Disciplines
Prayer is profitable because it makes us familiars with God.
-St. Thomas Aquinas
I have really learned how true that quote is over the past few weeks. One of the cool things about my new job is that there is a huge focus on contemplative spiritual disciplines. For instance, last weekend we went on a 24-hour silence and solitude retreat. We'll do the same thing for 3 days at the beginning of the year. Built into our daily schedule is a standing 30-minute prayer time where we do some liturgy, pray through scripture and journal. If you would have told me that my move to an urban ministry would improve my understanding and practice of ancient Celtic spiritual practices, I would have openly mocked you. I would have then had to openly apologize to you because you would have been right and I would have been wrong.
It's also something that we practice with the kids we minister to, though in 10-minute journal and prayer blocks instead of the larger blocks. The hope is that these practices will be something that will stick with them, and that they will become familiars with God through the process.
What is personally encouraging about these practices is that all of the scheduled time is not burning me out on talking with God. You know how sometimes you can spend too much time with someone, and then you just get so sick of them that you need some space? Well, that's not happening this time. To the contrary, it has made me hunger for it more. It's like God and I have been having these conversations, and even though I knew that God was cool I am finding that God is way bigger and more interesting than I had previously thought. As I become familiar with God, there is this desire to know more and more about God and become even more familiar. Not that there won't later be periods of frustration and drought, but for the time being it is an amazing period of exploration and experience of the journey.
Fair Dinkum
-St. Thomas Aquinas
I have really learned how true that quote is over the past few weeks. One of the cool things about my new job is that there is a huge focus on contemplative spiritual disciplines. For instance, last weekend we went on a 24-hour silence and solitude retreat. We'll do the same thing for 3 days at the beginning of the year. Built into our daily schedule is a standing 30-minute prayer time where we do some liturgy, pray through scripture and journal. If you would have told me that my move to an urban ministry would improve my understanding and practice of ancient Celtic spiritual practices, I would have openly mocked you. I would have then had to openly apologize to you because you would have been right and I would have been wrong.
It's also something that we practice with the kids we minister to, though in 10-minute journal and prayer blocks instead of the larger blocks. The hope is that these practices will be something that will stick with them, and that they will become familiars with God through the process.
What is personally encouraging about these practices is that all of the scheduled time is not burning me out on talking with God. You know how sometimes you can spend too much time with someone, and then you just get so sick of them that you need some space? Well, that's not happening this time. To the contrary, it has made me hunger for it more. It's like God and I have been having these conversations, and even though I knew that God was cool I am finding that God is way bigger and more interesting than I had previously thought. As I become familiar with God, there is this desire to know more and more about God and become even more familiar. Not that there won't later be periods of frustration and drought, but for the time being it is an amazing period of exploration and experience of the journey.
Fair Dinkum