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