Evelyn Underhill on Habits

Evelyn Underhill wrote prolifically during the 1920s and 30s about the spiritual life and what it means to be holy. Many people would describe her as a mystic, so deep and contemplative was her spiritual walk. Yet the thrust of her life’s work was to make a deeper spiritual walk accessible to “normal” people living normal, busy lives. As she said, “...it is those who have a deep and real inner life who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life.”

In her classic book, The Spiritual Life, Underhill wrote that the path to a deeper spiritual life includes

…some time, even though this may be a very short time, given, and given definitely, to communion with Him; and perseverance in this practice, even though at first we seem to get nothing from it. There are few lives in which there is no pause through the day. We must use even the few minutes that we have in this way, and let the spirit of these few minutes spread though the busy hours.

Underhill was describing what we have been talking about for the past several weeks—starting small, but starting definitely, to set aside moments throughout the day in which we seek to communicate with God. This is the beginning of the deeper spiritual life we long for.

How are you doing with our habits for February? We are praying for a few minutes three times a day: immediately upon waking up, before falling asleep at night and at one other set time during the day. We are also reading the New Testament for 7-8 minutes each day. See the January 31 post for more details.