Living Spirituality: March 2012

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Thursday, March 29, 2012

The ZigZag Café

We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.

For today:

What do you think an appropriate self-love might look like?

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today

Enacted love is the cornerstone of obedience. Christians are often enamored with flights of fancy that result in them assuming that when it comes to God, it is “to do” that really counts. To merely obey, however, throws us into grave danger of missing the deep relational component of faith, which insists that true doing streams out of being – being a child of God. The personal and paradigmatic core of love of God and others finds its prime expression in Jesus’ courageous obedience. His cross marks the how, but his love explains the why. This means, for us, that being in community with God is being loved by God and loving God, which is the dynamic center and final integration point for the rest; obedience, justice, and doctrine, are never ends in and of themselves.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Reflection for the Week

We are increasingly facing uncertain times today. As natural disasters, financial chaos, and unprecedented tragedies proliferate, please pray for all those who are suffering. Pray that relief efforts would actually be able to get to the people in need and that the power and truth of the gospel forges its way into all the earth. Yet, remember that we have a significant part to play in God’s unfolding drama of his mission to humanity and the world. Seeing ourselves with others as part of this dramatic story is imaginative, challenging, and rich. May God help us to be presently living in the light of the return of Christ, so that our actions towards social, political, and ethical transformation will gain credibility, as we await the redeemer who will renew all things.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

The ZigZag Café

For today:

What is wisdom and where is it to be found?

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today

Feelings and experience can often attempt to be our sole sources and criteria for assessing who we are and what the world is like. Someone says, “I feel like I have to accomplish something in order to be liked.” Why? “Because this has been my experience.” Another says, “I feel ashamed.” Why? “Because I have to hide my real self from others and I experience this as my fault.” Both confirm, “this is the way the world works.” While feelings and experience are valid dimensions of being human, the question of whether or not we should trust or be suspicious of them cannot be solely based on feelings and experience. Why? In themselves they offer no valid way to discern if the perceptions of ourselves and the world are accurate. Unless we’re willing to go for the jugular and raise the difficult question of what is true, we will spin around in circles of the same, never having adequate criteria for being able to evaluate which feelings and experience can be considered trustworthy and which suspicious. Once we begin to focus on this explosive question and start to answer it, trust and suspicion will function in better ways that will in turn lead to truer view of ourselves and the world.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Reflection for the Week

Capital ‘I’, the attempt to be our own ultimate authority, is often thought to only be an expression of “I know it all.” But this is not true. The claim “I know nothing” is equally a declaration of capital ‘I.’ Let’s take another matter. Capital ‘I’ is not just “I’m the best” but also “I’m the worst” or “I’m important” but also ‘I’m worthless.” Christians are called to die to self, but the question remains, which self. Self-dying is a death to capital ‘I’, to a false self, not a denigrating of self, who is an image of God. What is essential is the continual giving up of the ways of self-mastery, self-authority, self-centeredness, and self-determination, rather than embracing how incredible or awful we think we are. There is only one you and that’s who God loves and wants to redeem from attempts to be capital ‘I’ in all its deceptive forms.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Thursday, March 15, 2012

The ZigZag Café

For today:

“The most important feature of religious convictions is that those who believe them have a high level of commitment to their beliefs. If this exists, it validates the religious views of the believer.” What do you think of these statements?

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today

Fear of non-acceptance and being unloved tends to drive people towards being self-centered. Oneself becomes the sole criterion for trust and suspicion, and this standard frequently creates a false picture of how these two should be configured and ultimately of who a person really is. Ironically, what the person wants the most; love and acceptance is where suspicion reigns and controls others, who in contrast, may actually be trustworthy in their expressions of care and affection for the fearful one. Yet, in rejecting realistic manifestations of love, this one is left alone trusting oneself. Only when we get past being the solitary determiner of trust and suspicion will love and acceptance have a chance.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Reflection for the Week

Imaginative variations challenge us to be attuned to the poetry and art of life. In contrast to the pervasive and impoverished mantra of being uninterested in a disenchanted world, poetry and art raise the screen and open us up to the possibility of a re-enchantment. Ironically, or better perhaps strikingly, poetry and art dominate the landscape of the mega narrative of Scripture. The Bible is so full of art and poetry that the meaning of its words could never be contained in-between the covers of a book. The beautiful, yet fragile treasure of art and poetry, and their capacity for creativity and critique in describing God and the world, give us living formulations that re-ignite a sphere of the sacred and a space for the spiritual, which are all too often today buried under the technological evolution of a de-natured naturalism. Poetry and art take us far beyond passive contemplation of the pleasing and aim to fit us for faithful action and engagement with the world.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

The ZigZag Café

For today:

What are some of the claims in Christianity that distinguish it from religions?

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today

Being stuck inside a small cavernal space has left traces in the flesh like graven tattoos marking trapped insecurity. Bounded, chained, and incarcerated, takes away any possibility of escape. Groping and searching for a way out weighs heavily on the spirit. Interiors are mirrors of self-reflection. Feeling around, hands on walls, looking for the key to unlock the door becomes relentless and seemingly unending, as a blurry darkness blinds and the glare is not quite enough to allow for seeing. Seeping through a crevice comes the Other, who opens a possible world that transforms the architecture and leads to redemption.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Reflection for the Week

Cherishing a moment in the mist filled gentle breeze refreshes and awakens the spirit to wisdom. Take the time to be swept away with the clouds, to ride on the stars, and to rise and set with the sun. The striking power and order of creation is so often missed today, as we distract ourselves to death with gadgets and gimmicks. Losing touch with the natural reality that surrounds us, intimidates us, and that allows us to carry on is sheer folly. The heart of wisdom beats in the Infinite One, who through it laid the foundations of the earth and set the heavens in place. Wisdom calls out - follow the path that leads to the tree of life – embrace it, as those who do are indeed fortunate.