If it is proving difficult to find time to attend church services or synagogue, or even pause for individual spiritual practice this holiday season, authors Barbara Brown Taylor and J. Pittman McGehee have uncovered less conventional alternatives. Here’s how some people are daily tapping into their definitions of a Higher Power.

The Practice of Paying Attention

Spend 20 minutes observing a patch of Earth outdoors. Observe what lives there. Think of how it came to be and what it takes for it to survive.

The Practice of Encountering Others

Start a conversation with the cashier at the grocery store. Exchange eye contact and a smile with someone on the subway. Offer help to a mother with a crying child at the airport.

Says Taylor: “The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self—to encounter them not as someone you can use, change, fix, help or save, but as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself if you will allow it… to entertain the possibility that this is one of the faces of God.”

The Practice of Living with Purpose

Show your gratitude for being alive through contributing to some common good, whether it is via a vocation you love or volunteer work. “Give your stuff away. Share your food. Pray for those who are out to get you. Be the first to say ‘I’m sorry,’” counsels Taylor.

The Practice of Saying No

Say no for one whole day:  to more work, to shopping, to the Internet. Use the time you gain to pay attention. “If you slow down for just one day, alarming things can happen,” observes Taylor.

The Practice of Doing Without

Go without power for a day. Light candles. Dry laundry on a clothesline. Sleep by the fire. Feel your heart swell with gratitude when the sun comes up.

The Practice of Creativity

Create something. Paint, write, cook, dance or plant a garden. “Find the creativity, and you will find yourself experiencing the mystical presence of the transcendent, in the most simple and available way,” says McGehee.

The Practice of Dreaming

Write down dreams and pay attention to recurring symbols. Honor them as a divine opportunity.