Write Now!
This blog started as a 'Lenten Writing Project', where we wrote each day in Lent. Now that Summer is here, let's keep up the discipline of writing with a weekly writing challenge! A prompt will be posted each week and anyone is welcome to join in and post their writing here or participate just by reading it.
Every writer has their own special light to add to this blog and all of your writing offerings are appreciated, whether poetry, prose, essay, thoughts, lists or comments and encouragement.
Lenten Prompt #12 Sunday Mar 4 2012
ReplyDeletedefinitions: faith-unquestioning belief
habit-an act repeated so often that it
becomes automatic
automatic-done without thought
my leap of faith habit
how i envy the monasteries
and nunneries.
the appointed chimes or bells ring
everything comes to a silent halt
everyone glides to the chapel
or to their quiet rooms
to pray.
they celebrate the LORD
sometimes together,
as the Comunion of Saints
sometimes alone
with the Holy Spirit
but always at the appointed time
(and even extra times)
yet, still daily work seems to get done
I live alone
my time is mine to choose
but i am weak
i do not have the discipline
to pray with the regularity which i yearn for
i have only myself to blame
i would join a nunnery, but they say i am
too old
i will try again tomorrow
to pray with regularity
maybe it's OK that i struggle
it keeps the habit from becoming
automatic, with no thought
it keeps the faith and prayers i do have
conscious and in the moment
it keeps me alive in Kairos time
s.h.
Pastor Mike’s sermon of February 26, the first Sunday in Lent, encourages us to adopt 3 ‘rules’ or external disciplines to guide our inward spiritual pilgrimage toward God, toward the open tomb.
ReplyDeleteThe second of the 3 rules is honesty. Remembering Pastor Mike's definition of honesty, my conscience is pricked. That looks like a hard one. Pastor Mike says that honesty is about my attitudes, about my prejudices, and about my personality.
I consider myself honest. I tell the truth. But that sermon message keeps nagging me. That sounds like probing deeper than is comfortable. That sounds scary. That sounds hard.
But that tells me I need to focus on the discipline or habit of honesty. What is holding me back? It is the fear of what I might learn about myself.
Then I remember that I cannot fully even know my own heart, but God does. And God promises to give me wisdom when I ask; Jesus promises the Holy Spirit will lead me into all truth. So I am willing to be willing to learn more about the habit of honesty.
God, please show me what I need to see. Amen.
I remember feeling the same way about this sermon. I usually consider myself an overly honest person, but it turns out that there are some things that I am not honest with that don't involve mere over-sharing. It was uncomfortable, but in an 'aha' way. Glad you brought that up!
Deleteby Pat Mason
ReplyDeleteI would like to have the faith habit of belief.
Simply to believe.
All the time and every time... just believe.
Fasting. It took me a day and a half to figure this - past the deadline! I've done it in the past . I haven't done it for awhile - I suppose because food is such a reward...... haven't really thought about it for awhile...... why not?
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I’ve recently read in Nadia Bolz-Weber’s book Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 hours of Christian Television is about some of the traditions that conservative Christian churches have that we can actually learn from. Let me preface this with the disclaimer: I am not conservative in my religious beliefs – only in my clinging devotion to the Green LBW. However, as a person faith that is called to be inclusive, I try to look at ALL different faiths with an interested, open lens. Conservative religions (and I’m not exactly satisfied with using that word to sum up the breadth of religions it encompasses – nor am I satisfied in facilitating an ‘us and them’ stance) should possibly be looked at like I look at other faiths that seem very different than mine. I usually find that learning about them can bring breadth into my own faith-understanding. We regularly take Confirmation students to Temples and Mosques in order to let them experience other faiths and have a deeper understanding of them. I know in my own upbringing I visited some Roman/Greek Catholic churches steeped in incense and we had some Buddhist and Zoroastrianist friends that we had some great broadening conversations with. As a writer, I have explored the Zen Buddhist philosophy through my favorite writing instructor Natalie Goldberg and it has remained a constant source of help and nurture. I continue to seek out and learn about different faiths to deepen my own, but Baptist? Foursquare? Somehow we just seem to write them off. We (ELCA Lutherans & conservative Christians) seem like two sisters in the same family. I have some experience in this: people are always comparing you and mixing you up. “Aren’t you the one that hates abortion?” “Do you believe that being gay is a sin…or not?” It’s maddening and you try to distance yourself as much as possible from the other – making sure that you seem different enough. However, it doesn’t matter what you do – again, from experience – people are going to mix you up and you know what? It doesn’t matter. You need to do what is spiritually feeding and feels true to you. And individual people cannot be contained or boiled down to one theology. (though it’s like the argument for relativism – even the fact that everything is relative…is relative, so take this with a grain of salt if you want to) One of the things that Nadia Bolz-Weber brought up in her book that resonated for me is this: We have all these Bibles in the church pews (or chairs), but we never use them. Instead, we are more of a ‘bulletin-based church’ than a ‘Bible-based’ one. Why don’t I bring my Bible to church?? It seems pretty basic - I have one (several, actually) and there are these cool carriers that I could use to bring it to church and follow along with the lessons and gospel with my highlighter and pen, but then would people judge me with a certain set of prejudices about my beliefs. Honestly, I just never thought to do it because the practice seems so ‘other’. However, I have found that I really want to be able to mark the verses that we read in church in order to remember them later. I want to make notes in my margins and have my Bible more of a useful tool than a relic. That is what it is for, after all, right? I remember asking my Dad once when you could be ‘done’ reading the Bible (hey, I was a PK. I was probably hoping that I could work toward a quick end-date). He said you were done reading the Bible when the pages were yellowed and worn and written on and stained with your own tears. That sounds like an email I would get in all caps from a distant aunt with a warning that I needed to forward it to 10 friends to show I was a Christian, but without that baggage, the statement really does resonate with me. Well, my 3rd grade Bible has stickers all over it from using it as a child and there are a few notes in the margins from when I was in college. It’s time to take it back out and “finish” using it. I think this will take a while.
ReplyDelete