Awhile back, a college student, home after being away for two years at an overseas campus, told me about his Christian spiritual awakening, and central to it was his desire to live a more "Christ-like life." In the process he was sorting out what he had learned in his family, in church school, and from all his college religious studies classes.

He said that Sunday school, youth group, and the college courses taught him about religion, but did not help him to believe. By the time he went overseas he knew the history of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, but he did not feel linked to his own tradition, its teachings, or its community. He realized the chasm separating knowing and believing and belonging.

He was also troubled by the materialism with which he grew up. He was ill at ease with this culture’s relentless pursuit of success, wealth, and pleasure that he felt had numbed his spirituality. He was hungry for something deeper, more meaningful and fulfilling. Still, the faith of his youth gave him the roots that kept him open to the innate spirituality that later led to his awakening.

This young man is legion. His experiences cross generations, classes, professions, religions, practices, and gender. Many of us share his story. Our stories underscore the opening lines of Richard Foster’s book that will guide this 7-part series. He writes, "Today a mighty river of the Spirit is bursting forth from the hearts of women and men, boys and girls. It is a deep river of divine intimacy, a powerful river of holy living, a dancing river of jubilation in the Spirit, and a broad river of unconditional love for all peoples."

In Marin there is a wide range of choices and a general tolerance of diverse spiritual practices -- an understatement if ever there was one! You can Daven with Hasids in Terra Linda, mediate at Spirit Rock or Green Gulch, dance with Sufis, pray with Protestants, speak in tongues with Baptists, or live sacramentally in the Catholic church; you can be metaphysical, transcendental, holistic, occult, atheist, a trance dancer or a holy-roller, or worship in the cathedral of creation.

This series is not, however, about the smorgasbord of alternatives, but about the rich springs of Christian practices. These practices may have been lost on some who only got as far as rote memorization of Bible passages that they never understood, or who dwell on the straw-man hypocrisies of the institutional church, or who have found Christianity wanting or are its cultured critics but who have never experienced the core of the faith. The practices we will experience are for those who really want to balance intellect and authority with heart and spirit in order to have a dynamic daily faith.

This series is about how we embrace, absorb, and reflect Christ, or, in an older vernacular, how a Christian life is imitatio Christi: the imitation of Christ. Now that sounds formidable, and also threateningly close to the loss of personal identity and freedom. In this series, what we mean by "embracing, absorbing, and reflecting Christ" or imitatio Christi, is that we live with as much

• passion and prayer,

• justice and compassion, and with as much

• intimacy with God and sense of the embodied Holy Spirit, as Jesus did.

One of the central teachings in Scripture is St. Paul’s statement in Galatians, "It is not I who live but Christ who lives in me" (2:20). The popular Phillips’ translation reads, "My present life is not that of the old ‘I,’ but the living Christ within me." This experience of faith is amplified in Paul’s teaching, "Do not model yourselves on the behavior of the world around you, but be transformed by a complete renewal of your mind, so as to sense for yourselves what is the good and acceptable and perfect purpose of God" (Romans 12:2).

Maturing, practicing Christians want to know how, in the most practical ways, to embrace, absorb, and reflect Jesus in their daily dealings. In order to get beyond theory and theology to a rooted way of life, we want Christ to be in us, to have the mind of Christ when we are making a deal at corporate headquarters, repairing a carburetor, carpooling to school, planning dinner, fixing broken pipes, or writing a sermon.

Erwin Martinez, chairperson of the Spiritual Life Commission, got to the heart of the college student’s awakening and perhaps to yours as well when he said that this series will help us "reconcile the ‘Jesus who heals’ with the ‘Jesus who prays in solitude’ with the ‘Jesus who preaches and mingles with thousands’ with the ‘Jesus who seemingly angrily fashions a whip to drive the money changers from the temple.’ To imitate Jesus is to understand these different streams/aspects…. We may gravitate to one stream or another…[and] that is okay. We can imitate Jesus in a way that works for us, in a way that somehow matches our own spiritual calling."

Each day, at home, work, or school, when we say with St. Paul, "It is not I who live but Christ who lives in me," and we know who that Christ is, our faith becomes infinitely more than just Sunday worship. Faith and life are united and turned into a daily renewal of our being, a daily reunion with the One in whose image we are created and who loves us with an everlasting love.

Practically speaking, beyond theory and theology, this is a bit of what you can expect with the intentional practices of Christian spirituality that empties itself of its own desires, longings, appetites, and strivings for success and fulfillment. With the regular practice of prayer, meditation, compassion, service, justice, and sacramental living:

• You will find relief from the stressed pace and burdens of modern life;

• Your thinking will have a Christ consciousness that transforms how you know and value who you are, what you do, and how you find meaning and purpose;

• You will experience a quietness of spirit in which your faith and trust in the Transcendent One overcomes the fears and anxieties in life; and

• You will be reunited with God and your most authentic self, and be keenly aware that you are the dwelling place of Jesus Christ.

I invite you to take this series personally and let it transform your life so that with Jeremiah you will be "Like a tree planted by a stream, sending your roots out to the water," the river of Living Water.