Living Spirituality

Reflection for the Week - May 28

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Mon, 28 May 2012 05:15:00 +0000

Christians are taught to find themselves or to find God. This is an inadequate way of teaching what is true. In actuality, we have a deep need to find both God and ourselves. Questions about who I am and why I am should not and cannot be ignored, yet in order to discover answers to these important matters, we can only go so far without also asking who God is. Being attentive to finding both God and ourselves reaches a meeting point— a symbiotic configuration that has the capacity to and is a catalyst for recognizing that each has its dynamically appropriate place. God is first and we are second.

Friday Poetry - May 25

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:47:00 +0000

Long time have human ignorance and guilt
Detained us, on what spectacles of woe
Compelled to look, and inwardly oppressed
With sorrow, disappointment, vexing thoughts,
Confusion of the judgement, zeal decayed,
And lastly, utter loss of hope itself
And things to hope for! Not with these began
Our song, and not with these our song must end

Theirs is the language of the heavens, the power,
The thought, the image, and the silent joy
Words are but under-agents in their souls;
When they are grasping with their greatest strength,
They do not breathe among them: this I speak
In gratitude to God, Who feeds our hearts
For his own service; knoweth us, loveth us,
When we are unregarded by the world.

These salient words by Wordsworth in The Prelude, 1850, Book 12, invite us to explore beginnings and ends and all that’s in-between.

The ZigZag Café - May 24

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:22:00 +0000

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 is heaven ?

Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today - May 23

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:47:00 +0000

Who am I? I am a human being who exists in time and story. I am a creature. I love and am loved. I am knower and known. I am limited. I am finite. I am sinful. I am not self-sufficient. I am not ultimate authority. I do not have the capacity to exclusively self-determine what actions I am free to do, nor what actions I am constrained from doing. I am a human being. I need Divine sources and referents to give wisdom as to how to be and be with others. Being human is subjectively objective – both I and outside of I have a role in telling me who I am, but they don’t have the same degree of say so. Being human is to practice a hermeneutics of trust and suspicion across the whole of life, including my own I am. It simply won’t do to trust I and be suspicious of everyone and everything else. I cannot bear the weight without pretending and cheating. But who will see; who will invite me to a genuine integrity? Questioning my own perspectives of what I trust and what I suspect in light of a greater calling is an essential part of being human and it begins to respond to who I really am.

Reflection for the Week - May 21

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Mon, 21 May 2012 05:13:00 +0000

Quitting church is reaching epidemic proportions. Caught in the vice between those who exchange the gospel for a social code and those who market it as a consumer product, streams of people are flowing out of churches. From what I can tell many of them long for God, love, truth, credibility, justice, and redemption, but are disappointed with what the church is offering. Bagels and coffee, and promises of health and wealth are limited and breaking down. Thus, today’s pseudo–gospel is having less and less traction and for this we should rejoice. Yet, the fallout is serious, in that the legitimate questions people are asking are not being addressed, nor are these folk being provided with a place to dwell, which has more to do with living spirituality, than merely finding a geographical home. Rich and diverse gospel centered communities are essential to renew and redo the faith in what appears to be the demise of what has been known as church for all too long.

Friday Poetry - May 18

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:25:00 +0000

Imagination! lifting up itself
Before the eye and progress of my Song
Like an unfather’d vapour; here that Power,
In all the might of its endowments, came
Athwart me; I was lost in a cloud,
Halted, without a struggle to break through.
And now recovering, to my Soul I say
I recognize thy glory; in such strength
Of usurpation, in such visitings
Of awful promise, when the light of sense
Goes out in flashes that have shewn to us
The invisible world, doth Greatness make abode,
There harbours whether we be young or old.

Wordsworth’s salient words are striking and worth pondering more than once. From The Prelude, 1805, Book VI (525-537)

The ZigZag Café - May 17

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:23:00 +0000

For today:

How do you hear from God?

Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today - May 16

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:15:00 +0000

When it is understood that Jesus Christ is the gateway to living spirituality, there are new and momentous opportunities that open up for us. We are given community with the Infinite-personal God by tasting living water, and experiencing a new birth of the Spirit through faith in the Crucified and Risen One. When we accept the invitation to walk through the gateway, our world explodes because we confess that it’s no longer centered on ourselves. And it is then that we start to find our place in living spirituality and to discover the true meaning of life in all its richness and mystery. This is something like moving from darkness to light, being released from a cage, or coming out of an illusion to reality.

Reflection for the Week - May 14

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Mon, 14 May 2012 05:50:00 +0000

Living spiritually is enhanced and enriched through the Psalms and their frequent affirmations of and appeals to God’s covenant loyalty. Many of these writings, however, may shock us with their realism. In the midst of our sometimes automatic pilot spirituality, where everything is supposedly bright and happy, some of the Psalms remind us that community with God and the path to life are far from straight forward. There is and will be brokenness, mystery, dark times, judgment, desperate searching, and much more. Though these circumstances frequently lead to illumination and new understanding, arriving there means going through—not taking a detour around—facets of spirituality that may not fit our desired schemes, notions, and expectations of God. The path may become difficult and the destination may seem far away, but God is faithful to lead us forward. The Psalms are a richly textured slice of life with God, and they offer us revelatory insights into humanness and living spirituality. From my Living Spirituality: Illuminating the Path.

Reaching new heights?

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Sat, 12 May 2012 10:50:00 +0000

Looking for the Path?

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Sat, 12 May 2012 10:48:00 +0000

Friday Poetry - May 11

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Fri, 11 May 2012 05:34:00 +0000

Resembles Life what once was held of Light,
Too ample in itself for human sight?
An absolute Self--an element ungrounded--
All, that we see, all colours of all shade
By encroach of darkness made?--
Is very life by consciousness unbounded?
And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath,
A war-embrace of wrestling Life and Death?

I like these words from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s What is Life? around 1805. Rather than secondary, ornamental, or aesthetic renderings of writing; metaphor, symbol, and story may be first order forms of discourse that need to be taken seriously as we seek to understand God, ourselves, and the world. Poetry, for example, may be a fuller expression of truth than mathematical formulations and imagination may prove a reliable guide to discovering the real over the unreal.

The ZigZag Café

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:31:00 +0000

The ZigZag Café

For today:

Some say all that’s important is to do what Jesus did. Would you agree or disagree and why?

Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today - May 9

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Wed, 09 May 2012 13:41:00 +0000

Living in a post-trust culture means that cynicism and apathy reign. So many people are infected with an overdose of suspicion, which amounts to being caught up in the cycle of the same. Suspicion produces suspicion, which produces more suspicion. While it is true that it is sometimes appropriate to be suspicious, it is even more important to realize that trust is always primary. That is, God has created humans in such a way that they can’t escape trust - even if it's trusting our suspicions. Problem is that we trust and are suspicious of the wrong things and this is where we need direction. A dialogue of trust and suspicion will be instructive, yet it is insufficient to produce sustainable insight as to which is which. Therefore, if we want to break out of the cycle of unknowing who and what to trust and where and why to be suspicious, I suggest that we turn to God as the Divine One who can enter into the dialogue and provide a helpful illumination that will lead to discernment and a new possibility of beginning to live the dialogue in a more redemptively accurate and appropriate manner.

Reflection for the Week - May 7

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Mon, 07 May 2012 05:15:00 +0000

God has given us precious creational and salvific rhythms to live by. Order and beauty shape and frame the world, while the death and resurrection of Christ extends reality and brings it into an entirely new dimension. These rhythms shake, rattle, and roll us off our seats and in so doing invite us to take part in the groove. Imagine dancing to God’s rhythms and learning to keep time with his beat. Join in the Divine concert. Get the rhythms, get the rhythms, get the rhythms and gooo! Get the rhythms, get the rhythms, get the rhythms and gooooo!

Friday Poetry - May 4

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Fri, 04 May 2012 06:51:00 +0000

Thus I fared,

Dragging all passions, notions, shapes of faith,

Like culprits to the bar, suspiciously

Calling the mind to establish in plain day

Her titles and her honours, now believing,

Now disbelieving, endlessly perplex’d

With impulse, motive, light and wrong, the ground

Of moral obligation, what the rule

And what the sanction, till, demanding proof,

And seeing in everything, I lost

All feeling of conviction….

I like these words from William Wordsworth’s The Prelude 1805 Book X (889-99) where he expresses the detrimental effects of rationalism.

The ZigZag Café - May 3

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:19:00 +0000

For today:

Should our experiences in the world have any bearing on our belief in God?

Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today - May 2

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:57:00 +0000

We are a question to ourselves that we don’t have a complete answer for. While God graciously gives us a sufficient picture, it nevertheless lacks a pristine focus and a crystal clear resolution. This means that we have ample room for exploring contours and adjusting angles, as we grow in our faith. Seeking God’s illumination to better understand the mystery that we are gradually leads us to a carefully configured dynamic of confidence and humility that can be lived with each other and out into the world. In being and becoming testifying agents of the Supreme One - tethered to life in Christ, we are creatively and imaginatively given an ever expanding image that certifies, in spite of not seeing precisely who we are or will be, the deep experience of the mercy and love of God.

Reflection for the Week

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 05:43:00 +0000

Western culture is saturated with idols. In our context, there’s no need for pagan temples or shrines to promote idolatry. Money, possessions, sex, the human image, and so forth are constantly dangled before us with the persuasive message – “you and what you have is what it’s all about.” Idolatry may portray itself as subtle, but it has radical implications for what and who we worship and value. There’s no place for being naive on this subject. Be aware, cautious, and critical, as the asymmetry between the living God of Scripture as Creator of the world and lifeless idols couldn’t be more sweeping and thorough. The total incompatibility here is vast and unbridgeable, which should give rise to careful thought about the risk of losing the reality of who we are and the presence of the God to whom we belong.

Friday Poetry - April 27

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:23:00 +0000

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time

These salient words from TS Eliot in the Four Quartets set the tone for reading early Genesis. Poets, like Eliot, have ways with words that configure worlds and how we view them. Thus, they are creators of powerful images of innovation and impertinence, which careen off the walls of time and sweep over the landscape of life, calling us to re-envision where we started. Being engaged in the intricate and inquisitive art of exploration is a perpetual challenge, which comes to an end with a new perception of the beginning.

The ZigZag Café - April 26

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:47:00 +0000

For today:

Someone told me recently, “I am always ashamed of myself. I have to do the right things to be liked. I search for who I am – my identity, but only find self-criticism.”

Any thoughts?

Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today, April 25

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:49:00 +0000

Edging towards the finely grained and exquisite contours of the love of God, while living in the arena of death, is a monumental enterprise that knows no end. Being loved and loving restores and rescues our confidence from the silhouette of fear and anxiety, as illumination seeps into recesses of existence and frees us to meet at the gates of the garden.

Reflection for the Week

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 04:22:00 +0000

As readers of the Genesis creation accounts today we must realize that we are foreigners to the text and its ancient Near Eastern context, which may strike us as strange and unfamiliar, yet we are not excluded from engaging with its God, narration, and drama in a somewhat recognizable pattern. Refigured lives then become a real possibility for those readers who are grafted into the revelatory story of God’s sculpting in time, both through creation and the ever-present redemptive outpouring of love in Christ, which graciously offers us a place and a role on the stage of the cosmic drama still in progress. This poetic and theologically-loaded biblical world production not only includes a narrative concordance that supersedes discordance with respect to time or changing portraits of the actual world, but it also proclaims that life triumphs over death and will continue to do so throughout God’s ongoing story.

The ZigZag Café

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:09:00 +0000

For today:

How, if at all, might Divine love vary from, or feel different than, human love?

Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today - April 18

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 19:51:00 +0000

Epistemology, ontology, and ethics are blended together and carefully nuanced, as nowhere else in a Christian worldview. Stripping away reductionism and embracing a dynamic relation and distinction, Christianity offers a highly coherent and intriguingly mysterious picture of deep reality. Followers of Christ are given a new perspective that opens up an encounter with life, as it is found. God, self, other, and world now have a challenging connection, yet are not the same. This configuration of truth and life makes sense and is viable at a polyphony of levels, including knowledge, being, and actions.