Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
Yesterday, I ordered a copy for myself of this book from amazon.com. So now will put the book back in the stack which Pastor Maddox is looking through for possible inclusion on the shelves of the Mustard Seed Library. There are more chapters in the book than I've covered here on the blog: forgiveness, religious imagery, renewing our memories, seeing Christ in the events of our lives, seeing ourselves in the events of Christ's life, focussing on a feeling, etc., etc., etc.
For this section on integration and balancing opposites, the author relates an example from his own counselling experience:
"A married couple came to me with a deep hurt between them; since they could no longer talk with each other, they needed to talk with a third party. After being with both of them for a while it was obvious to me that this was a case in which both the husband and wife had believed the American stereotype of what it means to be male and female; he was detached emotionally, overly logical in his opinions, and confused by displays of feelings and by needs for creativity; she, on the other hand, was given to outbursts of various emotions, had not developed her rational mind to any great extent, and was in touch with her feelings and expressed with great intensity that she was hurt, angry, and miserable in this relationship.
"Since the marriage was more than ten years old, it took quite some time for them to see that in a sense, unconsciously, they had planned things this way, that each had chosen the role he or she played because at one time it had been comfortable for him or her and for the other as well. For early in the marriage he did not want to threaten his macho image by admitting that he was sensitive and had deep feelings, and she did not want to threaten her femininity by being strong and assertive. So they had made an unconscious contract to behave in the way in which they indeed were now behaving.
"But after several years, the convenience of this arrangement began to erode. While at first she had wanted her man to be strong, rational, and independent, she was now feeling a need for him to be sensitive to her feelings and to give her understanding; and while he originally enjoyed his wife when she could express her feelings and his own as well, and he thought her comical when she could not follow his ideas, now he was needing her to look at life from his point of view once in a while and to be able to act more independently in making her own decisions.
"Also, they began to dislike themselves the way they were, and they began to blame each other for it. She could not see her own worth and value because he would never affirm it, for he was now looking for things she could not and/or would not give him; he was almost constantly angry at everyone--which revealed a deep anger toward himself--because he did not sense that he was important, nor were his opinions valuable, to his wife.
"Once we unraveled this complicated tangle of ideas, expectations, and emotions, the couple saw that each needed to find more balance in his or her life so that their relationship could express the mutuality they were seeking. Each saw the internal lack of balance in both of them as the cause of their relationship problems, and they were motivated to grow as well as to go through the painful process of allowing their relationship to change, that is, to change the ways they needed each other, their expectations of each other, their individual participation in their family life, and their needs for time outside the family.
"While none of this was easy or simple, the beacon of hope we all had through this process was the prayer for integration and balance. At first we prayed that Jesus would bring about in both of them a new integration within their own personalities, that under the Spirit's guidance they would discover and act on new capabilities within themselves--that he would discover his ability to be sensitive and she her ability to be assertive. Then we prayed that between them God would establish an order with the grace of understanding and patience. In praying for a balance in their relationship we asked the Lord to help them discover and cherish in themselves the parts of themselves that were like the other. The rest of our prayers included forgiveness (Chapter 5) for past hurts and healing of memories (Part Three) for experience of their marriage, both individually and as a couple. But the majority of our praying centered on discovering their true selves by praying for integration of opposites within their personalities.
"This was the beginning of great change and growth in them as persons and as a couple. After an intitial four weekly visits, I saw them individually or as a couple once every two or three months for approximately three years. Over that period of time she began to organize her time better and to find new ways to express herself, including working for a while. He found himself growing in his ability to listen to her feelings and to understand her hurt. They decided to attend a Marriage Encounter weekend and their communication benefited greatly from the experience--and that was something both of them would have resisted before praying to discover their true selves.
"Their marriage and family problems smoothed out with counseling and prayer, and with much work and time. Part of the hard work involved was the difficulty they experienced in allowing the Lord to help them grow, but especially in accepting the ways their spouse was growing. It was a time of "creative instablity" in their marriage, when they did not know definitely what to expect from themselves, let alone from the other, but in that freedom the Lord had a chance to work and show them how to love each other in the ways they needed to be loved."
This is a long blog entry to have typed out but I just thought this example was so profound. The way that he counselled the couple, over three years but, just the right amount of time spent in counselling sessions (it sounds like it was probably less than 20 hours), coupled with the man and the woman developing their prayer life and spiritual growth over that time frame so that, in fact they both were able to recognize a conscious acceptance of their own responsiblity, know themselves and each other better, listening more openly to God, is a mark of the greatest of being free as Christians. Could be they had absorbed the Galatians book in the Bible.
Anyway, I am enjoying the book and putting into practice journal writing, prayer of quiet and prayer of light. If anyone else wants to read it in its entirety, it will be in the stack of books that Pastor Maddox has.
The next book out of the stack which Joyce contributed is "The Hour Than Changes The World: A Practical Plan for Personal Prayer" by Dick Eastman. Maybe out of this one, I can just pull some short quotes for a change.
God bless,
Sharon
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Still on Integration and Balancing Opposites
Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
The author of this book, in this chapter also goes into the possible connections between the workings of the body and the mind and spirit. He writes that "Some physical diseases are merely physical and need the attention of a competent physician and the love of Jesus mediated through prayer for physical healing." He also writes "For often when we are sick it is a sign from deep within us that something in our minds or in our spirits needs attention--a sign that we need to grow--and when we do that which our inner selves need, we are healed. Some of us will stop long enough to look at our inner selves only when we are physically ill--only then are we ready to admit our need for change and we are willing to try to change, even though the change may be painful. Inner healing and physical healing are connected in many different ways."
In this chapter on integrating and balancing opposites he introduces some physiological information: "Physiologists tell us that our bodies run on a low current of electricity flowing through the nerves and brain cells, and this electric current "carves impressions" on the cortex of the brain as we repeat thoughts, feelings, and actions. As these impressions become deeper we form a habit of that particular reaction. The imbalance in ourselves that we perceive is in part "pressed into" our brains by the electricity in our bodies, and so I find it helpful to pray that these impressions are washed over by the Light of God's Love, that this Light erases old and unhealthy patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior and creates new, healthier, more balanced ones."
"On a physiological level, another form of imbalance that we can experience is an imbalance of hormones and other secretions within the body (often subtly connected with movements of the psyche), and imbalances within and among various organs of the body. Often it is not certain whether these reactions are causes or effects of imbalances within the psyche, but we do know that they affect the way in which we live and relate to other people. So we can find it worthwhile to pray that the Light of God will fill any parts of our bodies not acting in harmony with the rest of the body, and that the Light of God will balance all hormonal and other secretions in the body in the best way for us. We do not need to have all the particular medical knowledge of what is wrong to ask God to set it right, although that knowledge can help our prayers to be more specific."
The author contributes his own sample prayer, coming from the medical knowledge that he understands:
"Jesus, I know that there are certain areas of my life that are governed by habits of thought, feeling and behavior that throw my life out of balance. I ask now that the Light of Your Love for me wash over my brain where all these habits are physically ingrained. I ask You to free me with Your grace and create in me new patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior more in tune with the person I really am, and so free me to express my true self.
"Lord Jesus, if in my body there is any imbalance of hormonal or other secretions that is causing or is the result of disorientations within my psyche, I ask You now to heal that imbalance. Send the Light of Your Love into those parts of my body that are not functioning according to Your perfect plan for me, and help my body to accept Your Love, which will make it whole. Jesus, only You know how fully this physical imbalance has affected my life; I give You permission to put back into proper perspective all those parts of my life touched by this problem. Thank You, Jesus, for knowing what to do and how to do it gently and effectively."
This way of praying is interesting to me and maybe to you. Light is I believe a physical attribute and to image and pray for God's love to come to us as Light penetrating and washing over the parts of our body could very well be an opening within us for God to work to heal wherever the need within us is. The author is always acknowledging throughout this book that God knows more than we do and we pray constantly for revelation and help and to be able to accept God's coming into our lives to give us integration and balance and now the author advises us in this chapter to pray for physical integration and balance also. I think the thing is for people always to pray as it makes sense for them to pray but, if light and thinking of God's love as Light in your life, in my life, makes sense, any of us could very well bring this way of praying into our prayer lives. It's reminding me of all the hymns "Jesus, the Light of the world" and this little light of mine, Jesus gave it to me, etc., etc., etc. Light is a mysterious substance, what makes sunlight, candle light, electrical light?
God's Peace,
Sharon
The author of this book, in this chapter also goes into the possible connections between the workings of the body and the mind and spirit. He writes that "Some physical diseases are merely physical and need the attention of a competent physician and the love of Jesus mediated through prayer for physical healing." He also writes "For often when we are sick it is a sign from deep within us that something in our minds or in our spirits needs attention--a sign that we need to grow--and when we do that which our inner selves need, we are healed. Some of us will stop long enough to look at our inner selves only when we are physically ill--only then are we ready to admit our need for change and we are willing to try to change, even though the change may be painful. Inner healing and physical healing are connected in many different ways."
In this chapter on integrating and balancing opposites he introduces some physiological information: "Physiologists tell us that our bodies run on a low current of electricity flowing through the nerves and brain cells, and this electric current "carves impressions" on the cortex of the brain as we repeat thoughts, feelings, and actions. As these impressions become deeper we form a habit of that particular reaction. The imbalance in ourselves that we perceive is in part "pressed into" our brains by the electricity in our bodies, and so I find it helpful to pray that these impressions are washed over by the Light of God's Love, that this Light erases old and unhealthy patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior and creates new, healthier, more balanced ones."
"On a physiological level, another form of imbalance that we can experience is an imbalance of hormones and other secretions within the body (often subtly connected with movements of the psyche), and imbalances within and among various organs of the body. Often it is not certain whether these reactions are causes or effects of imbalances within the psyche, but we do know that they affect the way in which we live and relate to other people. So we can find it worthwhile to pray that the Light of God will fill any parts of our bodies not acting in harmony with the rest of the body, and that the Light of God will balance all hormonal and other secretions in the body in the best way for us. We do not need to have all the particular medical knowledge of what is wrong to ask God to set it right, although that knowledge can help our prayers to be more specific."
The author contributes his own sample prayer, coming from the medical knowledge that he understands:
"Jesus, I know that there are certain areas of my life that are governed by habits of thought, feeling and behavior that throw my life out of balance. I ask now that the Light of Your Love for me wash over my brain where all these habits are physically ingrained. I ask You to free me with Your grace and create in me new patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior more in tune with the person I really am, and so free me to express my true self.
"Lord Jesus, if in my body there is any imbalance of hormonal or other secretions that is causing or is the result of disorientations within my psyche, I ask You now to heal that imbalance. Send the Light of Your Love into those parts of my body that are not functioning according to Your perfect plan for me, and help my body to accept Your Love, which will make it whole. Jesus, only You know how fully this physical imbalance has affected my life; I give You permission to put back into proper perspective all those parts of my life touched by this problem. Thank You, Jesus, for knowing what to do and how to do it gently and effectively."
This way of praying is interesting to me and maybe to you. Light is I believe a physical attribute and to image and pray for God's love to come to us as Light penetrating and washing over the parts of our body could very well be an opening within us for God to work to heal wherever the need within us is. The author is always acknowledging throughout this book that God knows more than we do and we pray constantly for revelation and help and to be able to accept God's coming into our lives to give us integration and balance and now the author advises us in this chapter to pray for physical integration and balance also. I think the thing is for people always to pray as it makes sense for them to pray but, if light and thinking of God's love as Light in your life, in my life, makes sense, any of us could very well bring this way of praying into our prayer lives. It's reminding me of all the hymns "Jesus, the Light of the world" and this little light of mine, Jesus gave it to me, etc., etc., etc. Light is a mysterious substance, what makes sunlight, candle light, electrical light?
God's Peace,
Sharon
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Chapter 4 - integrating and balancing opposites
Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
The author of this book doesn't quote a lot of scripture but, when he does, it is the meatiest of scripture and so he quotes Galatians 2:20, the Apostle Paul teaching "I have been crucified with Christ and I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me."
In trying to get a handle on what the author is saying regarding the need to integrate and balance opposites, he writes "No matter how hard we work at it, by ourselves we cannot integrate any parts of our personalities, for they are connected to drives so deep within us that we often are unaware of them, and we definitely cannot control them. Our problem is that in some ways they are in control of us!"
The author further writes "Unfortunately, this (integrating and balancing opposites) is not as easy as it sounds. For to admit some imbalance about our inner selves is not just to say that it is there, it is also to recognize that it needs to be changed, that the change will cause pain, and that we are willing to endure that pain for the sake of growth."
Pastor Freed conveyed an interesting quote on his Winning Words blog this morning: "Refuse to accept the inevitable." (Unknown) inevitable from the dictionary means "that cannot be avoided or evaded, certain to happen" Pastor Freed saw this quote on a clock. He also told us about a poem by Attila Gyenis which used the quote and I'm writing a bit of the poem here:
"If we are unable to choose which path we want to be on
if we allow ourselves to be dragged onto the path that leads to our own destruction
if we are unable to realize the inevitable outcome of our actions
if we continue to be blind to everything that is around us
if we don't start having truth and justice as our guiding light
than those four empty spaces will have been in vain.
Something has to change.
Attila Gyenis was writing about the Kent State tragedy when four young college students were killed. I wonder if one could say that there was a giant societal imbalance and lack of integration that led up to all the horrible loss of life during those tumultous years. I also wonder if I and may be you might entertain the thought too that some of the current ways we act, think, and feel, things that are the way each of us has "always been", so much so that we can even hardly dare to think we might change and also that we might have a long of history of finally deciding that they just "aren't that important" to make any effort to change, but maybe some of these ways that we act, think and feel actually stand in the way of our own "I have been crucified with Christ and I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me." Who knows if these little acts, thinking and feeling that we have put at the bottom of the pile of stuff for us to be concerned about are the seeds of much greater self-destructiveness ahead, especially greater difficulties in our relationships with God and with other people. Don't mean to scare anyone but just reflecting upon if people need to pay attention to the symptoms the author talked about and which I listed earlier on this blog.
Besides not being willing to endure pain for the sake of growth, the author also lists being unwilling to admit that we have made mistakes in our judgment for which we need to forgive ourselves, pride and/or insecurity in admitting when we are wrong and need to change and that prevent us from asking Jesus sincerely to help us.
"It means admitting that because He is God and He made us, He knows better than we do how our lives need to be reshaped to become integrated, balanced, and successful--in His eyes."
I'm glad that those words "Refuse to accept the inevitable" are on a clock because one of my challenges is to better plan my time and how to take care of our home here so we can be the most peaceful and comfortable in it and hospitable to others in it. Soaking up the author's insights and understanding of the interior and exterior selves and need for integration and balance because it does make sense that, without deeply and sincerely asking Jesus and leaning on Him for His help in making any change, one can make exterior changes for a bit but they really won't stick and a person will just fall back into old ingrained habits of acting, thinking and feeling. With us there will most likely be a sense of the "inevitable", with Jesus never.
God bless all of you, companions on the Mustard Seed Library book reading blog,
Sharon
The author of this book doesn't quote a lot of scripture but, when he does, it is the meatiest of scripture and so he quotes Galatians 2:20, the Apostle Paul teaching "I have been crucified with Christ and I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me."
In trying to get a handle on what the author is saying regarding the need to integrate and balance opposites, he writes "No matter how hard we work at it, by ourselves we cannot integrate any parts of our personalities, for they are connected to drives so deep within us that we often are unaware of them, and we definitely cannot control them. Our problem is that in some ways they are in control of us!"
The author further writes "Unfortunately, this (integrating and balancing opposites) is not as easy as it sounds. For to admit some imbalance about our inner selves is not just to say that it is there, it is also to recognize that it needs to be changed, that the change will cause pain, and that we are willing to endure that pain for the sake of growth."
Pastor Freed conveyed an interesting quote on his Winning Words blog this morning: "Refuse to accept the inevitable." (Unknown) inevitable from the dictionary means "that cannot be avoided or evaded, certain to happen" Pastor Freed saw this quote on a clock. He also told us about a poem by Attila Gyenis which used the quote and I'm writing a bit of the poem here:
"If we are unable to choose which path we want to be on
if we allow ourselves to be dragged onto the path that leads to our own destruction
if we are unable to realize the inevitable outcome of our actions
if we continue to be blind to everything that is around us
if we don't start having truth and justice as our guiding light
than those four empty spaces will have been in vain.
Something has to change.
Attila Gyenis was writing about the Kent State tragedy when four young college students were killed. I wonder if one could say that there was a giant societal imbalance and lack of integration that led up to all the horrible loss of life during those tumultous years. I also wonder if I and may be you might entertain the thought too that some of the current ways we act, think, and feel, things that are the way each of us has "always been", so much so that we can even hardly dare to think we might change and also that we might have a long of history of finally deciding that they just "aren't that important" to make any effort to change, but maybe some of these ways that we act, think and feel actually stand in the way of our own "I have been crucified with Christ and I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me." Who knows if these little acts, thinking and feeling that we have put at the bottom of the pile of stuff for us to be concerned about are the seeds of much greater self-destructiveness ahead, especially greater difficulties in our relationships with God and with other people. Don't mean to scare anyone but just reflecting upon if people need to pay attention to the symptoms the author talked about and which I listed earlier on this blog.
Besides not being willing to endure pain for the sake of growth, the author also lists being unwilling to admit that we have made mistakes in our judgment for which we need to forgive ourselves, pride and/or insecurity in admitting when we are wrong and need to change and that prevent us from asking Jesus sincerely to help us.
"It means admitting that because He is God and He made us, He knows better than we do how our lives need to be reshaped to become integrated, balanced, and successful--in His eyes."
I'm glad that those words "Refuse to accept the inevitable" are on a clock because one of my challenges is to better plan my time and how to take care of our home here so we can be the most peaceful and comfortable in it and hospitable to others in it. Soaking up the author's insights and understanding of the interior and exterior selves and need for integration and balance because it does make sense that, without deeply and sincerely asking Jesus and leaning on Him for His help in making any change, one can make exterior changes for a bit but they really won't stick and a person will just fall back into old ingrained habits of acting, thinking and feeling. With us there will most likely be a sense of the "inevitable", with Jesus never.
God bless all of you, companions on the Mustard Seed Library book reading blog,
Sharon
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Chapter 4 - integrating and balancing opposites
Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
This chapter ouches me. The symptoms that there is need to make some change.
"Our exterior lives often reflect our interior lives. When a person's living quarters are disheveled, there is usually some disorganization in his or her inner life; when one's relationships are in a constant state of brokenness, there is usually much brokenness and pain within that person's psyche and spirit as well. And so we know that when there are large areas of our lives out of balance, we can look to a partial disintegration within ourselves as a possible source of the problem."
"Within our personalities are opposing energies almost too many to enumerate. Some of them are: intellect and emotion, masculine characteristics and feminine characteristics, needs to please others and needs to please ourselves, physical needs and spiritual needs, needs to work and needs to relax, seeing the way things are and seeing what we want them to be, hatred and love, hope and despair, faith and indifference, the parts of ourselves we reject and our conscious self-concept, the list could go on and on."
Does the author mean that, when it's just crazy around here in the house, it's NOT because life is just so busy to get the housework done? -- it's REALLY because of a partial disintegration within me?
A question at the end of the chapter is "Describe a time in which prayer helped you to balance your life. Did coming into balance make you feel comfortable, uncomfortable, or both? Explain. This is something to reflect upon in my new spiral bound journal.
The author's sample prayer in this chapter is "Lord Jesus, this is an area of deep healing within me and I'm not sure I understand all about it nor that I ever could. All I really know is that no one can grow through life perfectly integrated and balanced and so I need You in my personality. I ask You to stir Your Spirit within me to show me why my life needs Your sense of balance, and to show me in what particular areas I need it."
Do you agree with the author's prayer that it is "Jesus' sense of balance" that is needed in our lives and not something which we decide and control ourselves?
I know that once again this is a long blog entry, but I can't resist putting in Henri Nouwen's meditation for today:
"Putting Our Temperaments in the Service of God"
"Our temperaments--whether flamboyant, phlegmatic, introverted, or extroverted--are quite permanent fixtures of our personalities. Still, the way we "use" our temperaments on a daily basis can vary greatly. When we are attentive to the Spirit of God within us, we will gradually learn to put our temperaments in the service of a virtuous life. Then flamboyancy gives great zeal for the Kingdom, phlegmatism helps to keep an even keel in times of crisis, introversion deepens the contemplative side, and extroversion encourages creative ministry."
"Let's live with our temperaments as with gifts that help us deepen our spiritual lives."
Tomorrow, we'll look at the author's analysis of why it is difficult to make changes to more balanced living.
God bless,
Sharon
This chapter ouches me. The symptoms that there is need to make some change.
"Our exterior lives often reflect our interior lives. When a person's living quarters are disheveled, there is usually some disorganization in his or her inner life; when one's relationships are in a constant state of brokenness, there is usually much brokenness and pain within that person's psyche and spirit as well. And so we know that when there are large areas of our lives out of balance, we can look to a partial disintegration within ourselves as a possible source of the problem."
"Within our personalities are opposing energies almost too many to enumerate. Some of them are: intellect and emotion, masculine characteristics and feminine characteristics, needs to please others and needs to please ourselves, physical needs and spiritual needs, needs to work and needs to relax, seeing the way things are and seeing what we want them to be, hatred and love, hope and despair, faith and indifference, the parts of ourselves we reject and our conscious self-concept, the list could go on and on."
Does the author mean that, when it's just crazy around here in the house, it's NOT because life is just so busy to get the housework done? -- it's REALLY because of a partial disintegration within me?
A question at the end of the chapter is "Describe a time in which prayer helped you to balance your life. Did coming into balance make you feel comfortable, uncomfortable, or both? Explain. This is something to reflect upon in my new spiral bound journal.
The author's sample prayer in this chapter is "Lord Jesus, this is an area of deep healing within me and I'm not sure I understand all about it nor that I ever could. All I really know is that no one can grow through life perfectly integrated and balanced and so I need You in my personality. I ask You to stir Your Spirit within me to show me why my life needs Your sense of balance, and to show me in what particular areas I need it."
Do you agree with the author's prayer that it is "Jesus' sense of balance" that is needed in our lives and not something which we decide and control ourselves?
I know that once again this is a long blog entry, but I can't resist putting in Henri Nouwen's meditation for today:
"Putting Our Temperaments in the Service of God"
"Our temperaments--whether flamboyant, phlegmatic, introverted, or extroverted--are quite permanent fixtures of our personalities. Still, the way we "use" our temperaments on a daily basis can vary greatly. When we are attentive to the Spirit of God within us, we will gradually learn to put our temperaments in the service of a virtuous life. Then flamboyancy gives great zeal for the Kingdom, phlegmatism helps to keep an even keel in times of crisis, introversion deepens the contemplative side, and extroversion encourages creative ministry."
"Let's live with our temperaments as with gifts that help us deepen our spiritual lives."
Tomorrow, we'll look at the author's analysis of why it is difficult to make changes to more balanced living.
God bless,
Sharon
Monday, July 27, 2009
Journal keeping
Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
The author of the book we are reading writes of an example of the benefits of journal writing in one person's life, whom he was counselling. After the woman's life was back on track, she relayed to him that keeping a journal "was most helpful. It was there that she learned how to be herself and how to accept herself, even and especially when no one else would."
Here are the woman's problems. As you read, maybe you would like to try to predict what her outcome of praying and journal keeping would result in, in her life. What she would discover as to being able to be "her true self."
"She was not able to communicate with her husband and felt totally unsupported and unloved. She was under constant pressure from her mother-in-law, who lived nearby. She felt out of place in her small town since she was of a different national extraction from everyone else there, including her husband's family. She had left the church of her childhood for her husband's when she married him, only to feel condemned by this church's teachings. And when her husband more or less demanded that she actively participate in this church's weekly activities, she felt no community support for the religious ideas that were most dear to her heart. Finally, she was raising all her children alone while also functioning as secretary for her husband's business--without a salary".
With that mess of problems, it's sort of interesting to think what solutions for her might be best for her. The author of the book suggests that, when we write a journal, we ask ourselves, "What are the significant thoughts and feelings of this day? What are my responses to them? Did they come from any particular events? And then we write our answers. He suggests we take 15 to 30 minutes several days a week to write these important things in our journals and especially that honesty is most important--not to write with the idea someone else will read, don't write for posterity.
After this woman got in touch with her "true self"
"What is she doing now? Many things she was not doing before. For example, both she and her husband have secretaries and she counsels and prays with people herself. She has a renewed and loving relationship with her husband, her mother-in-law has become her best friend; and, in accepting the fact that her husband's church is different from the church of her youth, she has accepted the giftedness of their view of life without thinking she has to become like them or a part of them. Because she has learned to love herself as Jesus loves her, she is not only healed but is also a healing person for others."
Any surprises you folks out there in e-mail land see? Does it sound like she has come much closer to God and His Will for her life? The author writes that her main problem was that "She had lost her identity by living almost entirely by other people's values, needs, and demands in family and in church, and she no longer knew who she was." Personally, it was amazing to me that especially all her family relationships were reconciled and that her church relationships were reconciled in the way that they were. That she has become a companion for people seeking a closer walk with God, praying with them and so forth, but that she hasn't had to become like the people in her husband's church, while "accepting the giftedness of their view of life." All of our own problems are different from each others and our own solutions will be different from each others and, this woman's story, just makes me wonder about the priorities of it all--in God's sight and would any of us be surprised also at the outcomes as we grow closer and closer to God's Will in our own lives? As we know more and more truly that we, each of us, are born in God's image and that our reason and purpose in life is to complete this image through our free yes to God.
Tomorrow starts Chapter 4: Integrating and Balancing Opposites.
God bless,
Sharon
The author of the book we are reading writes of an example of the benefits of journal writing in one person's life, whom he was counselling. After the woman's life was back on track, she relayed to him that keeping a journal "was most helpful. It was there that she learned how to be herself and how to accept herself, even and especially when no one else would."
Here are the woman's problems. As you read, maybe you would like to try to predict what her outcome of praying and journal keeping would result in, in her life. What she would discover as to being able to be "her true self."
"She was not able to communicate with her husband and felt totally unsupported and unloved. She was under constant pressure from her mother-in-law, who lived nearby. She felt out of place in her small town since she was of a different national extraction from everyone else there, including her husband's family. She had left the church of her childhood for her husband's when she married him, only to feel condemned by this church's teachings. And when her husband more or less demanded that she actively participate in this church's weekly activities, she felt no community support for the religious ideas that were most dear to her heart. Finally, she was raising all her children alone while also functioning as secretary for her husband's business--without a salary".
With that mess of problems, it's sort of interesting to think what solutions for her might be best for her. The author of the book suggests that, when we write a journal, we ask ourselves, "What are the significant thoughts and feelings of this day? What are my responses to them? Did they come from any particular events? And then we write our answers. He suggests we take 15 to 30 minutes several days a week to write these important things in our journals and especially that honesty is most important--not to write with the idea someone else will read, don't write for posterity.
After this woman got in touch with her "true self"
"What is she doing now? Many things she was not doing before. For example, both she and her husband have secretaries and she counsels and prays with people herself. She has a renewed and loving relationship with her husband, her mother-in-law has become her best friend; and, in accepting the fact that her husband's church is different from the church of her youth, she has accepted the giftedness of their view of life without thinking she has to become like them or a part of them. Because she has learned to love herself as Jesus loves her, she is not only healed but is also a healing person for others."
Any surprises you folks out there in e-mail land see? Does it sound like she has come much closer to God and His Will for her life? The author writes that her main problem was that "She had lost her identity by living almost entirely by other people's values, needs, and demands in family and in church, and she no longer knew who she was." Personally, it was amazing to me that especially all her family relationships were reconciled and that her church relationships were reconciled in the way that they were. That she has become a companion for people seeking a closer walk with God, praying with them and so forth, but that she hasn't had to become like the people in her husband's church, while "accepting the giftedness of their view of life." All of our own problems are different from each others and our own solutions will be different from each others and, this woman's story, just makes me wonder about the priorities of it all--in God's sight and would any of us be surprised also at the outcomes as we grow closer and closer to God's Will in our own lives? As we know more and more truly that we, each of us, are born in God's image and that our reason and purpose in life is to complete this image through our free yes to God.
Tomorrow starts Chapter 4: Integrating and Balancing Opposites.
God bless,
Sharon
Friday, July 24, 2009
Journal keeping
Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
A question on yesterday's blogg entry, was "Can you think of other ways in which society's secular view of the world effects people's spiritual growth and the ways they choose to live?" For me, one of the main ways in which our American culture impacts on all of us is the encouragement of discontent and restlessness, a wandering, sort of always moving around to the next great experience, the next great fulfillment, the next solution to our common problems. That atmosphere I feel really also impacts on our families and on our churches and on our communities. My question really is what kinds of tools can counter this rootlessness so evident in our society's secular view of the world, where it seems like sometimes, no one is expected to ever feel at home.?
At the end of each of these chapters in this book, the author presents his sample prayer. They are kind of long and maybe folks aren't reading but I myself have studied it and find it sort of remarkable. I'm capitalizing some phrases in it which impacted upon me because they sort of tie society and the individual together and the author is praying for truth:
"Lord Jesus, I come before You thankful that You have created me unique and beautiful in Your eyes. I thank You that You can see the "real me," even though I cannot always do so, even though I try to hide behind masks of social acceptability, conventionality, and an imitation of real Christian love. Jesus, I know that it is the real me whom You love, for that person You created. I, ON THE OTHER HAND, HAVE CREATED AND ALLOWED OTHERS TO CREATE A FALSE SELF WHOM I HAVE ALLOWED TO PREVAIL WHILE MY TRUE SELF HAS BEEN SUBMERGED.
"Jesus, I need Your help. I need You to show me my true self. I need to see what You see in me. I need to feel Your Love if I am to grow spiritually, and it is only my true self that can feel Your Love.
"Jesus, show me Your will in the matter of my keeping a journal. Help me to be open to the possibilities of this tool in my life. Stir Your Spirit within me to help me understand with my heart, not only my mind, what a journal will do for me and for my relationship with You. I want You more than anything, Jesus, and if that means that I need to keep a journal, I am willing to do that.
"If a journal will help me to find my true self, Lord, I will need to be honest in it. That kind of honesty is a grace that only You can give, and I ask for it now. I want to be able to see myself with the Love with which You see me. To do that I need Your honesty--to see my strengths and weaknesses, to see my life, to take responsibility for being who I am, so that in Your Truth I can become free. IF I LOOK AT MYSELF IN THE CONTEXT OF YOUR LOVE, JESUS, I KNOW I CANNOT FEEL DEPRESSED OR CONCEITED, INADEQUATE OR POWERFUL, BUT I WILL REST IN THE SECURITY OF YOUR CARING, SO DEEP AND RICH. AND IN THAT SECURITY, I WILL FIND MY TRUE SELF.
"I also need to know what my reactions to life are. SO OFTEN I RESPOND WITH SOMEONE ELSE'S THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS. Stir Your Spirit within me to uncover these reactions, especially the ones I find unacceptable or fearsome. I need to face them sometime, and I want You to be with me when I do. Help me become aware of the many ways they reveal themselves in my thoughts, intuitions, moods, dreams and relationships. Help me to learn how to write them, and I ask for the grace to persist in my writing even when it seems that all these reactions are blocked and not one of them will come through. Help me then to believe that You are still with me and guiding this journey of spiritual growth to my true self and to Your Father.
"Lord, last of all, I pray for a thirst--a thirst to know who I really am, a thirst that will not be satisfied by anything but that discovery. I ask You to make me uncomfortable until I set out on this journey, and I ask for a vision of my goal to spur me on. I ask You to love me in this way, so that I will find my true self and thus know what it means to be a child of God. Lord, I know that for everything valuable in life I must pay a price. I am willing to pay it no matter what it may be, if it means that I will find You. For I love You, Jesus, and I know that you are the only real joy in life.
"Thank You, Jesus, for hearing my prayer and for teaching my heart what my mind cannot understand. I WILL FOLLOW YOU ON THIS JOURNEY INWARD. LEAD ME, LORD, LEAD ME. AMEN.
Actually this is just an interesting prayer. If the choice is between being discontented or rootless or homeless out there in society or being discontented or rootless or homeless in the church, I would far rather be with the author here, accompanying him on his inward journey and he on mine, each becoming more and more our true selves and loving Jesus. He's about convinced me to do some of the stuff he is advising.
God bless,
Sharon
A question on yesterday's blogg entry, was "Can you think of other ways in which society's secular view of the world effects people's spiritual growth and the ways they choose to live?" For me, one of the main ways in which our American culture impacts on all of us is the encouragement of discontent and restlessness, a wandering, sort of always moving around to the next great experience, the next great fulfillment, the next solution to our common problems. That atmosphere I feel really also impacts on our families and on our churches and on our communities. My question really is what kinds of tools can counter this rootlessness so evident in our society's secular view of the world, where it seems like sometimes, no one is expected to ever feel at home.?
At the end of each of these chapters in this book, the author presents his sample prayer. They are kind of long and maybe folks aren't reading but I myself have studied it and find it sort of remarkable. I'm capitalizing some phrases in it which impacted upon me because they sort of tie society and the individual together and the author is praying for truth:
"Lord Jesus, I come before You thankful that You have created me unique and beautiful in Your eyes. I thank You that You can see the "real me," even though I cannot always do so, even though I try to hide behind masks of social acceptability, conventionality, and an imitation of real Christian love. Jesus, I know that it is the real me whom You love, for that person You created. I, ON THE OTHER HAND, HAVE CREATED AND ALLOWED OTHERS TO CREATE A FALSE SELF WHOM I HAVE ALLOWED TO PREVAIL WHILE MY TRUE SELF HAS BEEN SUBMERGED.
"Jesus, I need Your help. I need You to show me my true self. I need to see what You see in me. I need to feel Your Love if I am to grow spiritually, and it is only my true self that can feel Your Love.
"Jesus, show me Your will in the matter of my keeping a journal. Help me to be open to the possibilities of this tool in my life. Stir Your Spirit within me to help me understand with my heart, not only my mind, what a journal will do for me and for my relationship with You. I want You more than anything, Jesus, and if that means that I need to keep a journal, I am willing to do that.
"If a journal will help me to find my true self, Lord, I will need to be honest in it. That kind of honesty is a grace that only You can give, and I ask for it now. I want to be able to see myself with the Love with which You see me. To do that I need Your honesty--to see my strengths and weaknesses, to see my life, to take responsibility for being who I am, so that in Your Truth I can become free. IF I LOOK AT MYSELF IN THE CONTEXT OF YOUR LOVE, JESUS, I KNOW I CANNOT FEEL DEPRESSED OR CONCEITED, INADEQUATE OR POWERFUL, BUT I WILL REST IN THE SECURITY OF YOUR CARING, SO DEEP AND RICH. AND IN THAT SECURITY, I WILL FIND MY TRUE SELF.
"I also need to know what my reactions to life are. SO OFTEN I RESPOND WITH SOMEONE ELSE'S THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS. Stir Your Spirit within me to uncover these reactions, especially the ones I find unacceptable or fearsome. I need to face them sometime, and I want You to be with me when I do. Help me become aware of the many ways they reveal themselves in my thoughts, intuitions, moods, dreams and relationships. Help me to learn how to write them, and I ask for the grace to persist in my writing even when it seems that all these reactions are blocked and not one of them will come through. Help me then to believe that You are still with me and guiding this journey of spiritual growth to my true self and to Your Father.
"Lord, last of all, I pray for a thirst--a thirst to know who I really am, a thirst that will not be satisfied by anything but that discovery. I ask You to make me uncomfortable until I set out on this journey, and I ask for a vision of my goal to spur me on. I ask You to love me in this way, so that I will find my true self and thus know what it means to be a child of God. Lord, I know that for everything valuable in life I must pay a price. I am willing to pay it no matter what it may be, if it means that I will find You. For I love You, Jesus, and I know that you are the only real joy in life.
"Thank You, Jesus, for hearing my prayer and for teaching my heart what my mind cannot understand. I WILL FOLLOW YOU ON THIS JOURNEY INWARD. LEAD ME, LORD, LEAD ME. AMEN.
Actually this is just an interesting prayer. If the choice is between being discontented or rootless or homeless out there in society or being discontented or rootless or homeless in the church, I would far rather be with the author here, accompanying him on his inward journey and he on mine, each becoming more and more our true selves and loving Jesus. He's about convinced me to do some of the stuff he is advising.
God bless,
Sharon
Thursday, July 23, 2009
chapter 3 - Journal Keeping
Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
In the beginning of this chapter, the author lists some things that become obstacles to us knowing who we are:
"Our modern world has a shallow view of who human beings are, and because each of us lives in this world, we are affected by it and its systems of thought. The society in which we live seems to tell us that our identity can be found in the work we produce, the things we own, the pleasure we experience, and the sexual fulfillment we find. Thus our society can easily dismiss the human rights of those chronically out of work, of the imprisoned, and of others--for example, unborn children, whom our society finds it convenient to abort and destroy, even though Jesus greatly loved those who were poor, sick, and otherwise powerless. Also, we cannot imagine ourselves living an economically simple life-style, even if that is what the Gospel teaches, but rather we become consumed with consuming. Further, we find suffering to be the most abhorrent experience of all, and we are often unwilling to endure it even when it is the kind of suffering that will enforce a value or bring spiritual growth--that is, suffering for the sake of the Gospel. When we deny ourselves the sexual pleasure that our society encourages, our society further makes it difficult for us to believe that we can still be adequate human beings, even though Jesus teaches us that our adequacy is based on our spiritual adoption by God."
These are some of the things that the author lists. Maybe you can think of other things. Can you think of other ways in which society's secular view of the world affects people's spiritual growth and the ways they choose to live? How has society affected the way in which you see yourself and do you think you have been able to reconcile that way with scripture and the Gospel? Do you think the author's list is valid or do you think it is extreme?
It's raining, happy Thursday.
God bless,
Sharon
In the beginning of this chapter, the author lists some things that become obstacles to us knowing who we are:
"Our modern world has a shallow view of who human beings are, and because each of us lives in this world, we are affected by it and its systems of thought. The society in which we live seems to tell us that our identity can be found in the work we produce, the things we own, the pleasure we experience, and the sexual fulfillment we find. Thus our society can easily dismiss the human rights of those chronically out of work, of the imprisoned, and of others--for example, unborn children, whom our society finds it convenient to abort and destroy, even though Jesus greatly loved those who were poor, sick, and otherwise powerless. Also, we cannot imagine ourselves living an economically simple life-style, even if that is what the Gospel teaches, but rather we become consumed with consuming. Further, we find suffering to be the most abhorrent experience of all, and we are often unwilling to endure it even when it is the kind of suffering that will enforce a value or bring spiritual growth--that is, suffering for the sake of the Gospel. When we deny ourselves the sexual pleasure that our society encourages, our society further makes it difficult for us to believe that we can still be adequate human beings, even though Jesus teaches us that our adequacy is based on our spiritual adoption by God."
These are some of the things that the author lists. Maybe you can think of other things. Can you think of other ways in which society's secular view of the world affects people's spiritual growth and the ways they choose to live? How has society affected the way in which you see yourself and do you think you have been able to reconcile that way with scripture and the Gospel? Do you think the author's list is valid or do you think it is extreme?
It's raining, happy Thursday.
God bless,
Sharon
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Chapter 3 - Journal Keeping
Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
I think somewhere in the New Testament, it says something like we live in an adulturous generation. And some more stuff about the world that the early Christians lived in. This chapter on journal keeping starts out with an analysis of our present culture and, before it sets out the hows to go about Christian journaling, anyway, the author writes some stuff that it seems like our present generation has come closer to the generation of the First Century Christians again.
The author writes: "It was not until the period of the French Enlightenment that Western civilization began to develop an entirely secular view of the world. Before that time a religious world view was common. Practically everyone believed in God, received a tradition of Christian or at least religious morals, and in some sense understood the reality of the spiritual world. As a matter of course, people found a deep meaning for their inner lives in religion, religious experience, and religious rituals. It was not uncommon for a writer, composer, or head of state to adopt a religious principle as the basis for his or her work. It was not unusual for people to talk publicly about their religious beliefs and experiences. In other words, the culture supported individuals in a religious world view in which they could discover their identity and find health, wholeness, and meaning for their lives."
"Today, if anything, the opposite is true. Our society not only is unsupportive of a religious view of the world but often denigrates people who have such a view. Religious convictions are not the commonly held assumptions that they were in other cultures, and belief is considered to be a personal affair. Therefore, our society and many of the forces within it do not give Christians the support we need to continue growing in our identities, in our health and wholeness, and in a sense of the meaning and value of our lives. What society chooses not to do, Christian community and the personal journal must replace otherwise, we will lose our bearings and fall victim to one of the several of the destructive pressures in society mentioned before."
Tomorrow, I'll type in the paragraph as to what the author believes are the destructive pressures in our society that we must struggle against falling victim to. We tend to think we are the most advanced of all peoples, in our culture, in our technology, in our ways of living on the earth, etc., etc., etc. but the author of this book at the end of the journalling chapter asks this question "What indication can you see, that Western civilization has a narrow or limited view of who human beings are?"
As you reflect upon your life and especially upon your choices, do you see yourself living an expanded view of being human and are you able to witness to that?
God bless,
Sharon
I think somewhere in the New Testament, it says something like we live in an adulturous generation. And some more stuff about the world that the early Christians lived in. This chapter on journal keeping starts out with an analysis of our present culture and, before it sets out the hows to go about Christian journaling, anyway, the author writes some stuff that it seems like our present generation has come closer to the generation of the First Century Christians again.
The author writes: "It was not until the period of the French Enlightenment that Western civilization began to develop an entirely secular view of the world. Before that time a religious world view was common. Practically everyone believed in God, received a tradition of Christian or at least religious morals, and in some sense understood the reality of the spiritual world. As a matter of course, people found a deep meaning for their inner lives in religion, religious experience, and religious rituals. It was not uncommon for a writer, composer, or head of state to adopt a religious principle as the basis for his or her work. It was not unusual for people to talk publicly about their religious beliefs and experiences. In other words, the culture supported individuals in a religious world view in which they could discover their identity and find health, wholeness, and meaning for their lives."
"Today, if anything, the opposite is true. Our society not only is unsupportive of a religious view of the world but often denigrates people who have such a view. Religious convictions are not the commonly held assumptions that they were in other cultures, and belief is considered to be a personal affair. Therefore, our society and many of the forces within it do not give Christians the support we need to continue growing in our identities, in our health and wholeness, and in a sense of the meaning and value of our lives. What society chooses not to do, Christian community and the personal journal must replace otherwise, we will lose our bearings and fall victim to one of the several of the destructive pressures in society mentioned before."
Tomorrow, I'll type in the paragraph as to what the author believes are the destructive pressures in our society that we must struggle against falling victim to. We tend to think we are the most advanced of all peoples, in our culture, in our technology, in our ways of living on the earth, etc., etc., etc. but the author of this book at the end of the journalling chapter asks this question "What indication can you see, that Western civilization has a narrow or limited view of who human beings are?"
As you reflect upon your life and especially upon your choices, do you see yourself living an expanded view of being human and are you able to witness to that?
God bless,
Sharon
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Listening to God chapter in "How to Pray for Spiritual Growth" book
Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
Listening to God is a very pertinent subject. I think it has to do with the survival and growth of our own faith, of our faith community at Emmanuel, of the Church in the world. It's not easy, in fact it is a struggle, for me even a struggle between writing and trying to listen on this blog, wondering if listening--my own listening, other's listening--is in any way even being accomplished. My faith tells me God cares enough to be listening all the time, am I, are we, growing in listening to Him.
The question yesterday was "Describe a time in which you were praying to hear guidance and were mistaken in what you heard. What were the effects of following that "guidance"? Some time ago I had a clerk's job in a local boutique, just a block away from our house. Actually, there were 3 clerks in the boutique, as I recall, and at some point the owner let me go, discerning accurately that I was the worst saleswoman of the bunch--I am not very persuavsive in trying to get people to buy clothes, I always want them to do what they want to do--and she needed to cut her work force. Within a very short time after that the guy who owned the drycleaners/alternations shop next door asked me to come work for him, as a clerk. The job came so easy. I had heard for a long time that, when you pay attention to hearing God, God Himself makes the increase and life is not too much of a burden, things flow more easily, etc., etc., etc. So I figured this must be God talking and threw my energies and time into the job. It was for $5.00/hour, all under the table, and so forth. He was struggling in his business, trying to figure out how to advertise, etc., etc., etc. Many times the till was not even sufficient to pay me and it was necessary to wait a bit. I can chuckle at myself a bit now because I remember how gung ho I was about the job so that I even took one of his drycleaners catalogues and mailed away for the book "How to train your clerks, written in Korean and English", trying to be the best clerk possible. Anyway, what happened at one point was that he decided to go back to Iraq for a couple of months. I knew, as well as him that I was not capable of taking full care of the drycleaners while he was gone, but it was the manner in which he found and employed a replacement for me that shook me up a bit. He didn't talk to me about it but simply hired the person and she was the one who informed me suddenly one day when she appeared to start work. Suddenly it seemed that a veil had been pulled away and it showed something of a lack of trust, a lack of truthful intimacy, a hurting, this did not seem to feel like God talking. This was an alien unexpected voice of betrayal or something. Had the original offer of the job been God talking after all or had I been mistaken after all? You could say this was just a person and a personal behavior on the part of the owner of the drycleaners but, for me, it became a way of seeing into his relationship with God and with me. He is a Muslim. The result of losing the job was that the direction of using my time flowed once again more immediately into the church activities, Bible studies and so forth. It is in Bible study that we study how God spoke to Abraham and Sarah and Haggai and so forth and so forth and it is in Bible study that I remember Pastor Troike saying how the Muslim faith is a gentle, peaceful faith and also Pastor Maddox continues affirming that. Because I want to believe that so strongly and it is a Voice that shows something better than the kind of stuff that happened between me and the owner of the dry cleaners, I believe I know that the story isn't over yet, there needs to be healing and reconciliation still to come. The owner is gone out of my life, haven't seen him for quite a while, but I wonder if another Muslim man or woman will come into my life and what I have been told at church will eventually become a reality in my relations, a Muslim man or woman, will become a brother or sister in peace and harmony in fact. I wonder if the things I did in relationship with the owner, even things he didn't know about such as purchasing a book to try to learn how to be a better clerk for him, actually impacted upon him in some way that he could hear a "voice" from me, did he hear a Voice or did he hear a voice? And what is he now looking for and listening for from God.???
Listening to God is key, not trivial. What's interesting about this book "How to Pray for Spiritual Growth" is that it sets a person to trying to analyze more, to think and reflect more, to take some time out to put experiences and feelings into words. So many times we get too busy to do that and maybe that actual busyness acts as a barrier in our being able to listen to God for His guidance. Because we don't reflect. The next chapter is on journal keeping.
Thanks for bearing with me today.
God bless,
Sharon
Listening to God is a very pertinent subject. I think it has to do with the survival and growth of our own faith, of our faith community at Emmanuel, of the Church in the world. It's not easy, in fact it is a struggle, for me even a struggle between writing and trying to listen on this blog, wondering if listening--my own listening, other's listening--is in any way even being accomplished. My faith tells me God cares enough to be listening all the time, am I, are we, growing in listening to Him.
The question yesterday was "Describe a time in which you were praying to hear guidance and were mistaken in what you heard. What were the effects of following that "guidance"? Some time ago I had a clerk's job in a local boutique, just a block away from our house. Actually, there were 3 clerks in the boutique, as I recall, and at some point the owner let me go, discerning accurately that I was the worst saleswoman of the bunch--I am not very persuavsive in trying to get people to buy clothes, I always want them to do what they want to do--and she needed to cut her work force. Within a very short time after that the guy who owned the drycleaners/alternations shop next door asked me to come work for him, as a clerk. The job came so easy. I had heard for a long time that, when you pay attention to hearing God, God Himself makes the increase and life is not too much of a burden, things flow more easily, etc., etc., etc. So I figured this must be God talking and threw my energies and time into the job. It was for $5.00/hour, all under the table, and so forth. He was struggling in his business, trying to figure out how to advertise, etc., etc., etc. Many times the till was not even sufficient to pay me and it was necessary to wait a bit. I can chuckle at myself a bit now because I remember how gung ho I was about the job so that I even took one of his drycleaners catalogues and mailed away for the book "How to train your clerks, written in Korean and English", trying to be the best clerk possible. Anyway, what happened at one point was that he decided to go back to Iraq for a couple of months. I knew, as well as him that I was not capable of taking full care of the drycleaners while he was gone, but it was the manner in which he found and employed a replacement for me that shook me up a bit. He didn't talk to me about it but simply hired the person and she was the one who informed me suddenly one day when she appeared to start work. Suddenly it seemed that a veil had been pulled away and it showed something of a lack of trust, a lack of truthful intimacy, a hurting, this did not seem to feel like God talking. This was an alien unexpected voice of betrayal or something. Had the original offer of the job been God talking after all or had I been mistaken after all? You could say this was just a person and a personal behavior on the part of the owner of the drycleaners but, for me, it became a way of seeing into his relationship with God and with me. He is a Muslim. The result of losing the job was that the direction of using my time flowed once again more immediately into the church activities, Bible studies and so forth. It is in Bible study that we study how God spoke to Abraham and Sarah and Haggai and so forth and so forth and it is in Bible study that I remember Pastor Troike saying how the Muslim faith is a gentle, peaceful faith and also Pastor Maddox continues affirming that. Because I want to believe that so strongly and it is a Voice that shows something better than the kind of stuff that happened between me and the owner of the dry cleaners, I believe I know that the story isn't over yet, there needs to be healing and reconciliation still to come. The owner is gone out of my life, haven't seen him for quite a while, but I wonder if another Muslim man or woman will come into my life and what I have been told at church will eventually become a reality in my relations, a Muslim man or woman, will become a brother or sister in peace and harmony in fact. I wonder if the things I did in relationship with the owner, even things he didn't know about such as purchasing a book to try to learn how to be a better clerk for him, actually impacted upon him in some way that he could hear a "voice" from me, did he hear a Voice or did he hear a voice? And what is he now looking for and listening for from God.???
Listening to God is key, not trivial. What's interesting about this book "How to Pray for Spiritual Growth" is that it sets a person to trying to analyze more, to think and reflect more, to take some time out to put experiences and feelings into words. So many times we get too busy to do that and maybe that actual busyness acts as a barrier in our being able to listen to God for His guidance. Because we don't reflect. The next chapter is on journal keeping.
Thanks for bearing with me today.
God bless,
Sharon
Monday, July 20, 2009
"Listening to God" from the book "How to Pray for Spiritual Growth"
Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
What is nice about this author's writing is that he mixes a good dose of humility with some concrete thinking about prayer so that his ideas seem realistic.
For example, "As I mentioned above, in my own prayer life it took years before I could begin to hear God's guidance clearly. Even now I cannot always do it, for hearing God depends on so many variable factors, over some of which I have no control and over others of which I have control but I make the wrong decisions."
The author suggests in this chapter that the reader deliberately set herself/himself to thinking about the results of prayer. Start small in daily conversational prayer. "Therefore, if we want to hear God's guidance in our healing prayers, we first need to seek His voice in our daily prayer when the situation is relaxed and it is not so important whether we make a mistake or succeed."
"But discerning His voice at first must be a matter of trial and error. We collect ourselves by praying the prayer of quiet, we ask a question, we concentrate in a relaxed and quiet kind of way, we hear a response. We try to notice the "tone" of the voice of the response and remember it. We do what we have heard. If what we have done proves to be right, true, and good, we have heard God's voice within, and when we hear that voice again, we will listen attentively. If it results in something wrong or harmful we have to listen for another voice."
"Often we will know immediately whether the voice we have heard is God's as we compare what is said with Scripture. If the two disagree, the voice we have heard was not from the Lord. Or if the voice tells us to do something totally ridiculous, harmful, or meaningless, we know that the voice is not from Jesus. If the voice tells us to do something that would violate a well-trained conscience, it is not of God."
The above is an interesting exercise and I don't think it is at all irrelevant. Have you ever been in a situation where people were asked to give a testimony of what God has done in their lives the past week or recently and you could only sit there tongue-tied? I have and I think it is because I don't make it a practice to think through the results of prayer and therefore become more verbal about it. More able to share with other people in testimony. Maybe it is because of a fear to pinpoint God--God did this or God did that. Heck, God just does everything and don't try to describe what He has done. Just leave it all loose and free and non-described. But the author of this book here seems to think that becoming more aware specifically of what God has done in answering people's prayers is all more of a part of a person getting in touch with the "true" self and not the "false" self.
One of the questions at the end of the chapter is "Describe a time in which you were praying to hear guidance and were mistaken in what you heard. What were the effects of following that "guidance"?
Now that's a question to ponder and reflect upon.
God bless,
Sharon
What is nice about this author's writing is that he mixes a good dose of humility with some concrete thinking about prayer so that his ideas seem realistic.
For example, "As I mentioned above, in my own prayer life it took years before I could begin to hear God's guidance clearly. Even now I cannot always do it, for hearing God depends on so many variable factors, over some of which I have no control and over others of which I have control but I make the wrong decisions."
The author suggests in this chapter that the reader deliberately set herself/himself to thinking about the results of prayer. Start small in daily conversational prayer. "Therefore, if we want to hear God's guidance in our healing prayers, we first need to seek His voice in our daily prayer when the situation is relaxed and it is not so important whether we make a mistake or succeed."
"But discerning His voice at first must be a matter of trial and error. We collect ourselves by praying the prayer of quiet, we ask a question, we concentrate in a relaxed and quiet kind of way, we hear a response. We try to notice the "tone" of the voice of the response and remember it. We do what we have heard. If what we have done proves to be right, true, and good, we have heard God's voice within, and when we hear that voice again, we will listen attentively. If it results in something wrong or harmful we have to listen for another voice."
"Often we will know immediately whether the voice we have heard is God's as we compare what is said with Scripture. If the two disagree, the voice we have heard was not from the Lord. Or if the voice tells us to do something totally ridiculous, harmful, or meaningless, we know that the voice is not from Jesus. If the voice tells us to do something that would violate a well-trained conscience, it is not of God."
The above is an interesting exercise and I don't think it is at all irrelevant. Have you ever been in a situation where people were asked to give a testimony of what God has done in their lives the past week or recently and you could only sit there tongue-tied? I have and I think it is because I don't make it a practice to think through the results of prayer and therefore become more verbal about it. More able to share with other people in testimony. Maybe it is because of a fear to pinpoint God--God did this or God did that. Heck, God just does everything and don't try to describe what He has done. Just leave it all loose and free and non-described. But the author of this book here seems to think that becoming more aware specifically of what God has done in answering people's prayers is all more of a part of a person getting in touch with the "true" self and not the "false" self.
One of the questions at the end of the chapter is "Describe a time in which you were praying to hear guidance and were mistaken in what you heard. What were the effects of following that "guidance"?
Now that's a question to ponder and reflect upon.
God bless,
Sharon
Friday, July 17, 2009
Reflecting more on chapter 2: listening to God
Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
On page 50, the author writes "One day in the middle of a directed retreat, the issue that needed facing came forth on its own. This was a moment of grace, and nothing I could ever have done would have made it happen one second sooner. If I could have made it happen sooner, I would not have been able to face it, for when I dealt with this issue I did so with all the spiritual and emotional strength that I had developed in the three years of praying the prayer of quiet."
The prayer of quiet is very intereting, the long tradition evidently in Christianity of using repetitive words or phrases in prayer. I'm trying to contextualize the practice and can mainly think of the Taize worships we have had at Emmanuel where we pray/sing together "Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom" over and over for quite a few minutes and then also the praise hymns sung, particularly in the African American context where very simple words are repeated over and over through the whole hymn. Do you think there is something here which we need to recapture in our spirituality?
I was consistently with Pastor Troike as he led us in this practice of centering prayer, prayer of quiet, but have found it hard to keep up the discipline. Get busy with things you know and let it slide. One natural repetitive practice that just comes out of me is, whenever either joy or else very troubling things happen, is I just start praying "Thank you, thank you, thank you............"
When troubling hurtful things happen, if I was saying "thank you" to a human person, might think I was being disturbingly masochistic but, somehow, praying it to God and at the same time knowing deep down that behind the troubling experience is a loving God, I also am believing that everything is being transformed by Him in some way, at some time, some how that is actually currently beyond my ken, for the good of both me and the other. One thank you wouldn't suffice, it has to be repeated over and over until I feel some relief. And it feels like God has talked to me. Do you have some practices in your prayer life where you use repetitive words/phrases? Do you enjoy praise hymns which use repetition? Can you think of any Euro-American hymns which use repetition of a word/phrase throughout the hymn?
Actually, reading this book is starting to get me motivated to set aside some time regularly to pray the prayer of quiet. The author is convincing about the spiritual growth he himself experienced and feels called to communicate to others via this book he wrote. The spiritual growth the author experienced was "But as I began to pray the prayer of quiet, I found that I first began to hear God--although at times more vaguely than I would have wished--in my compassion for others in pain as I tried to minister to them and pray healing prayer with them, in my deepest feelings about life and friends, in the words of the Bible, which seemed more and more to speak directly to me, and in the Eucharist." That kind of prayer life is very, very attractive to me and maybe to you as you reflect upon it also.
God bless,
Sharon
On page 50, the author writes "One day in the middle of a directed retreat, the issue that needed facing came forth on its own. This was a moment of grace, and nothing I could ever have done would have made it happen one second sooner. If I could have made it happen sooner, I would not have been able to face it, for when I dealt with this issue I did so with all the spiritual and emotional strength that I had developed in the three years of praying the prayer of quiet."
The prayer of quiet is very intereting, the long tradition evidently in Christianity of using repetitive words or phrases in prayer. I'm trying to contextualize the practice and can mainly think of the Taize worships we have had at Emmanuel where we pray/sing together "Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom" over and over for quite a few minutes and then also the praise hymns sung, particularly in the African American context where very simple words are repeated over and over through the whole hymn. Do you think there is something here which we need to recapture in our spirituality?
I was consistently with Pastor Troike as he led us in this practice of centering prayer, prayer of quiet, but have found it hard to keep up the discipline. Get busy with things you know and let it slide. One natural repetitive practice that just comes out of me is, whenever either joy or else very troubling things happen, is I just start praying "Thank you, thank you, thank you............"
When troubling hurtful things happen, if I was saying "thank you" to a human person, might think I was being disturbingly masochistic but, somehow, praying it to God and at the same time knowing deep down that behind the troubling experience is a loving God, I also am believing that everything is being transformed by Him in some way, at some time, some how that is actually currently beyond my ken, for the good of both me and the other. One thank you wouldn't suffice, it has to be repeated over and over until I feel some relief. And it feels like God has talked to me. Do you have some practices in your prayer life where you use repetitive words/phrases? Do you enjoy praise hymns which use repetition? Can you think of any Euro-American hymns which use repetition of a word/phrase throughout the hymn?
Actually, reading this book is starting to get me motivated to set aside some time regularly to pray the prayer of quiet. The author is convincing about the spiritual growth he himself experienced and feels called to communicate to others via this book he wrote. The spiritual growth the author experienced was "But as I began to pray the prayer of quiet, I found that I first began to hear God--although at times more vaguely than I would have wished--in my compassion for others in pain as I tried to minister to them and pray healing prayer with them, in my deepest feelings about life and friends, in the words of the Bible, which seemed more and more to speak directly to me, and in the Eucharist." That kind of prayer life is very, very attractive to me and maybe to you as you reflect upon it also.
God bless,
Sharon
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Chapter 2 - the prayer of quiet and listening to God
Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
This also is an interesting chapter. Seems like everywhere we turn we are reminded of the necessity to listen to God. Pastor Eggleston said it on Tuesday at the meeting at the church. How often does the church listen to God and how much of our struggles stem from actually not doing this listening? The daily scripture from Miriam Woolbert of the ELCA, today's scripture, is Colossians 1:15-23 "He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God....and in him all things hold together....he is the beginning....so that he might come to have first place in everything."
The author writes "We must pray, then for GOD'S will to be done; and to find out what He wants, we must ask Him. But another question quickly arises: When we ask God to reveal His will and we hear an answer within us, how do we know whether we have heard God's voice? Could this not be our own thought?"
The author gives a list of possibly what could be the voices of our own thought: "There is the child's voice, the voice of the law-giver, the practical voice; there is a guilty voice, an optimistic voice, a fearful voice; there is the voice of the trickster, the voice of wisdom, the voice of selfishness; and the list could go on and on." For me, a person who believes in miracles but still struggles with my own practical voice that who knows how often in my lifespan already my own practical voice has put obstacles in the way of God's Will being done in my life or in the life of others or even in the life of the church. So anyway, the author suggests readers start out, in this wanting to listen to God, by praying the prayer of quiet. At least 20 minutes, maybe 3 times a week, sitting comfortably and relaxed in a chair, breathing slowly and regularly, taking attention away from the body to fully concentrate mind and spirit, praying a short, slow, and constantly repeated "Abba" or "Father" or Jesus" or "Lord, have mercy" or "Come, Lord Jesus" or any other short prayer that might resonate within us as a prayer we could pray sincerely. Or maybe the ancient prayer of the Eastern Church "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner." The author further states "The specific words themselves matter little. What does matter is the one element that all these prayers have in common: They focus our attention entirely outside of ourselves and onto God, with Whom we want to commune." I remember Pastor Troike leading us in Centering Prayer too after he came back from his sabbatical. Further the author says that probably, as we are praying this prayer of quiet, that there will be distractions, which is good but that by returning constantly back to "Abba" or "Father" or "Jesus" or "Lord, have mercy" or "Come, Lord Jesus" or "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me a sinner" "when we think about what we are saying, trying to stretch ourselves and reach out to touch God--not that we WILL touch God; but if we reach out for Him long enough He will touch us!"
Actually the last sentence is the one that bothers me a little. But I sort of resolve it by reasoning that anyone who is reaching out for Him in anyway has already been touched by God and now is just looking for the ways to "have the conversation with Him". The conversation and ways of conversing are bound to be always personal I think but hearing other people share their prayer experiences is like what happens in corporate prayer, we are binded together more and more in mutual giving and receiving community as children of God. So far, it seems everything the author is writing about he has himself experienced and found helpful for healing and wholeness, spiritually and otherwise.
This is way too long of a blog entry but listening to God is intensely interesting to me. And maybe to you too.
God bless,
Sharon
This also is an interesting chapter. Seems like everywhere we turn we are reminded of the necessity to listen to God. Pastor Eggleston said it on Tuesday at the meeting at the church. How often does the church listen to God and how much of our struggles stem from actually not doing this listening? The daily scripture from Miriam Woolbert of the ELCA, today's scripture, is Colossians 1:15-23 "He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God....and in him all things hold together....he is the beginning....so that he might come to have first place in everything."
The author writes "We must pray, then for GOD'S will to be done; and to find out what He wants, we must ask Him. But another question quickly arises: When we ask God to reveal His will and we hear an answer within us, how do we know whether we have heard God's voice? Could this not be our own thought?"
The author gives a list of possibly what could be the voices of our own thought: "There is the child's voice, the voice of the law-giver, the practical voice; there is a guilty voice, an optimistic voice, a fearful voice; there is the voice of the trickster, the voice of wisdom, the voice of selfishness; and the list could go on and on." For me, a person who believes in miracles but still struggles with my own practical voice that who knows how often in my lifespan already my own practical voice has put obstacles in the way of God's Will being done in my life or in the life of others or even in the life of the church. So anyway, the author suggests readers start out, in this wanting to listen to God, by praying the prayer of quiet. At least 20 minutes, maybe 3 times a week, sitting comfortably and relaxed in a chair, breathing slowly and regularly, taking attention away from the body to fully concentrate mind and spirit, praying a short, slow, and constantly repeated "Abba" or "Father" or Jesus" or "Lord, have mercy" or "Come, Lord Jesus" or any other short prayer that might resonate within us as a prayer we could pray sincerely. Or maybe the ancient prayer of the Eastern Church "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner." The author further states "The specific words themselves matter little. What does matter is the one element that all these prayers have in common: They focus our attention entirely outside of ourselves and onto God, with Whom we want to commune." I remember Pastor Troike leading us in Centering Prayer too after he came back from his sabbatical. Further the author says that probably, as we are praying this prayer of quiet, that there will be distractions, which is good but that by returning constantly back to "Abba" or "Father" or "Jesus" or "Lord, have mercy" or "Come, Lord Jesus" or "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me a sinner" "when we think about what we are saying, trying to stretch ourselves and reach out to touch God--not that we WILL touch God; but if we reach out for Him long enough He will touch us!"
Actually the last sentence is the one that bothers me a little. But I sort of resolve it by reasoning that anyone who is reaching out for Him in anyway has already been touched by God and now is just looking for the ways to "have the conversation with Him". The conversation and ways of conversing are bound to be always personal I think but hearing other people share their prayer experiences is like what happens in corporate prayer, we are binded together more and more in mutual giving and receiving community as children of God. So far, it seems everything the author is writing about he has himself experienced and found helpful for healing and wholeness, spiritually and otherwise.
This is way too long of a blog entry but listening to God is intensely interesting to me. And maybe to you too.
God bless,
Sharon
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Still on chapter 1 of "How to Pray for Spiritual Growth"
Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
Today something came from Henri Nouwen (Daily Meditations) that mixes nicely with the book we are reading:
"Being broken - Jesus was broken on the cross. He lived his suffering and death not as an evil to avoid at all costs, but as a mission to embrace. We too are broken. We live with broken bodies, broken hearts, broken minds or broken spirits. We suffer from broken relationships. How can we live our brokenness? Jesus invites us to embrace our brokenness as he embraced the cross and live it as part of our mission. He asks us not to reject our brokenness as a curse from God that reminds us of our sinfulness but to accept it and put it under God's blessing for our purification and sanctification. Thus our brokenness can become a gateway to new life."
On page 31 of the book we are reading, the author writes:
"Jesus knows that we have thoughts of vengeance, violence, lust, pride; there is no sense in trying to hide from Him what He already knows. And yet that is what we try to do when we repress our evil thoughts--we are trying to hide them from Him and from ourselves. We do not want to admit that such a thought could come from us. We are afraid to admit that we have the potential for evil. However, if we lose touch with our potential for evil, two dire consequences await us. Our potential for evil will be out of the control of our conscious minds and therefore it will be more apt to be in control of us; and we will also lose touch with our potential for good. In other words, we will not know who we are."
It seems like both of these writings have to do with what do we do with our destructive thoughts. The author of the book then says "If we succeed in repressing the thought, we also repress the tension of this struggle (struggle with "should", "ought" and "must") only for it to reappear at a later time in some action that will relieve the tension and express the thought; that action will be sin."
The next chapter is on the Prayer of Quiet and listening to God. One of the questions the author proposes at the end of this next chapter is "Which inner voices do you hear most frequently? Which are most distracting? Which are most helpful? How do you allow them to control your life?" Do you think these are relevant questions for your faith journey with God?
God bless,
Sharon
Today something came from Henri Nouwen (Daily Meditations) that mixes nicely with the book we are reading:
"Being broken - Jesus was broken on the cross. He lived his suffering and death not as an evil to avoid at all costs, but as a mission to embrace. We too are broken. We live with broken bodies, broken hearts, broken minds or broken spirits. We suffer from broken relationships. How can we live our brokenness? Jesus invites us to embrace our brokenness as he embraced the cross and live it as part of our mission. He asks us not to reject our brokenness as a curse from God that reminds us of our sinfulness but to accept it and put it under God's blessing for our purification and sanctification. Thus our brokenness can become a gateway to new life."
On page 31 of the book we are reading, the author writes:
"Jesus knows that we have thoughts of vengeance, violence, lust, pride; there is no sense in trying to hide from Him what He already knows. And yet that is what we try to do when we repress our evil thoughts--we are trying to hide them from Him and from ourselves. We do not want to admit that such a thought could come from us. We are afraid to admit that we have the potential for evil. However, if we lose touch with our potential for evil, two dire consequences await us. Our potential for evil will be out of the control of our conscious minds and therefore it will be more apt to be in control of us; and we will also lose touch with our potential for good. In other words, we will not know who we are."
It seems like both of these writings have to do with what do we do with our destructive thoughts. The author of the book then says "If we succeed in repressing the thought, we also repress the tension of this struggle (struggle with "should", "ought" and "must") only for it to reappear at a later time in some action that will relieve the tension and express the thought; that action will be sin."
The next chapter is on the Prayer of Quiet and listening to God. One of the questions the author proposes at the end of this next chapter is "Which inner voices do you hear most frequently? Which are most distracting? Which are most helpful? How do you allow them to control your life?" Do you think these are relevant questions for your faith journey with God?
God bless,
Sharon
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Cleansing the Imagination
Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
Trying to pull out a few quotes from the chapter:
"Now, we know that we are in trouble when we start to use words like "should" and "ought" and "must," because these words are signs that we are at war with ourselves. If we are at war within we do not have peace, and where there is not peace neither Jesus nor His Spirit can abide."
"Sometimes we neither want to repress our evil thoughts nor to give them up; we want to concentrate on them and enjoy them. Consequently, one person can enjoy plotting how he will bring vengeance on his enemy, and another person may enjoy her lustful thoughts, and another person may enjoy another's bad fortune."
In the author's perspective the point of prayer: "And what prayer would God want to answer more than a prayer to desire to discover our true selves? This is a prayer He will not refuse, for in no way is it selfish nor will it bring us to harm. God will begin to answer this prayer by slowly but perceptibly changing our thoughts about what is pleasurable and what is not, and about who we are and who we are not, so that in time we come to see things from His point of view, and we desire what He desires for us."
The author recounts the success of cleansing his own imagination by a method of praying wherein he let thoughts come forward and reached up to his head with his hands and "plucked" each thought from his mind with his fingers and placed it in the hands of Jesus. Tellingly though it was his "dear friend Leanne Payne, author and gifted lay minister of healing, who taught me this prayer, first by praying it with me." I think this is a very good book to read but I also think, as the author reveals about his own praying experience, that nothing beats meeting together in the faith community to worship and pray, support and encourage and help each other to come to be able to see things from God's point of view and finally desire what God desires for us.
Each chapter of this book has a list of questions and the final question for this chapter is "Describe a time in which you came to desire what God wanted for you more than you desired what you wanted for yourself."
Actually, the movie our Bible Study Class saw last night, Sydney Poitier in "Lilies of the Field" is full of people living in this question. For myself, I can think of a bunch of times when I came to desire what God wanted for me but the one I currently am struggling with is the way that hetereosexuals and homosexuals in the church are. My mind, imagination, head, desire, is full of how people particularly church people "should" "ought" and "must" talk and dialogue and converse and share and vote, etc., etc., etc., etc., and then my sort of superior and self-righteous feelings about me and others when people just don't do that and it is a process of me coming to desire what God wants for me more than I desire what I want for myself. There is a sentence in this chapter which is sort of extraordinary: "As we place the image in Jesus' hands, we watch to see what He does with it. This is most important, for it is the completion of the healing of our imaginations traumatized by evil images they were never made to contain." Isn't that extraordinary --"they were never made to contain."???????
Think we can say that everyone is put here on earth for God's own special reason/purpose and so for each of you, maybe you would like to share a time in which you came to desire what God wanted for you more than you desired what you wanted for yourself.
God bless,
Sharon
Trying to pull out a few quotes from the chapter:
"Now, we know that we are in trouble when we start to use words like "should" and "ought" and "must," because these words are signs that we are at war with ourselves. If we are at war within we do not have peace, and where there is not peace neither Jesus nor His Spirit can abide."
"Sometimes we neither want to repress our evil thoughts nor to give them up; we want to concentrate on them and enjoy them. Consequently, one person can enjoy plotting how he will bring vengeance on his enemy, and another person may enjoy her lustful thoughts, and another person may enjoy another's bad fortune."
In the author's perspective the point of prayer: "And what prayer would God want to answer more than a prayer to desire to discover our true selves? This is a prayer He will not refuse, for in no way is it selfish nor will it bring us to harm. God will begin to answer this prayer by slowly but perceptibly changing our thoughts about what is pleasurable and what is not, and about who we are and who we are not, so that in time we come to see things from His point of view, and we desire what He desires for us."
The author recounts the success of cleansing his own imagination by a method of praying wherein he let thoughts come forward and reached up to his head with his hands and "plucked" each thought from his mind with his fingers and placed it in the hands of Jesus. Tellingly though it was his "dear friend Leanne Payne, author and gifted lay minister of healing, who taught me this prayer, first by praying it with me." I think this is a very good book to read but I also think, as the author reveals about his own praying experience, that nothing beats meeting together in the faith community to worship and pray, support and encourage and help each other to come to be able to see things from God's point of view and finally desire what God desires for us.
Each chapter of this book has a list of questions and the final question for this chapter is "Describe a time in which you came to desire what God wanted for you more than you desired what you wanted for yourself."
Actually, the movie our Bible Study Class saw last night, Sydney Poitier in "Lilies of the Field" is full of people living in this question. For myself, I can think of a bunch of times when I came to desire what God wanted for me but the one I currently am struggling with is the way that hetereosexuals and homosexuals in the church are. My mind, imagination, head, desire, is full of how people particularly church people "should" "ought" and "must" talk and dialogue and converse and share and vote, etc., etc., etc., etc., and then my sort of superior and self-righteous feelings about me and others when people just don't do that and it is a process of me coming to desire what God wants for me more than I desire what I want for myself. There is a sentence in this chapter which is sort of extraordinary: "As we place the image in Jesus' hands, we watch to see what He does with it. This is most important, for it is the completion of the healing of our imaginations traumatized by evil images they were never made to contain." Isn't that extraordinary --"they were never made to contain."???????
Think we can say that everyone is put here on earth for God's own special reason/purpose and so for each of you, maybe you would like to share a time in which you came to desire what God wanted for you more than you desired what you wanted for yourself.
God bless,
Sharon
Monday, July 13, 2009
Starting Chapter 1 - Cleansing the Imagination, Intellect, and Will
Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
How interesting that the author of this book starts out with so much emphasis on our imaginations. The dictionary definition of imagination is "the act or power of forming mental images of what is not actually present; the act or power of creating mental images of what has never been actually experienced or of creating new images or ideas by combining previous experiences; creative power". The dictionary definition of mental is "done by, or carried on in, the mind."
The author writes: "Imagination, intellect, will, and memory comprise our minds or psyches. Each of these functions is given to us by God to reflect or image a part of Him (Genesis 1:27) and each is supposed to do something unique and good within us according to God's plan. However, each part of us was darkened by sin in the Fall of Adam and Eve; and so the imagination, intellect, will and memory are darkened and lead us into the darkness of the false self until they are consecrated to God. They on their own can discover and cling to nothing of eternal value, nothing of all the important things for which mankind longs; we must be reborn in Jesus for our minds to enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:5). (Jesus answered him - Nicodemus - "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.")
Back to the introduction, the author writes:
"For example, an inner healing prayer suggests to us to be in the presence of Jesus, Who is smiling at us. We might most naturally SEE this picture in our imaginations. On the other hand, we might SENSE His presence, just as we can sense the presence of another person with us in a room even though we did not see that person enter the room. Or we might FEEL that warm feeling inside that we have had in the past when someone important to us smiles at us. Or we might hear His voice. What is important is that we do, in some way, use our imaginations when we pray for inner healing; for, while we KNOW ABOUT a thing or person with our intellects, we DIRECTLY KNOW that thing or person with our imaginations. In other words, imagination carries knowledge from abstraction to experience, from the head to the heart, and it is in our hearts that God first touches us for healing and helps us to grow spiritually."
All the capitalized words above were what the author stressed in italics. Have you ever thought much about your spirituality and your imagination? That God also gives each of us our own imagination? Or do you think imagination is your stuff that you alone bring into being? The first chapter of the book starts out with the belief that inner spiritual healing has to do first of all with "cleansing the imagination" and tomorrow we can look at the author's first suggestion as to how to go about this.
God bless,
Sharon
How interesting that the author of this book starts out with so much emphasis on our imaginations. The dictionary definition of imagination is "the act or power of forming mental images of what is not actually present; the act or power of creating mental images of what has never been actually experienced or of creating new images or ideas by combining previous experiences; creative power". The dictionary definition of mental is "done by, or carried on in, the mind."
The author writes: "Imagination, intellect, will, and memory comprise our minds or psyches. Each of these functions is given to us by God to reflect or image a part of Him (Genesis 1:27) and each is supposed to do something unique and good within us according to God's plan. However, each part of us was darkened by sin in the Fall of Adam and Eve; and so the imagination, intellect, will and memory are darkened and lead us into the darkness of the false self until they are consecrated to God. They on their own can discover and cling to nothing of eternal value, nothing of all the important things for which mankind longs; we must be reborn in Jesus for our minds to enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:5). (Jesus answered him - Nicodemus - "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.")
Back to the introduction, the author writes:
"For example, an inner healing prayer suggests to us to be in the presence of Jesus, Who is smiling at us. We might most naturally SEE this picture in our imaginations. On the other hand, we might SENSE His presence, just as we can sense the presence of another person with us in a room even though we did not see that person enter the room. Or we might FEEL that warm feeling inside that we have had in the past when someone important to us smiles at us. Or we might hear His voice. What is important is that we do, in some way, use our imaginations when we pray for inner healing; for, while we KNOW ABOUT a thing or person with our intellects, we DIRECTLY KNOW that thing or person with our imaginations. In other words, imagination carries knowledge from abstraction to experience, from the head to the heart, and it is in our hearts that God first touches us for healing and helps us to grow spiritually."
All the capitalized words above were what the author stressed in italics. Have you ever thought much about your spirituality and your imagination? That God also gives each of us our own imagination? Or do you think imagination is your stuff that you alone bring into being? The first chapter of the book starts out with the belief that inner spiritual healing has to do first of all with "cleansing the imagination" and tomorrow we can look at the author's first suggestion as to how to go about this.
God bless,
Sharon
Friday, July 10, 2009
How to Pray for Spiritual Growth book - section on Truth
Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
The beginning chapter of this book sets the stage for the rest of the chapters of "How to Pray for Spiritual Growth" principles.
"For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 16:25) - Jesus speaking
The author of this book believes that the meaning of this scripture is that "If we are to die to ourselves, it is our false selves to which we must die" and further that "Through inner healing Jesus discovers our true selves."
The author also believes that, often throughout history, Christians have misinterpreted Jesus' words. "The point of what Jesus is saying in Mt. 16:25 is that by following His way we ultimately will find our true selves." The author writes "It is when people see Christians putting to death their true selves that "death to self" becomes repugnant to them. And it should, under these circumstances! For when Christians put their true selves to death, while many of them are motivated by the highest goals, they are not following the teachings of Jesus. Their lives may be very religious, but thay are not living the way of spiritual growth, the unique view of life Jesus taught and lived."
I must admit this is a bit of scripture which has always been very hard for me to understand. I always thought it meant dying to my own plans." To see things in terms of "false self" and "true self" changes my perspective on even "my own plans" In the "true self" God's plans and my own plans could possibly be aligned. Maybe that is why there is the necessity for inner healing where Jesus discovers our true selves. To help us see this synthesis of "plan making" and "carrying out of plans." Of living the way of spiritual growth, the unique view of life Jesus taught and lived.
Do you think we have "true selves" and that we can also fall into the situation of having "false selves"? Have you already wrestled with this and found some solutions? Does the author's interpretion of this scripture passage make any sense to you? Why or why not?
God's Peace,
Sharon
The beginning chapter of this book sets the stage for the rest of the chapters of "How to Pray for Spiritual Growth" principles.
"For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 16:25) - Jesus speaking
The author of this book believes that the meaning of this scripture is that "If we are to die to ourselves, it is our false selves to which we must die" and further that "Through inner healing Jesus discovers our true selves."
The author also believes that, often throughout history, Christians have misinterpreted Jesus' words. "The point of what Jesus is saying in Mt. 16:25 is that by following His way we ultimately will find our true selves." The author writes "It is when people see Christians putting to death their true selves that "death to self" becomes repugnant to them. And it should, under these circumstances! For when Christians put their true selves to death, while many of them are motivated by the highest goals, they are not following the teachings of Jesus. Their lives may be very religious, but thay are not living the way of spiritual growth, the unique view of life Jesus taught and lived."
I must admit this is a bit of scripture which has always been very hard for me to understand. I always thought it meant dying to my own plans." To see things in terms of "false self" and "true self" changes my perspective on even "my own plans" In the "true self" God's plans and my own plans could possibly be aligned. Maybe that is why there is the necessity for inner healing where Jesus discovers our true selves. To help us see this synthesis of "plan making" and "carrying out of plans." Of living the way of spiritual growth, the unique view of life Jesus taught and lived.
Do you think we have "true selves" and that we can also fall into the situation of having "false selves"? Have you already wrestled with this and found some solutions? Does the author's interpretion of this scripture passage make any sense to you? Why or why not?
God's Peace,
Sharon
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Page 23 of book "How to Pray for Spiritual Growth"
Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library Supporters,
"Jesus points the way down the path of spiritual growth and self-discovery. He asks only that He can come along, for He knows that the way is dark and only He has enough Light to guide us unerringly on that road. This is one place where Christianity and psychology both meet and diverge. Like psychology, Jesus asks us to find our true selves; but unlike psychology, He does not require us to discover who we really are on our own. On the contrary, He knows that task would be impossible, because our true selves are hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3), therefore, Jesus--and only Jesus--can successfully lead us to find our true selves."
"Self-discovery without Jesus' guiding is introspection, and it easily leads to self-centeredness, pride, confusion, and error. Self-discovery with Jesus as guide is inner healing, and when we allow Him to guide every step it leads to God-centeredness, hope, freedom, and joy. This kind of spiritual growth is God's will for us."
These thoughts remind me of our Call to Mission statement at Emmanuel: "We are called to proclaim Christ's Love and God's Grace by inviting all into a spiritual relationship with God through worship, bible study, witness, service and fellowship."
The thoughts in the first two paragraphs above seem true to me but I ponder and ponder on where do people find Jesus to lead them? I happened to have some conversation yesterday with a woman who told me she feels she is very religious but she doesn't go to church. She had remarkable things to say: God has given her many gifts, especially with her hands, and everything she has been able to do it has been only with His Help. There have been many times when she has been in a tight spot, financially and otherwise and He has always helped her out. In my own case, I believe God led me right into the Church, even to me it looks right now to be also the "Institutional Church" where life is just like an onion, being peeled layer-by-layer (should read some time about onions and why we eat so many of them and why they are so tasty in all the recipes and why they are good for us nutritionally), but anyway the woman's testimony yesterday was both comforting (Jesus is everywhere and all-around, guiding people inside and outside of the Institutional Church) but also not comforting (there are so many people here in the U.S.A. who don't seem to find their well-being and grounding for their faith within the Institutional Church). Is all of this the strength of His Church or is all this the weakness of His Church? Guess, in the final analysis, my own job is just to "be there" and let the chips fall where they may, in my own truth I can do no other. But I still ponder and truth to tell face so many insecurities in the whole effort. In the final analysis, what do you think is your job and where do you think you are doing your job?
God bless,
Sharon
"Jesus points the way down the path of spiritual growth and self-discovery. He asks only that He can come along, for He knows that the way is dark and only He has enough Light to guide us unerringly on that road. This is one place where Christianity and psychology both meet and diverge. Like psychology, Jesus asks us to find our true selves; but unlike psychology, He does not require us to discover who we really are on our own. On the contrary, He knows that task would be impossible, because our true selves are hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3), therefore, Jesus--and only Jesus--can successfully lead us to find our true selves."
"Self-discovery without Jesus' guiding is introspection, and it easily leads to self-centeredness, pride, confusion, and error. Self-discovery with Jesus as guide is inner healing, and when we allow Him to guide every step it leads to God-centeredness, hope, freedom, and joy. This kind of spiritual growth is God's will for us."
These thoughts remind me of our Call to Mission statement at Emmanuel: "We are called to proclaim Christ's Love and God's Grace by inviting all into a spiritual relationship with God through worship, bible study, witness, service and fellowship."
The thoughts in the first two paragraphs above seem true to me but I ponder and ponder on where do people find Jesus to lead them? I happened to have some conversation yesterday with a woman who told me she feels she is very religious but she doesn't go to church. She had remarkable things to say: God has given her many gifts, especially with her hands, and everything she has been able to do it has been only with His Help. There have been many times when she has been in a tight spot, financially and otherwise and He has always helped her out. In my own case, I believe God led me right into the Church, even to me it looks right now to be also the "Institutional Church" where life is just like an onion, being peeled layer-by-layer (should read some time about onions and why we eat so many of them and why they are so tasty in all the recipes and why they are good for us nutritionally), but anyway the woman's testimony yesterday was both comforting (Jesus is everywhere and all-around, guiding people inside and outside of the Institutional Church) but also not comforting (there are so many people here in the U.S.A. who don't seem to find their well-being and grounding for their faith within the Institutional Church). Is all of this the strength of His Church or is all this the weakness of His Church? Guess, in the final analysis, my own job is just to "be there" and let the chips fall where they may, in my own truth I can do no other. But I still ponder and truth to tell face so many insecurities in the whole effort. In the final analysis, what do you think is your job and where do you think you are doing your job?
God bless,
Sharon
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Book discussion "How to Pray for Spiritual Growth"
Hello, friends of the Mustard Seed Library,
This is the beginning of quotes from the book to think about:
"Thus we come to know that Another lives within us, and in Him and using His gifts we can build the Kingdom of God on earth." page 7
"Since inner healing is a way of allowing Christ ever more freedom in every part of our lives, it is a way we can ever more completely experience the power of our salvation." also on page 7
"In inner healing prayer we use our spirits and our minds in specific ways to pray. Intuitions come from the Holy Spirit into our spirits and find expression through our imagination. If we try to express these intuitions using only our intellects our prayer will be rational and somewhat dry. This is not to say that intellect is an inferior function of our minds, but only that it is not as useful in this kind of praying as imagination is. Imagination makes our prayer come alive, for imagination is the creative function within us, the function that arranges in new ways things given to it by the other parts of our minds and spirits." page 13
Do you all think imagination is a vital part of praying? Next Monday evening, Pastor Maddox will start us on the summer Bible study schedule of watching and discussing movies. There is certainly a lot of imagination in what we see there. Looking forward to seeing what movies you come up with, Pastor Maddox. And participating in all the discussion with you readers on this blog.
God's Peace,
Sharon
This is the beginning of quotes from the book to think about:
"Thus we come to know that Another lives within us, and in Him and using His gifts we can build the Kingdom of God on earth." page 7
"Since inner healing is a way of allowing Christ ever more freedom in every part of our lives, it is a way we can ever more completely experience the power of our salvation." also on page 7
"In inner healing prayer we use our spirits and our minds in specific ways to pray. Intuitions come from the Holy Spirit into our spirits and find expression through our imagination. If we try to express these intuitions using only our intellects our prayer will be rational and somewhat dry. This is not to say that intellect is an inferior function of our minds, but only that it is not as useful in this kind of praying as imagination is. Imagination makes our prayer come alive, for imagination is the creative function within us, the function that arranges in new ways things given to it by the other parts of our minds and spirits." page 13
Do you all think imagination is a vital part of praying? Next Monday evening, Pastor Maddox will start us on the summer Bible study schedule of watching and discussing movies. There is certainly a lot of imagination in what we see there. Looking forward to seeing what movies you come up with, Pastor Maddox. And participating in all the discussion with you readers on this blog.
God's Peace,
Sharon
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
New book
Hello, companion Mustard Seed Library supporters,
Just to let you know I'm not giving up on the idea of book club blog to try to learn more communally about discernment of what books to put into the Mustard Seed Library. Sunday Joyce brought 5 more books and one of them is "How to Pray for Spiritual Growth: A Practical Handbook of Inner Healing." The author, Theodore E. Dobson, (the book was written in 1982) was then and maybe still is now Spiritual Director for the Charismatic Renewal as well as Consultant to Parishes on Spiritual Growth in the Archdiocese of Denver, Colorado. Published by Paulist Press. Actually the preface is pretty interesting. The challenge will be to pick out just short quotes from the different chapters. The final chapter is on general healing services. This is the kind of book which might be helpful also to lay people in Stephens Ministry--not directive book but writing about principles and "ways" into praying for spiritual growth. Could help lay caregivers be with others in a more understanding and supportive way as both care receivers and care givers are led into spiritual growth in the ways of God. The author himself experienced healing. Back to sewing.
God bless,
Sharon
Just to let you know I'm not giving up on the idea of book club blog to try to learn more communally about discernment of what books to put into the Mustard Seed Library. Sunday Joyce brought 5 more books and one of them is "How to Pray for Spiritual Growth: A Practical Handbook of Inner Healing." The author, Theodore E. Dobson, (the book was written in 1982) was then and maybe still is now Spiritual Director for the Charismatic Renewal as well as Consultant to Parishes on Spiritual Growth in the Archdiocese of Denver, Colorado. Published by Paulist Press. Actually the preface is pretty interesting. The challenge will be to pick out just short quotes from the different chapters. The final chapter is on general healing services. This is the kind of book which might be helpful also to lay people in Stephens Ministry--not directive book but writing about principles and "ways" into praying for spiritual growth. Could help lay caregivers be with others in a more understanding and supportive way as both care receivers and care givers are led into spiritual growth in the ways of God. The author himself experienced healing. Back to sewing.
God bless,
Sharon
further on in the book "Breakaway"
Hello, companion readers,
This book is actually very enjoyable. The author, Mark Link, seems to me to be passionately interested in the subject of prayer and read a lot about what other people say about prayer (just like us reading his book). After bouncing up and down through the book, reflecting and feeling and so forth, the different ideas of how to pray, when to pray, where to pray, in what posture, praying from print, praying from memory, praying out loud, praying for others, praying the Bible, conversing, praying with others, the last two pages of the book are absolutely delicious.
"The Three Hermits" is a Russian folk tale about three monks living on an island. According to Leo Tolstoy, who tells the story, they were so simple, their only prayer was:
"We are three;
you are three;
have mercy on us."
Miracles sometimes occurred during the prayer.
When the bishop heard about the monks, he went to visit them. He hoped to teach them to pray in a more appropriate way.
After he had finished instructing the monks, the bishop set sail again for the mainland. Suddenly, he saw a ball of light chasing his boat. It was the three monks running across the water.
When they reached the boat, they said: "We have forgotten a part of your instruction and want to check it with you."
The bishop shook his head humbly and said: "Forget what I taught you and continue to pray in your old way."
Prayer is a mystery and Mark Link's final pages in his book are certainly a good surprising ending. I got a big chuckle out of it and maybe you are chuckling too.
God bless,
Sharon
This book is actually very enjoyable. The author, Mark Link, seems to me to be passionately interested in the subject of prayer and read a lot about what other people say about prayer (just like us reading his book). After bouncing up and down through the book, reflecting and feeling and so forth, the different ideas of how to pray, when to pray, where to pray, in what posture, praying from print, praying from memory, praying out loud, praying for others, praying the Bible, conversing, praying with others, the last two pages of the book are absolutely delicious.
"The Three Hermits" is a Russian folk tale about three monks living on an island. According to Leo Tolstoy, who tells the story, they were so simple, their only prayer was:
"We are three;
you are three;
have mercy on us."
Miracles sometimes occurred during the prayer.
When the bishop heard about the monks, he went to visit them. He hoped to teach them to pray in a more appropriate way.
After he had finished instructing the monks, the bishop set sail again for the mainland. Suddenly, he saw a ball of light chasing his boat. It was the three monks running across the water.
When they reached the boat, they said: "We have forgotten a part of your instruction and want to check it with you."
The bishop shook his head humbly and said: "Forget what I taught you and continue to pray in your old way."
Prayer is a mystery and Mark Link's final pages in his book are certainly a good surprising ending. I got a big chuckle out of it and maybe you are chuckling too.
God bless,
Sharon
Monday, July 6, 2009
thanks for your responses
Hello, companion readers,
Thanks for your responses to this morning's blog entry. The whole thing started when the Mustard Seed Library received a box of books for possible inclusion from Joyce. We are going to pass all the books through for Pastor Maddox's consideration but it seems like both Joyce and I should familiarize ourselves with church library practices, we should be challenged in learning our denomination's theology and work on trying to be discerning as to what kinds of books will be most helpful to our congregation and others in the community using our library. Besides just putting the whole matter in Pastor Maddox's hands, it seemed like we could have a book club to discuss some of the books. There are transportation problems, car and gas, etc., etc., etc., and also time problems, work and so forth, so thought maybe a blog would help us out. Actually, last Sunday, God answered our prayers I know because Joyce God-incidentally had a conversation with Eleanor Manley's daughter, Elaine, and it turns out she was church librarian at their former church on the east coast. God bless you, Joyce, for discovering this new person to help us out in the Mustard Seed Library. Her gifts are very much welcomed!!!!!!! But I still think we lay people could bring ourselves up to snuff and possibly learn to be as discerning as Pastor Maddox, though he will have the final decisions. So, for that reason, I hope you will all continue to bear with me and finish the "Breakaway" book on prayer and help to get some kind of handle and understanding on things here for the Mustard Seed Library. If you ever want to read the whole blog it is http://mustardseedlibrary.blogspot.com Again, thanks for your responses--they are very helpful!!!!! As with everything in the church I suppose, librarian work should be a communal undertaking and not an individualistic one.
God bless,
Sharon
Thanks for your responses to this morning's blog entry. The whole thing started when the Mustard Seed Library received a box of books for possible inclusion from Joyce. We are going to pass all the books through for Pastor Maddox's consideration but it seems like both Joyce and I should familiarize ourselves with church library practices, we should be challenged in learning our denomination's theology and work on trying to be discerning as to what kinds of books will be most helpful to our congregation and others in the community using our library. Besides just putting the whole matter in Pastor Maddox's hands, it seemed like we could have a book club to discuss some of the books. There are transportation problems, car and gas, etc., etc., etc., and also time problems, work and so forth, so thought maybe a blog would help us out. Actually, last Sunday, God answered our prayers I know because Joyce God-incidentally had a conversation with Eleanor Manley's daughter, Elaine, and it turns out she was church librarian at their former church on the east coast. God bless you, Joyce, for discovering this new person to help us out in the Mustard Seed Library. Her gifts are very much welcomed!!!!!!! But I still think we lay people could bring ourselves up to snuff and possibly learn to be as discerning as Pastor Maddox, though he will have the final decisions. So, for that reason, I hope you will all continue to bear with me and finish the "Breakaway" book on prayer and help to get some kind of handle and understanding on things here for the Mustard Seed Library. If you ever want to read the whole blog it is http://mustardseedlibrary.blogspot.com Again, thanks for your responses--they are very helpful!!!!! As with everything in the church I suppose, librarian work should be a communal undertaking and not an individualistic one.
God bless,
Sharon
reading book "Breakaway: 28 Steps To A More Prayerful Life"
Hello, companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,
On page 32 of the "Breakaway" book there is this statement:
Our human efforts in prayer
may be likened to the efforts of a fisherman
casting a net into the sea.
Unless the net has been cast carefully,
the hope of success is small.
I've been struggling with this statement. It's such a fearful proposition that our prayers might be evaluated by God or something, given a grade-- big fat F, if we don't pray carefully and then He won't answer our prayers. And yet the thing is that our faith teachers and the Bible and the church do teach us about praying with a great amount of thought and consideration for Whom we are praying to. There are some pages in the "Breakaway" book of reflections on the manners of prayer, sort of thinking about the how-to's of prayer which will be the focus of this week's blog entries.
Pastor Freed had an interesting Song/Prayer by Mary Brown on his blog:
It may not be on the mountain's height, or over the stormy sea;
It may not be at the battle's front my Lord will have need of me;
But if by a still small voice He calls to paths I do not know,
I'll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in Yours,
I'll go where You want me to go.
I'll go where You want me to go, dear Lord,
O'er mountain, or plain, or sea;
I'll say what You want me to say, dear Lord,
I'll be what You want me to be.
That part "I'll say what You want me to say, dear Lord," is pertinent. It must mean what the Lord want us to say to others, in witnessing, in caring, etc., etc., but it seems like it could also be what the Lord wants to hear from us to in authentic conversation, deep down in our souls dialogue with Him. Is "I'll say (pray even) what You want me to say (pray even), dear Lord, something the Lord is trying to put into us, telling us what to do, or is it what's in us that he wants us to truthfully say (pray even) to Him and others? Even with all the questions above, think seriously enough about the subject of prayer that paying careful attention to how to pray seems relevant. Do you think this is too structured thinking and not natural and spontaneous enough? Should prayer be a subject of analysis at all?
God bless,
Sharon
On page 32 of the "Breakaway" book there is this statement:
Our human efforts in prayer
may be likened to the efforts of a fisherman
casting a net into the sea.
Unless the net has been cast carefully,
the hope of success is small.
I've been struggling with this statement. It's such a fearful proposition that our prayers might be evaluated by God or something, given a grade-- big fat F, if we don't pray carefully and then He won't answer our prayers. And yet the thing is that our faith teachers and the Bible and the church do teach us about praying with a great amount of thought and consideration for Whom we are praying to. There are some pages in the "Breakaway" book of reflections on the manners of prayer, sort of thinking about the how-to's of prayer which will be the focus of this week's blog entries.
Pastor Freed had an interesting Song/Prayer by Mary Brown on his blog:
It may not be on the mountain's height, or over the stormy sea;
It may not be at the battle's front my Lord will have need of me;
But if by a still small voice He calls to paths I do not know,
I'll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in Yours,
I'll go where You want me to go.
I'll go where You want me to go, dear Lord,
O'er mountain, or plain, or sea;
I'll say what You want me to say, dear Lord,
I'll be what You want me to be.
That part "I'll say what You want me to say, dear Lord," is pertinent. It must mean what the Lord want us to say to others, in witnessing, in caring, etc., etc., but it seems like it could also be what the Lord wants to hear from us to in authentic conversation, deep down in our souls dialogue with Him. Is "I'll say (pray even) what You want me to say (pray even), dear Lord, something the Lord is trying to put into us, telling us what to do, or is it what's in us that he wants us to truthfully say (pray even) to Him and others? Even with all the questions above, think seriously enough about the subject of prayer that paying careful attention to how to pray seems relevant. Do you think this is too structured thinking and not natural and spontaneous enough? Should prayer be a subject of analysis at all?
God bless,
Sharon
Friday, July 3, 2009
reading book "Breakaway: 28 steps to a more prayerful life"
Hello, everyone,
Just a recap - among the books Joyce gave me for possible inclusion in the Mustard Seed Library, is "Breakaway: 28 Steps To A More Prayerful Life" by Mark Link. Every time I reference a page number, it is from this book.
The book is composed of 28 meditative writings on prayer and I've been skipping around in it. On page 45 is the following:
"When Jimmy Carter became president, he placed a plaque on his White House desk. It contained an old "Fisherman's Prayer".
"O God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small."
Some people hesitate to call it a prayer. Actually, it reveals the basic starting point for all prayer: a person standing consciously in God's presence.
Standing consciously in God's presence means standing before God as we are: happy, bored, angry. We do not try to kid God or ourselves about our situation or how we feel about it."
The dictionary says "consciously" means "knowingly; with awareness." That means standing consciously in God's presence means standing knowingly and with awareness in God's presence.
The author of the book, Mark Link, did a curious thing in relating President Carter's action/Fisherman's Prayer together with his own further meditation about how the starting point for all prayer is being honest before God about ourselves and our situation. Actually the book was printed in 1980 and the situation then, according to the internet was "Plagued by the Iran Hostage Crisis and mounting domestic opposition, Carter lost the 1980 presidential election to Republican Reagan. In his first term Reagan introduced expansionary fiscal policies aimed at stimulating the American economy after a recession in 1981 and 1982, including oil deregulation policies which led to the 1980's oil glut."
Remembering the early 1980's and knowing what is happening in our own time now, and also remembering some of the more tranquil years between 1980 and 2009, and knowing a bit of what has been occurring in Jimmy Carter's life, I think we do get a sense that God must be hearing our prayers and responding to our needs and the needs of our nation and our political leaders. At Emmanuel, Pastor Maddox just led a Bible study for us on the "Book of Faith Initiative" and we studied reading the Bible historically, looking for the context of the author's writings and now we can also see that that way of reading can be applied to all writings. And it is still helpful and can promote a hopeful and optimistic perspective. I'm thankful that so many people back in 1980 were able to stand consciously before God, being honest about their situation and how they felt about it. Thankful so many people were praying. This is sort of a long rumination and, if you or any of you have waded through it, it is my way of wishing all of you a very, very Happy 4th of July. God bless the world, God bless His Church, God bless our country, God bless our political leaders, God bless us all and free us from the devil and oppression and slavery and all the things that would separate us from Him.
Peace,
Sharon
Just a recap - among the books Joyce gave me for possible inclusion in the Mustard Seed Library, is "Breakaway: 28 Steps To A More Prayerful Life" by Mark Link. Every time I reference a page number, it is from this book.
The book is composed of 28 meditative writings on prayer and I've been skipping around in it. On page 45 is the following:
"When Jimmy Carter became president, he placed a plaque on his White House desk. It contained an old "Fisherman's Prayer".
"O God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small."
Some people hesitate to call it a prayer. Actually, it reveals the basic starting point for all prayer: a person standing consciously in God's presence.
Standing consciously in God's presence means standing before God as we are: happy, bored, angry. We do not try to kid God or ourselves about our situation or how we feel about it."
The dictionary says "consciously" means "knowingly; with awareness." That means standing consciously in God's presence means standing knowingly and with awareness in God's presence.
The author of the book, Mark Link, did a curious thing in relating President Carter's action/Fisherman's Prayer together with his own further meditation about how the starting point for all prayer is being honest before God about ourselves and our situation. Actually the book was printed in 1980 and the situation then, according to the internet was "Plagued by the Iran Hostage Crisis and mounting domestic opposition, Carter lost the 1980 presidential election to Republican Reagan. In his first term Reagan introduced expansionary fiscal policies aimed at stimulating the American economy after a recession in 1981 and 1982, including oil deregulation policies which led to the 1980's oil glut."
Remembering the early 1980's and knowing what is happening in our own time now, and also remembering some of the more tranquil years between 1980 and 2009, and knowing a bit of what has been occurring in Jimmy Carter's life, I think we do get a sense that God must be hearing our prayers and responding to our needs and the needs of our nation and our political leaders. At Emmanuel, Pastor Maddox just led a Bible study for us on the "Book of Faith Initiative" and we studied reading the Bible historically, looking for the context of the author's writings and now we can also see that that way of reading can be applied to all writings. And it is still helpful and can promote a hopeful and optimistic perspective. I'm thankful that so many people back in 1980 were able to stand consciously before God, being honest about their situation and how they felt about it. Thankful so many people were praying. This is sort of a long rumination and, if you or any of you have waded through it, it is my way of wishing all of you a very, very Happy 4th of July. God bless the world, God bless His Church, God bless our country, God bless our political leaders, God bless us all and free us from the devil and oppression and slavery and all the things that would separate us from Him.
Peace,
Sharon
Thursday, July 2, 2009
page 46, reading of book on prayer
Greetings everyone,
On page 46 of the book on prayer is the following:
On our part, any effort
to make ourselves feel God's presence
is nearly always wrong.
It cannot be wished or willed into being.
It is a gift from God.
In an earlier post, there was given the example of a boy asking a Holy Man to teach him to pray. The Holy Man pushed the boy's head under some water and helped the boy feel like he was drowning (form of waterboarding?) and the lesson was "When you long to pray as much as you longed to breathe when your head was underwater--only then will I be able to teach you to pray."
One day, Jerry and I were driving somewhere, and the NPR was on radio. A young man was recalling when his grandmother died. The young man didn't pray. His mom told him, "Son, praying is just thoughts so just keep thinking about your grandma. God hears and responds to all your thoughts."
I've had to do a lot of thinking about infant baptism and about adult baptism, about praying and also about thinking, and about stuff like the above words on page 46, and also about how I might best encourage and be with others as they wrestle with being in the Presence of God, definitely don't want to be an obstacle in anyone's way in their relationship with God and yet sinner that I am I know that that also happens in my relationships with others as it has happened to me from time-to-time. Feeling God's Presence is a gift from God. I think page 46 is a theological crux of it all for the Church.
God's Peace,
Sharon
On page 46 of the book on prayer is the following:
On our part, any effort
to make ourselves feel God's presence
is nearly always wrong.
It cannot be wished or willed into being.
It is a gift from God.
In an earlier post, there was given the example of a boy asking a Holy Man to teach him to pray. The Holy Man pushed the boy's head under some water and helped the boy feel like he was drowning (form of waterboarding?) and the lesson was "When you long to pray as much as you longed to breathe when your head was underwater--only then will I be able to teach you to pray."
One day, Jerry and I were driving somewhere, and the NPR was on radio. A young man was recalling when his grandmother died. The young man didn't pray. His mom told him, "Son, praying is just thoughts so just keep thinking about your grandma. God hears and responds to all your thoughts."
I've had to do a lot of thinking about infant baptism and about adult baptism, about praying and also about thinking, and about stuff like the above words on page 46, and also about how I might best encourage and be with others as they wrestle with being in the Presence of God, definitely don't want to be an obstacle in anyone's way in their relationship with God and yet sinner that I am I know that that also happens in my relationships with others as it has happened to me from time-to-time. Feeling God's Presence is a gift from God. I think page 46 is a theological crux of it all for the Church.
God's Peace,
Sharon
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
conversation with God - prayer
Hello, companion readers,
On page 8 the author has the following quote:
"It's a special place here,
It is God's place
and more beautiful than you'd ever dreamed.
It's a heaven here,
yes, a heaven, but in some mystical way,
different from the one you seek....
You feel you are dreaming,
yet no dream was ever so real."
Mike Valentino
Do you think what we all want to face up to is that we are actually seeking a heaven different from the one we are seeking and that a portal is prayer and joining with others and supporting each other's prayer lives is important and how do you think we best can do that, what are some of the ways people have helped you and what are some of the ways you have helped others?
God bless,
Sharon
On page 8 the author has the following quote:
"It's a special place here,
It is God's place
and more beautiful than you'd ever dreamed.
It's a heaven here,
yes, a heaven, but in some mystical way,
different from the one you seek....
You feel you are dreaming,
yet no dream was ever so real."
Mike Valentino
Do you think what we all want to face up to is that we are actually seeking a heaven different from the one we are seeking and that a portal is prayer and joining with others and supporting each other's prayer lives is important and how do you think we best can do that, what are some of the ways people have helped you and what are some of the ways you have helped others?
God bless,
Sharon
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