This article is a continuation of: Introduction to the concept of worldview (3.a): influenced, me?

« Our daily habits – these formative practices – constitute an everyday liturgy. With my smartphone every morning, I had developed a ritual that trained me for a specific purpose: to use technology to entertain and stimulate myself. Despite the worldview I professed or the Christian subculture I was part of, this unquestioned daily habit made me a worshiper of screens.

Seeing my daily liturgy as just that, a liturgy – something that both reveals and shapes what I love and worship – made me realize that I was being distorted by my daily practices, that they were making me less alive, less human, less able to give and receive love throughout my day. By replacing this ritual, I was able to create a new contemplative habit that oriented me towards a different way of being « in the world ».

Smith invites us to analyze our days: « Let’s ask ourselves, then, if there are habits and practices that we acquire without realizing it. Are there ritual influences in our culture which we naively imbibe – and which therefore shape us – and which, if studied closely, are in fact directed towards an ultimate goal? Are there routines in the world in which we take part and which, if we pay close attention, turn out to be exacting practices that transmit to us a particular vision of the ideal life? « ¹

These habits of life, which we don’t talk about or even know about, shape us. Ordinary moments, rooted in the collective practices of the Church, make us, with habit and repetition, moment after moment, people who are each day, and therefore all their lives, marked by God’s love (…).

My intention is by no means to lead us to reflect consciously throughout our day on the theology of every single one of our habits. That would be exhausting. However, whether or not we study our daily activities from a theological angle, the fact remains that they shape our vision of God and of ourselves. Examining our daily lives through the prism of the liturgy allows us to see what kind of people these habits lead us to become, as well as to discover ways of living as beings loved and transformed by God. « ²

This long quote from Tish Warren helps us understand the concept of worldview a little better. Sometimes we can act in opposition to what we profess on the surface. As Christians, we understand this because we proclaim our love for God by affirming that he is our only Lord and, at the same time, we sin by proving that we have idols that we worship. The apostle Paul says, « For I do not do the good I want to do, and I do the evil I do not want to do. » (Rom 7:19). Our way of seeing things, our vision of the world, sometimes pushes us to do things in opposition to what we affirm in front of everyone. By doing so, we prove that we don’t really believe what we outwardly profess. Paul goes on to say: « And if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin who dwells in me » (Rom 7:20). Our bad deeds reveal something profound about our way of seeing things, our true vision of the world. Our sins reveal who we really worship.

Knowing this… how can we transform our worldview into God’s? Once again, Tish Warren gives us several pieces of advice. She reminds us that we must at all costs seek to understand how our actions shape us and where they lead us. If we follow the same habits for the next ten years, will we be better? worse? or unchanged? What’s the ultimate goal of this practice? By analyzing our habits, we understand that, even when separated from the world, we gradually transform ourselves into worshippers of consumerism, comfort, pleasure and so on. These little gestures reveal what our ideal life looks like. But is our ideal life the one God has planned for us? Do we see the little acts of everyday life as God sees them? Do we understand the power of our habits to either destroy or advance us? And above all… what do our habits reveal about our true vision of the world? So let’s change our habits, our everyday liturgy, so that we can change the way we see things, so that we can see the world the way God sees it.

1 James K.A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom : Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, Baker, 2009, p. 211.

2 Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgie de la vie ordinaire, pratiques sacrées du quotidien, trad. Marion Marti, Excelsis, 2016, p. 28-30.