Training our Souls to See

I didn’t want to finish reading Finding Our Way Again-The Return of the Ancient Practices by Brian Mclaren. He describes the basic categories of the ancient practices of Katharsis, Fotosis, and Theosis and describes Spiritual practices as “about life, about training ourselves to become the kinds of people who have eyes and actually see, and who have ears and actually hear, and so experience not survival but life.” Of course the concept of training ourselves to accomplish things beyond our expectations is not a foreign concept to a person like me a non-runner who trained and ran a marathon just to see if it was possible. For some reason though while I understand that the body can be physically trained, things like one’s ability to write poetry, paint landscapes, or see God seem to have been placed in a whole different category in my mind. They are in the category of a divine gift of genius or saint. If there is anything to training oneself to wake up ones soul to God, the possibilities are endless. So here I go attempting to begin katharsis by fasting every Monday to cleanse me from my addiction to tastible pleasure so that I can better sense the deeper pleasures of the soul.