Living a Radical Ordinary Life

I cannot recommend the following article enough! What's It Like to Be Shane Claiborne-Again was written by D. L. Mayfield, a woman who decided along with her husband to pursue a life of simplicity and service after hearing of Shane Claiborne's work. This article addresses some of the struggles that come up as we discuss money, service, poverty, and social justice in the church...and when we hear the stories of others doing "big" and radical things.

...many who read Claiborne and his contemporaries do feel guilty. And in response, they either feel paralyzed and do nothing, or try to atone for their sins by doing everything.

Perhaps this is what the church at large struggles with, the pervading sense of both legalism and shame that can haunt “radical” conversion stories. Just as 1 Corinthians warns us about those who sell all that they have but do not love, Claiborne describes what too often happens to social justice types: they simply trade one form of moralism (“I would never drink alcohol”) for another (“I would never wear Nikes”).

I will only give you this snippet of the article because I want you to go read the whole thing for yourselves! Enjoy!

Tip: It works best if you scroll to the bottom of the first part of the article, past the ad, and then click "single page (reader mode)." Then you can read the whole article at once, rather than clicking through 4 pages. 

What are the sacraments?

As we continue our discussion of sacraments, it seems helpful to offer a few definitions. According to the Catholic Church, there are 7 sacraments. I have listed them here with the common names associated with each of them:

1. Baptism

2. Eucharist/Communion

3. Penance/Reconciliation - Involving "conversion, confession, and celebration." (For Lutherans, this sacraments is often named Confession and Absolution.)

4. Confirmation

5. Marriage

6. Holy Orders/Ordination (vows of priests, nuns, monks) 

7. Anointing the Sick/Last Rites/Extreme Unction

The United Methodist Church (UMC) recognizes Baptism and Eucharist as sacraments. The other "sacraments" are practiced by the UMC, but they are not considered sacraments. The following is an excellent resource for what the UMC professes: Sacraments, Rites and Rituals. 

Finding a history of sacraments has proven somewhat difficult, and the sources are all extremely biased. An article from the Christian Courier states: 

"...the Roman Church has had a fluctuating recognition as to what constitutes a genuine 'sacrament.' The number of sacraments has varied from five to twelve. It was not until the session of Trent in 1549 that the number 'seven' became fixed as an article of faith."

A relatively thorough discussion of the sacraments can be found in the online Catholic Encyclopedia here: Sacraments. This article contains both history, definitions, and theological discussion of the sacraments. The following statements are of note:

According to the teaching of the Catholic Church, accepted today by many Episcopalians, the sacraments of the Christian dispensation are not mere signs; they do not merely signify Divine grace, but in virtue of their Divine institution, they cause that grace in the souls of men. 

Protestants generally hold that the sacraments are signs of something sacred (grace and faith), but deny that they really cause Divine grace. Episcopalians, however, and Anglicans, especially the Ritualists, hold with Catholics that the sacraments are "effectual signs" of grace. 

These statements get at one of the very, very tangled threads of this tapestry of church history and sacraments. There is a significant divide between the Catholic and Protestant churches along this line.

Positions on Public Confession

This week's homework regarding confession raises some questions for me about the practice of public confession and/or confession to those NOT involved with a particular offense. I have definitely experienced situations where public confession seemed to do more harm than good. As this article from Christianity Today so aptly describes  (The Trouble With Confessing in Church):

"In a church setting, I think public confession should be prefaced with a spiritual Miranda warning: Anything you say may well be used against you. Your confession might easily become a shorthand way to brand you: 'Jeff? He's the embezzler.' 'Cindy is an alcoholic.' 'Missy got pregnant at 16.'"

I ran across this article by D.A. Delafield from Ministry: International Journal of Pastors called The If and When of Confession. Essentially, Delafield makes the case that scriptures are very clear that we need to confess to God, but less clear about confession to others. The scripture most often cited for public confession is James 5:16

"Therefore, confess  your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed." 

Delafield takes a careful look at the word for "sins" in this passage, as compared to the word "sins" in other parts of the New Testament. There appears to be a distinction between sins that only God can forgive and sins that can be forgiven by people (and God, of course):

"Wrong deeds secretly done are to be confessed to God alone. Sins that involve others are to be confessed also to those who have suffered injury." 

In the cases where sin involves others, confession to those involved can help to heal the relationship. This is what the scripture in James seems to be saying, not necessarily that every sin needs to be confessed to others.

I can't say that I necessarily agree with the examples given in Delafield's article, but I lean toward agreeing with the general message. Some caution seems prudent in confessing sins that were previously unknown to the other person. Aside from the possibility that confessions may be simply fodder for gossip, as mentioned by the Christianity Today article, it is also important to be thoughtful about the motivation of a confession. Is it to assuage personal feelings of guilt? Will it help or harm the other person? Is it to appear "spiritual?" Is there an air of arrogance or piety about the confession? How will the confession impact the community?

Having said these things, though, I find that I can also see the other "side" of the argument. It would also be possible to misuse the above information as a defense for hiding sin, and, unfortunately, many sins that do not directly involve others still have an indirect impact on families and communities. In his book, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer states:

"...there is no sin in thought, word, or deed, no mater how personal or secret, that does not harm the whole community. When the cause of an illness gets into one's body, whether or not anyone knows where it comes from, or in what member it has lodged, the body is made ill."

When stated this way, it seems that public confession of sin is both necessary and beneficial. Families and communities are often harmed by secrets and sins that didn't seem necessary to reveal or confess. I find myself remembering conversations about family secrets from earlier this year when we were discussing Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.

I do not claim to have answers, but I think that studying the questions and the range of interpretations can help guide us as we make decisions for ourselves and seek to practice faith together.

Journaling, Doodling, Pictures...

I spoke with some of you a little more this last week about the concept of doodling and drawing as part of prayer and worship. The internet is full right now of examples of this "new" idea of Bible journaling, and I was inspired to share some. I find artwork related to scripture so inspiring, and I love the way that coloring, drawing, and doodling engage different parts of our brains.

This lovely example is from jannstory.blogspot.com:

Rachel Wojo has some online tutorials (as well as free printables): Bible Journaling for Beginners. 

And I have a pinterest board of some of my favorite scripture artwork: Scripture: Speak It, Learn It, Do It. 

An article from the Wall Street Journal in 2014 states: 

Recent research in neuroscience, psychology and design shows that doodling can help people stay focused, grasp new concepts and retain information.

An article in The Atlantic a year later says:

“When you draw an object, the mind becomes deeply, intensely attentive,” says the designer Milton Glaser, an author of a 2008 monograph titled Drawing Is Thinking. “And it’s that act of attention that allows you to really grasp something, to become fully conscious of it.” 

And...

Drawing, even in a primitive way, often triggers insights and discoveries that aren’t possible through words alone.

 Keep on doodling, my friends!

More on prayer/worship without words...

One of the questions for reflection for this week is, "When have you experienced a sense of worship outside of church?" I immediately thought of this quote by L.M. Montgomery from Anne of Green Gables: 

Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field all alone or in the deep, deep woods and I'd look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I'd just feel a prayer.

...and this quote made me think of the previous post on praying without words.  Anne Lamott says in Help, Thanks, Wow:

When we are stunned to the place beyond words, we're finally starting to get somewhere. It is so comfortable to think we know what it all means, what to expect, and how it all hangs together. When we are stunned to the place beyond words, when an aspect of life takes us away from being able to chip away at something until it's down to a manageable size and then to file it nicely away, when all we can say in response is "Wow," that's a prayer.

 ...and this brought me around to thinking about what Ceola said about how drawing a picture helped her to remember the morning's devotions.

There's something about things that take us out of the space of words that points us to a bigger God, a God who defies our explanations, who cannot fit into the box we create with our words. This is a God that can meet us in our souls, in our emotions, in the parts of ourselves that go deeper than reason.

Daily Devotional by Mike Slaughter

Here's another devotional to add to your list of possibilities! We've spent a lot of time this year talking about regular faith practices. Mike Slaughter, the speaker for the coming week's Animate: Practices session on worship has an online daily devotional, including a printable journal for Lent. Check it out: 

Online Daily Devotionals

Lenten Journal

Who is Mike Slaughter?

The third session of Animate:Practices, Worship: Seeking God's Presence, is presented by Mike Slaughter. 

From the Spark House website: 

Rev. Mike Slaughter is in his fourth decade as the chief dreamer of Ginghamsburg Church in Tipp City, Ohio, and the spiritual entrepreneur of ministry marketplace innovations. His lifelong passion to reach the lost and set the oppressed free has made him a tireless and leading advocate for the children, women, and men of Darfur, Sudan. Mike's call to afflict the comfortable challenges Christians to wrestle with God and their God-destinies. He is the author of 14 books, including Change the World and Christmas is Not Your Birthday, which embody what it means to take the church into the world, rather than simply coaxing the world into the church.
Five fast facts

1. Lists his best spiritual gift as the "gift of irritation"
2. Admits ice cream is a major weakness
3. Loves baseball, especially the Cincinnati Reds
4. Has five grandkids
5. Was named by The Church Report as one of the 50 most influential Christians in America 

Visit the website of Ginghamsburg here: http://ginghamsburg.org/
Mike Slaughter's personal site can be found here: http://mikeslaughter.com/

Lauren Winner's Thoughts on Food

In response to this week's topic of "Food:Eating with Jesus," I looked up the author of one of our previous studies, Lauren Winner, and found a wonderful excerpt from her book Wearing God, which was published last spring. You can read the excerpt titled "Bread" here: http://imagejournal.org/article/bread/.  Winner begins with an exploration of God's concern for food and continues with the history of white bread, the meaning of fried chicken in the African American community, and the development of eating disorders.

"It would not be a gross exaggeration to say that the Bible is a culinary manual, concerned from start to finish with how to eat, what to eat, when to eat. Food is the first way the Bible shows the God intends to provide for humanity. ... And food is the shorthand for our disobedience..." 

I recommend the entire article. I am struck with how food is both entirely mundane and also so very infused with spiritual, cultural, and emotional meaning.

Who is Sara Miles?

The second session of Animate: Practices, Food: Eating with Jesus, is presented by Sara Miles.

From the Spark House website:

Sara Miles is a writer whose book Take This Bread tells the story of her "unexpected and inconvenient" conversion to Christianity, and how a mystical first experience of Holy Communion led her to organize hungry people to offer literally tons of free groceries at the altar each week, without conditions. She's the author of Jesus Freak: Feeding Healing Raising the Dead, about unorthodox Christian communities built around actually doing these works of Jesus, and City of God, which looks at public worship through one Ash Wednesday as it unfolds in the streets of her city. 

Sara is Director of Ministry at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, and the founder and director of The Food Pantry. She preaches and speaks widely around the country. 

Five fast facts:

1. Lives in San Francisco with her wife
2. Posts a daily bouquet made entirely from flowers grown in her backyard
3. Also grows figs, lemons, apples, apricots, plums, and blueberries—no vegetables
4. Used to work as a war correspondent, writing about revolutions, counter-revolutions, and post-Vietnam military doctrine
5. Devoted to the Virgin of Guadalupe

You can learn more about Sara Miles at her website: http://www.saramiles.net/ 

Praying Without Words

At our last meeting, as we discussed liturgical prayer and spontaneous prayer, Carol mentioned praying without words entirely. I found this idea intriguing and went looking for some resources. First, I found this quote by C.S. Lewis from his book Letters to Malcolm:

For many years after my conversion I never used any ready-made forms except the Lord's Prayer. In fact I tried to pray without words at all--not to verbalise the mental acts. Even in praying for others I believe I tended to avoid their names and substituted mental images of them. I still think the prayer without words is the best--if one can really achieve it. 

And John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim's Progress, said,

When you pray, rather let thy heart be without words than they words without heart.

John Parsons, of Hebrew For Christians, offers this article: A Few Thoughts on Prayer, where he points out that prayer comes from the heart, and is therefore with or without words. As an offering of the heart, prayer may also be either conscious or unconscious. It is the heart's communication with God. He shares a Jewish midrash on prayer in this way:

The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel, "I bade you pray in the assembly of your city, but if you cannot pray there, pray in your field, but if you cannot pray there, pray on your bed, but if you cannot pray there, 'be still and know that I am God.'"

 Romans 8:26 says this,

For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

The practice of prayer encompasses so much more than words, and, clearly, the Spirit "hears" our heart, our intentions without words. A more holistic view of prayer might involve out thoughts, intentions, emotions, and images. In the words of John Parsons,

Prayer is essentially a response to God's call for us, a kind of teshuvah, or turning to God. ... It is not about finding the right words. 

Notes from Patti about Prayer

Patti mentioned this at our last group meeting and graciously passed it along to me in email so that I could share it with all of you!

Many years ago I was given a copy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's writings on "Daily Meditation" from his letters, lectures and notes titled, The Way to Freedom. Through the years,  I've adapted his notes with my thoughts to come up with a recipe to begin my day.  Through the various chapters of my life of mothering, working, healing and tending, the amount of time I spent varied, but the method remained helpful in enhancing my conversations with God.  My tangible tools are my Bible, my notebook and a pen. I often begin with jotting down initials of persons or situations occupying my head and heart.  This is simply to unload so that I can truly "devote" to my relationship with God.  I then use the following guide:

COME:

A quiet prayer to the Holy Spirit is a precious guarantee of guidance and blessing.

CONCENTRATE:

Choosing a Scripture verse can be as simple as using a verse or two from a Psalm, Bible app, devotion book or daily calendar of verses.  If the Spirit brings you to a memorized verse, use that.  Read the words aloud or to yourself.  Spend time focusing on these words.

CONSIDER:

Most verses lead me to separate scripture thoughts into 2 columns:  God's part/My part.  (This is often a humble reminder that God is God and I am not! Whew...)  

CREATE:

Praise and written prayer, using the words of scripture and the counsel of the Spirit, more naturally flows from our "time together".     

CARRY ON:

Taking the promises, lessons and perspective with me into the rest of the day has me more likely considering God beside me thru the mundane, the mountain tops and everything in between.  Journaling at the end of the day may be a consideration in the future...

Example of today's entry:

"Come, Holy Spirit.  Reveal yourself to me that our relationship may grow to your glory and my peace."

Concentrate on Proverbs 3:5,6  "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." Paraphrase might be "You promise to make my path straight as I trust in you instead of myself.  Help me to acknowledge you in all ways."

Consider the my part to be to trust in YOU, Lord.  I spin my wheels trying to understand, fix, control etc.  but instead want to acknowledge that you see and know so much more than I do.  Your part will be to make my path straight...change the chaos into peace at the right time and in the right way.

Create in me a clean heart,  oh God.  Renew a right spirit in me.  Thank you for this time of transforming grace.  Thank you for your patient love.  Amen

Carry On with a sweet reminder to trust in a God who loves me.

Julie sent the following email to share with the group:

While working on our homework assignment, I was lead to a couple of readings from Sermon Notes of Charles Stanley. The following is a summary of what I read. You may want your Bible handy.

Read Philippians 4:6-7
Three Roots of Anxiety that Feed Worry
1) Fear.
The key to overcoming fear is Faith in God's Word. The Word of God is filled with examples, promises, commandments, and principles that reveal our Lord is bigger than any problem we may encounter. Let God's Word frame every situation.
2) Doubt.
The key to contentment is trust in God's ways. Contentment comes when we lay our burden at His feet, trusting in His plan and perfect timing.
3) Control.
The key to overcoming our desire to control is to surrender to His Will.
Psalm 103:19 The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all. (That includes all the details of our lives).

Trust- a strong belief in someone's integrity, ability and character. (Having confidence in the Lord)

Read Proverbs 3:5-6

We all need guidance. In order to receive His instructions we must listen, trust and obey.

A. Meditate on God's Word. (Psalm 119:105)
B. Be Sensitive to the Holy Spirit. (John 16:13)
C. Wait for God's Timing. (Isaiah 64:4)
D. Have Courage. (Joshua 1:9)
E. Accept Conflict. (Acts 5:29)

I often rely on prayer to help me during stressful times and when I am seeking answers to questions. These readings were great reminders of why prayer is an important part of my life. May they be a blessing to you too. I'm looking forward to hearing what you discovered during your study time next week. Until then I'll be thinking of you.

Thank you, Julie, for taking the time to share this with the group!! 

Resources for Prayer

Our group continues to gather in some fantastic resources for assisting us in prayer! Here are a few more that were mentioned on Wednesday:

The Hour That Changes the World by Dick Eastman is a guide to 12 steps or "movements" (as Brian McLaren might say) of prayer. Each "movement" is intended to take about 5 minutes, leading the individual through an hour of prayer. Linda mentioned this book to the group and was quick to note that the book is not written in a legalistic manner, nor should it be taken that way. It's a practical guide, with room for flexibility. (Note: The book is available both in paperback and as an ebook.)

If you do a search for Eastman's book, you might stumble upon the article How To Pray at  www.714movement.com, a site developed in collaboration with Dr. James T. Bradford. Bradford has used Eastman's principles of prayer (which are listed in the article at the link above) to develop a prayer journal called Seven: Fourteen. The 714 website and app include daily readings, devotionals, and real-time maps of people praying around the world!

Also, I cannot recommend highly enough Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Prayerbook of the Bible. This book is often sold in a combined volume with his book Life Together, which also includes some lovely readings on the role of communal scripture reading, silence, and prayer. Bonhoeffer makes a convincing case for the daily reading of the Psalms as our Prayerbook. The Psalter is the prayer book that Jesus would have used in prayer. It was the prayer book of the early church. And it still relevant today as it encompasses a range of human emotion and experience.

For previously mentioned resources, see Daily/Weekly Practices, The Daily Office, Contemplative Spirituality, and Fixed Hour Prayer, and Praying the Divine Hours.

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!

Daily/Weekly Practices

On Wednesday, we discussed some of the daily/weekly practices that are already part of some of our lives that help us to stay connected to God. Several people in our group mentioned resources that have been part of their spiritual practice for some time. Among them were:

Jesus Calling by Sarah Young - This is a devotional book, which is available in paper, ebook, and app formats! This devotional has been mentioned and shared at our group so many times, it's definitely worth a special mention. Here is a brief bio about Sarah Young from the above link:

Sarah is biblically conservative in her faith and reformed in her doctrine. She earned a master’s degree in biblical studies and counseling from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. She is a member of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), where her husband, Stephen, is an ordained minister. Stephen and Sarah continue to be missionaries with Mission to the World, the PCA mission board.

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers is a true classic and is available entirely for free online at the link posted here. From the linked website:

Chambers was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1874, the youngest son of a Baptist minister. He spent his boyhood years in Perth; then his family moved to London when Oswald was fifteen....

While studying at the University of Edinburgh (1895-96), he decided, after an agonizing internal battle, to study for the ministry. He left the university and entered Dunoon College, near Glasgow, where he remained as a student, then a tutor for nine years.
In 1906 he traveled to the United States, spending six months teaching at God’s Bible School in Cincinnati, Ohio. From there, he went to Japan, visiting the Tokyo Bible School, founded by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Cowman. This journey around the world in 1906-1907 marked his transition from Dunoon College to fulltime work with the Pentecostal League of Prayer.

She Reads Truth is an online community of women, who read the Bible together online daily. Daily devotionals are available on their website or their app, OR you can subscribe to get them in your email inbox. Currently, the site has an Advent study available online for free. Here's what they have to say:

God’s Word is a gift, and reading it is a privilege. She Reads Truth cheers on ministries whose mission is to reach the unreached with their very first Bibles. Our mission is to invite the already-reached to reach for their Bibles—every day.

Discovering the Bible: Your Daily Bible Reading Companion by Gordon Addington takes the reader through the Bible in a year. (The link to this book will take you to a website that gives a portion of their book sale proceeds to charity. A drop down menu when you make a purchase allows you to select a charity of your choice!) About the book:

A respected Bible teacher, Gordon L. Addington, both a medical doctor and a doctor of ministry, wants to take you through this journey in one year. InDiscovering the Bible, he gives insightful notes and the historical background for each day’s reading. See how God unfolds His amazing plan of redemption throughout the entire Bible.

Checklist for Life for Moms is a book specifically for moms and the challenges moms face:

In addition to a brief narrative, each chapter of this interactive handbook features:

• An "I Will" checklist of heart and attitude reinforcements.
• A "Things to Do" checklist of action points.
• A "Things to Remember" section of Scripture verses and applicable quotes from famous and not-so-famous people

For more resources for practicing "Daily Offices" or Fixed Hour Prayer...or whatever you want to call your daily practice of prayer...see this previous blog post: The Daily Office, Contemplative Spirituality, and Fixed Hour Prayer.

If you have more to add, just add a comment. I'll also be adding as things come in to my email! 

Edited to add: Tesha asked about the book our family used a number of years ago. It was called A Contemporary Celtic Prayer Book  by William John Fitzgerald and Joyce Rupp. This book offers a week's worth of morning, midday, and evening meditations following a repeating format. The meditations include traditional liturgical prayers (The Lord's Prayer, The Magnificat, etc...), as well as poems, hymns, and some guided meditations. The latter portion of the book includes prayers for special occasions and holidays. Aurora loved this book as a young child because she learned the format quickly and knew what to expect. She also had many of the prayers and poems memorized in a relatively short period of time! Without prompting, she asked me about this book just a few weeks ago and expressed interest in going back to it!

The Daily Office, Contemplative Spirituality, and Fixed Hour Prayer

For the past several weeks I have been reading from Day By Day by Peter Scazzero at the start of each of our Morning Blend sessions. This is a devotional or daily "office" book written by Scazzero to assist the reader in practicing contemplative spirituality in a rhythmic, twice-a-day manner. To hear more about the premise of this book, you can watch Scazzero's video introduction here:

If you like the idea of introducing this ancient Christian practice into your own life and want to check out more resources, you might take a look at some of the works of Phyllis Tickle, who was a speaker in the Animate: Bible series we studied a few years ago. You can read several excerpts from her book and read more about Daily Offices/Divine Hours by following this link: The Divine Hours.  Tickle includes an article on her own website, About Fixed Hour Prayer, where she also recommends a book by Shane Claiborne, who is part of the Animate: Practices series that we may be studying in the spring. On his website, you can find daily prayers online: Common Prayer.

Mourning in Community - Questions for Reflection & Suggested Activity

An article summarizing Lauren Winner's discussion on Jewish Mourning practices can be found here: Mourning in Community.

In Winner's perspective, the church has lost the sense of community and communal practice that is essential in Judaism, and one of the places where this is most evident is in "the way Christians mourn:"

Winner's upbringing has led her to value communal practices, which are integral to Judaism but have largely been lost in translation to Christianity, where religious practice has moved from being communal (in Israel) to being philosophical (in Greece), institutional (in Rome), cultural (in Europe), and now to being corporate (in North America). In her writing, Winner has established a pattern of diagnosing Christian isolationism: what others do in community, we try to do alone. One of the strongest such examples is her vision of the way Christians mourn.

...

Later, Winner says that mourning “is never easy, but it is better done inside a communal grammar of bereavement” (28). Christianity, living as it does on this side of Easter, often fails to provide an honest and accurate assessment of the cruelness of death and loss. So Winner turns instead to the grammar of Judaism, which lives in between death and resurrection.

These questions for reflection are taken from the longer chapter by chapter study guide:

When was the last time you were at a funeral, who was there, and what you were aware of when you were there?

How were you taught to mourn? Is mourning a private process or a community pilgrimage?

When was the last time you, personally, had to mourn? How long did you let yourself mourn? How long did the community give you permission to mourn?

Who is mourning around you now? What does it mean to mourn with them?

Suggested activity:

Read Psalm 77 a few times - aloud and silently. Consider writing your own personal lament. You may want to lament something personally in your life or something globally. You could lament a death, a broken relationship, a natural disaster, a current event disaster.

Teaching Kids About Sabbath

Pat shared an article with me on Wednesday that she found in Today's Christian Woman. I found the article online and wanted to pass it on to all of you!

Teaching Kids About Sabbath

Despite the title, the article is for anyone finding a way to practice Sabbath, not just for those trying to pass the practice on to their children