I've been ever haunted by the following quote from Barbara Ehrenreich's The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed: "They espoused clean living and admired war. They preached hard work and paid for it with nickels and dimes."

There's a harshness to passes for conservatism these days, a weirdly punitive and sentimental at the same time, making noises about protecting the babies while promoting policies that will in fact harm someone's baby, no question about it. It's not a new phenomenon, but thanks to right-wing media empires, lobbying, and of course the Internets, it's on constant display.

Lately I've attended two talks, one on the German mystic Meister Eckhart and the second on St. Francis de Sales, from the parish Lenten lecture series, and I got to wondering about what particular spiritual practices spoke to people here in the DU Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity group. If you are comfortable sharing, please answer the poll below and include any explanations you like.

What's most important to your spiritual life?