Deciding to get more serious with spiritual life? Looking for some good habits to bring you closer to The Light? Wanting to draw closer to Jesus? Thanks to an old pal from Seminary days, Scotsman Ron Boyd MacMillan, who offers a form of these to preachers, but they're helpful to all of us who are looking to jump start our spiritual lives.

1) Make up your own 'daily liturgy.' No matter what your Christian heritage, you have a certain way of organizing your daily quiet time, why not begin your renewal by mixing it up a bit? Sure it'll contain the usual bits, Confession, Praise, Reading, Praying etc., but set it out in your own words - perhaps including poetry, fine art contemplation and meditation on sacred music. Write it down, give it a go, adjust as necessary.

2) Write down a 'verse of the week' and meditate on it for seven days. Choose a text that has made a particular impression on you. Use a notebook or PDA to jot it down and return to it frequently throughout the week ruminating on why it has particular resonance with you at the moment.

3) Find suffering people to teach you the faith. When Jesus said 'the poor will always be with you' he very well could have been saying that the mark of Christ-followers is that they will recognize the value of 'the least of these' in becoming better Christians. Henri Nouwen had L'Arche, Mother Teresa had her homes for the dying. I regularly visit a homeless shelter. Don't do this to feel good about yourself for volunteering - you'll miss the point - but learn how they rejoice in their sufferings, how they gain Christ in the midst of pain. Encounter the suffering and you will get to know how the Christian faith works.

4) Read a great book each week. Find a reading list of great books and work your way through it. Sure, start with the Christian classics, but include the great books of the world. Also, at the very least carve out an hour a week to do this. Intentionally say you are going to get through the book in that time period and you will be amazed at how much you can remember even if you have to skim parts of it.

5) Take time to write. Even if it's 20 minutes a week. Even if it's just a paragraph. But choose a subject - an encounter with the book you just read, Scripture, a neighbor, your significant other and ask yourself these questions: How did the Lord speak through ________? What might God be trying to who me through it? You will be amazed at what fruit this can yield.

6) Find a phylactery. Maybe it's a rosary, maybe it's a pocket cross - one rabbi keeps a piece of paper in each pocket, one that says 'I'm a desperately wicked sinner' and the other that says 'I'm a beloved child of God.' Yes, the body often forgets God which is why a tangible memento can be so valuable. What would yours be? What might it say?

7) Build yourself a cell. Sure the contemporary 'man cave' may not be an update of the monk's cell, but the idea's the same; to find a retreat from the pressures around us. With the fast pace we're all pretty much forced to keep, we can lose sight of the fact that we serve a 3 mile per hour God (that's the pace of an average walker - remember, Jesus walked). Your cell can be a hut in the garden or a corner in a room, but make it a time of nothing but silence. You'll only share your cell with one other - the Lord. Use this time to listen, not for the earthquake, the fire, or the wind - but the stillness of God's presence. Out of this kind of practice unparalleled inspirations appear.