On Sabbath and Hospitality and Friday Night Meatballs

I was reminded, in our discussion this past week, of a blog post I read a year or so ago. It was about a family that decided to host a Friday night gathering of friends in order to build community...and to unplug and rest...every Friday. It wasn't a religious thing, not a spiritual practice. But the author of the article certainly recognized that it was a reflection of spiritual and cultural traditions practiced by many around the world. I want to share the article because I believe that it is full of the sorts of practical tips that make Sabbath possible...as well as some lovely insight into how it changes us to just take a night off every week.

I could tell you about the article all.day.long. But, I'll share the link so that you can see for yourself: Friday Night Meatballs: How to Change Your Life with Pasta. 

And a sneak peak of one of my favorite paragraphs...

There's something about the mix of candlelight and comfort food (okay, and wine) that encourages people to relax and share their stories. I've always found hosting parties to be stressful, but Friday Night Meatballs has become a relaxing escape at the end of the week. In his book The Sabbath, rabbi and civil rights activist Abraham Heschel observes that "there is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord." This, he says, is the point of taking a day off for rest and reflection and the company of loved ones: it's when we manage to stop worrying about making a living that we start actually living.

That's it. You're going to have to read the rest yourself!

Animate: Practices

What's brewing at Morning Blend? 

Starting Febraury 3rd, 2016 we will be studying Animate: Practices, a 7-session series by Spark House. This series focuses on the core practices of Christian faith presented by 7 different leaders in the Christian community:

Prayer: Oriented Toward God by Brian McLaren
Food: Eating, with Jesus by Sara Miles
Worship: Seeking God's Presence by Mike Slaughter
Sacraments: A Tapestry of Traditions by Phyllis Tickle 
Money: The Joy of Sharing by Shane Claiborne
Service: The Needs Right in Front of You by Enuma Okoro
Community: An Unexpected Family by Doug Pagitt

Our group has heard from a few of these speakers before, and we look forward to wrestling with the practices of our faith with both new and familiar voices!

Developing a Rule of Life

This week, as we all think about what it means to develop a "rule of life," I've gathered some resources that might be helpful in the process:

The Society of St. John the Evangelist offers a short workbook in pdf format called Living Intentionally: A Workbook for Creating a Personal Rule of Life.  The workbook includes some suggestions for how to approach the development of a personal rule of life, as well as questions (with blank space for writing answers) to help a person walk through the process of thoughtfully developing such a rule.

The C.S. Lewis Institute also offers a guide called Instructions for Developing a Personal Rule of Life. This guide offers some thoughts and suggestions, such as:

Ultimately a Rule should help you to love God more, so if it becomes a legalistic way of earning points with God or impressing others, it should be scrapped. If the traditional, ancient term “rule” concerns you because it sounds legalistic, think of “rule” as a “rhythm of life” or as a “Curriculum in Christlikeness” (Dallas Willard), or as a “Game Plan for Morphing” (John Ortberg).

 ...and then leads the reader through some guiding questions for developing a personal rule of life.

Finally Crafting a Rule of Life is an entire website devoted to helping individuals to develop their own rule of life, based on the book of the same name by Stephen A. Macchia. Particularly, their myRULE page includes resources for writing a personal rule with a downloadable pdf table AND examples of "rules" written by others. Of note, there is a Visual Rule of Life example (see Lisa Forkner's Visual Rule of Life 2014). Another rule is written as a "Recipe for Daily Bread" (see Leslea Linebarger's Rule of Life 2013). Nearly all of the examples have some sort of visual representation - wheels, flow charts, photographs, etc. Lots of creative inspiration there!