unnecessary harm, make poor choices, or act unwise? If you did, try to find out why. Accept your responsibility for your own actions. If you followed the advice of someone else, think about why you did that instead of following your own good sense – but do not put the blame on the other person. What would have been a better course of action?

Do this exercise each evening over a whole week. If you want to, you can include it in your daily pages or your personal journal. After the week, go back over the whole week. Has being more aware of your actions and choices caused you to act differently? Why?