One for the road...

Lentern orientation...

I am crap at denying myself anything.  Pretty much anything I want i get and if i can't get it straight away i keep on wanting it more and more until i do get it. Food is a particulatly great example of this, i am the petrol station snack king, always popping in to buy what i am fancying at any given moment!

That's why this Lent I have decided to give up on alcohol.  It is not as challenging as say burgers but it will be something that I will miss and it gives me a chance to start practicing my feeble muscles of self denial!

A good friend of mine scoffs at the idea of Lent - seeing it as new yrs mark II - a chance for a do-over of those broken resolutions where something is given up not as an act of sacrifice but as an act of gain - e.g. i'm not eating chocolate as i hope to lose a few pounds etc.  For this reason, my friend avoids all forms of lentern resolutions, as an anti-lent protest (and therefore has given up on giving things up ;).

Are you giving anything up for Lent?

Or maybe you are taking up something instead?

Like my friend at work who has decided to give up being an agnostic for Lent and has decided to try being an atheist, a christian and a muslim for 2 weeks each to find out what life off the fence feels like.

He has clearly thought this through as he says that there is no point in just dabbling his toes in the water, if he follows this through than its full immersion or nothing - now whether 2 weeks is long enough for more than a sheep dip is another question but i admire his commitment to try and orientate his life in each faith as much as possible.

It was not lost on me how i often do the exact opposite and just dip my toes in my christian  faith - usually based on what is the least cost/most convenient/least involved/bare minimum for me.

It has made me think of how little evidence of a positive good faith orientation exists in my life.  I contrast myself with Muslims who, where possible, gather together 5 times a day to pray.  I struggle with praying for 5 minutes per day and gathering once or twice a week with a bunch of christians.

Lent is one opportunity where i can practice my faith more intentionally - in a climate of people giving things up or taking things up  I can reflect why I am  doing something intentionally and explicitly that might cost or inconvenience me - and not just for my own benefit/gain.

I attended a Lent service tonight and was signed with the cross in oil and ash on my forehead by another person.  It reminded me that there is so much of practicing my faith that i can not do alone at my own convenience!  It also challenged me to begin to think how else i could identify myself and orientate my life around Jesus?

What do you think we can do, both individually and communally, to more explicity reflect and orientate our lives around Jesus?

Afterall he didn't pull any punches when he said:

"Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life  will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it."

What does intentionally practicing losing our lives look like?

Incompatible faith?

If we are honest I wonder how many of us question our faith (whatever we choose to believe or not believe in), the choices that we have made and the questions, doubts, issues that keep us from going deeper into our faith? 

I know that for me I often like to keep my choices open and therefore not to commit too deeply.  One way to do this is to avoid thinking or questioning and thus never consider anything deeper or go to the opposite extreme of questioning everything and therefore committing to nothing. 

Saying that there are a number of things that bug me, questions that seem to be without answer that makes it harder to sometimes know how to go deeper - the issues/questions  seem incompatible with my faith.  Questions like why does the old testament part of the bible seem so violent compared to the new, same God different marketing campaign? Or why would anyone else want to follow Jesus, i'm more than happy sharing my story of why i do and my experiences but I'm never sure why anyone else would?

It is why I am glad that our church will be exploring these issues during this year and inviting folk to submit the questions, thoughts and struggles that we have with our faith in everyday life that makes it hard to live it out.

So what questions/issues of your own would you submit?

Thinking the best of each other?

As I read this post from emerging grace it made me think of how the people who knew the story didn't have to say anything at all, they gave the barest of details and left it for people to reach their own conclusions - should I have been surprised that people's mind's jumped to the worst/most scandelous thoughts?

Not really, I did exactly the same yesterday when two of the dad's in my son's school class had to go in to see the teacher after school the speculation was about what trouble their boy's could have got up too. It was only later that I thought that it could have been about anything so why did I jump to the conclusion they were in trouble rather than had been hurt?

I think it is even easier in the world of blogs to find my mind thinking the worst of people not the best. Easier because it is a personality driven medium and often what is written is a one sided story, where the other person or situation is unknown/unlikely to respond.

I feel challenged in my writing to try and practice the words of St Paul:

"filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse..."

Trying to think and find the best in others is, I am convinced, a spiritual discipline to be for the other rather than for me. I have found when i prayer for people, go out of my way to call out the positives i see rather than the negatives i suspect etc then it makes it a lot easier to think the best not the worst of them. This of course requires effort and energy and I suspect the Holy Spirit as well as it does not come naturally to me.

However, I realise that the more I see the worst in others the more blind i become to my own faults. Which is maybe why Jesus spoke of a log growing in my eye as i see the speck in my friend's.

Anyone got any helpful experience/advice to share about how you think the best of people in the real and virtual worlds?

praying and learning to pray again: how do you pray synchoblog

Dear God, please make my post interesting.  yeah yeah yeah.  I mean Amen.

This is my response to the Q posed by  Erin Word, Cindy Bryan and Lyn: “How Do You Pray?”

My first response to the Q 'how do you pray' is 'not enough.'  Why am I wired like that, why is it if if any question about spiritual disciplines is asked most christians I know (which would be from a protestant evangelical background) seem to answer the same.  We all hang our heads, stare at the floor and confess our inadequacies in praying or whatever.  It's as if collectively we recognise that prayer is good, it has benefits but that as individuals we're not just very good at it.  Often we can resolve to pray more but then go our individual ways - prayer we seem to collectively say is afterall seems to be mostly a private matter between God and I.

So how do I pray... or how i was i taught to pray:

Me magic formula... (success sometimes guaranteed :)

It's funny how I often pray with that formula...

'Dear'... it makes me feel like i'm writing God a letter, but somehow that sort of formal start seems better to me than "Hi God" or just  "God."  Sometimes i start with something else like 'thank you' but most of the time the formula sounds best to me with 'dear.'

'God'...  another thing I note is that I often address God as God - although I'm quite passionate in my trinitarian belief I find God such an inviting cover all the bases catch all.  No gender issues, no parenting issues, no relational issues - it's almost like God is a blank canvas that I can project onto - safe, nebulous, distant and personable all at the same time.

'Please'... it is God after all and I am polite enough not to demand, word the request carefully.  Please after all is the magic word.

'I/me/my'... the heart of many of my prayer is ME.  God can you give me xyz.  God can you do xyz for me.   Sometimes (often) it is me just asking God to baptise who I am/what I want.  In fact i think since i pray more than I think, often situationally (God help!) rather than sitting down (in a quiet time sense) then it makes sense that my prayers are often requests to get me out or change the situation I am in some way. 

Which thinking about it is not such a bad thing, admitting that things in my life are more than I can deal with and that I need help is often the honest response (when in a hole stop digging and start praying???)

And God being good I'm pretty sure he intervenes often in the situations I'm in.

'Amen'... Well who likes long goodbyes anyway?

Some other ways I'm discovering...

praying for others... one of the questions I am learning to ask people is what can I pray for you?  I might have my own ideas but asking people and letting them respond however they want is liberating.  Remembering to pray for them is another challenge - often I pray right there and then.  Nothing worse than someone saying "thank you so much for praying for me" a few days/weeks/months later and me going "oh yes of course" (if God is outside time do retrospective prayers count???).

Sometimes I don't even ask, sometimes the response to some of the crap stuff is just to pray, to wrestle with God, to ask questions and for his involvement, comfort, help for people who are suffering, hurting, needing, groaning...

As part of praying for others i am learning to wonder if i can also somehow be the answer to prayer - what else can i do here? How else can I give of myself? 

And on the flip side can I ask people to pray for me as well.  Can I be honest and open and realise that opening my life up for people to pray for me helps me be part of a community where the answer to prayer can be the kindness, encouragement and sticking with me in tough times and celebrating with me in good times...

praying using the prayers of others... I've written about how I have found the 'Divine Hours' helpful in both having a prayer rhythm and in inspiring my own prayers.  After all the formula approach above was how I learnt to pray and how i have most often seen prayer modelled.  Learning to pray the prayers of the bible and by the saints across time/traditions helps me learns different ways.  It also helps me take the focus off 'me' when I pray and remember the wider world in which i live (i mentioned in the same post how i've found praying the 'our' in the Lords prayer particularly helpful in this respect).

I've also be inspired by this Jason Clark talk to pray using the letters ACTS [for Adoration, Confession, Thanks-giving and Supplication]. It's been helpful in putting what I want at the end of my prayers and for learning to praise and thank God as well as reflect on my own character, what God is doing in my life and where he might want to be doing stuff.

praying with others... I don't do this very often but when i do i find it really inspiring - it's communal and others prayers can infect my imagination and my responses.  I've been especially excited with learning from how others pray and from interactive prayer - prayer whethere there are things focus and inspire me and the people praying together.

I find it the hardest to pray with just my wife - it's like i know so much about her and long for so much for her that it makes it really hard to know what to say and how to say it.  I'm not talking about those occasional prayers that i'm tempted to pray: "dear god, please can you change Debs to make my life easier. Amen."   It's almost the prayers that are about the deepest things where we live in and with the struggle of the reality - there is no escape.  In fact i often wonder in those times of prayer that it is not whether they are answered how we want but in the way that we are committed together, surviving together...

praying God's way...?

i'm beginning to find prayer is sometimes conversation, sometimes request, sometimes questioning, sometimes sulking, sometimes begging and sometimes i come to the point of stopping praying my way for my things and instead trying to pray for God's will to be done rather than mine.   In fact the more i do of the above exploring and the less I do of praying just for me the more convinced that I am praying in God's ways.

I'm encouraged by something Dallas Willard said, that God wants us to be able to ask for anything that we want because we'll have grown up in God enough to chose/discern what God wants.

I'm also learning to pray to God by name - Jesus is pretty easy, holy spirit seems a bit stranger (given that where i learnt to pray we didn't really give him a lot of time) but the one that weirds me out the most is Father.  I can pray Father i guess cos that is formal and not any layer of emotion but if I want to pray as 'Dad', Daddy - that feels very strange indeed.  Clearly a lot of father/son issues to work through :)

So that's me, how about you - how do you pray? and how are you learning to pray?

(click below for my fellow snychrobloggers)

Practicing prayer or discovering the 'our' in the Divine Hours

The topic of prayer seems to be in the up in the air (and sometime hot air in my case) - my synchroblog post on how do I pray is here. 

I was kindly given a complimentary copy of the pocket edition of the ‘divine hours’ to review.  I’ve been using the book now in a number of different environments:

• in my daily commute on the train
• on holiday
• as a spiritual resource at home.

Clearly the size of the book and its contents – a week’s worth of the daily offices of the hours - makes it ideal to use on holiday or on a journey.   I would recomend the book as something that has helped my own spiritual rhythm and practice and because it has made me aware of my own heritage and how I pray.

Helping me explore how I meditate/pray

For me though using the divine hours for the first time has also been about exploring set times and patterns of prayer/scripture mediation in my life.  I am used to pretty much praying what I want/when I want/using my own words and similarly for reading and reflecting on what I want in the bible.  This is part of my evangelical/charismatic heritage where there has been a move away from written prayers to extemporising, under the inspiration of the Spirit.  It has its drawbacks:

• It’s me dependent – when I want/what I want
• It can be hard when I don’t want to pray or don’t know how to pray to actually start to pray
• It can be all over the shop, random thoughts and rabbit trails, distracting me or distancing me.

On the other hand as I found with the ‘hours’ it can often feel routine, glib, shallow reading written prayers, particularly when I’m half awake or half asleep – is there a process of spiritual formation going on?  Hmmm… well more formation than if I look at the reality which is I probably wouldn’t be praying at all if it wasn’t for me trying to follow the office of that part of the day.  And at one point when I was feeling particularly crappy with my self actually having something written to follow rather than flailing around in self loathing was really helpful and powerful.

In fact I often found myself engaging in a mixture of the two traditions – inviting the Spirit to fill and lead my times of prayer/reflection and following the prayers whilst being open to further prayer/reflection/direction.  Sometimes I’d just enjoy the rhythm of the parts of the office and other times I’d find myself being inspired by one refrain/part, a doorway into the deep.

Praying communally

Perhaps what I enjoyed the most was praying the Lords Prayer so often.  It is a prayer I remember having to say as a kid in school in assemblies and when I attended an Anglican church whilst at university (so much so that saying it out loud on my own felt very strange and also it was incredibly hard to remember the words of it with no one else there to prompt).  It reminded me of how communal the prayer is – the use of ‘our’ – and that I miss that we so rarely say it together in the evangelical/charismatic/missional churches I have been in.  Praying for ‘our’ rather than just for me/mine was a sweet detox from my own self centred prayers and a practice that I would like to continue to incorporate into my spiritual practices.

Your praying practices...

How do you pray...

...In a cupboard? In a community?  Set prayers?  Set hours/offices? Inspired prayers?  What is informing your prayer practice...

What's your story/vision...

Jason Clark has been commenting on the stories we live by and i've been whittering on about my own job narrative which says i need "senior" in my job title.  Anywho,  i came across this great post on inward/outward, which made me think again about just how myopic i can be at times...

What's your vision

"Each of us lives by some vision - perhaps a depressing vision, or a very limited vision, or a vision that everything is going to pieces. But each of us lives by a vision, conscious or unconscious. Should it be a dark vision moving toward disintegration and chaos, we will be fearful. If it is a larger vision, a universal vision, a vision of the kingdom, and we really believe that it is going to take place, we will be filled with hope.

The biblical vision, the vision of the Shalom, is the vision of the totality. God is the God of a people called to be a blessing to all the nations, all tribes, all combinations of people. No one is going to be excluded. All are moving toward this Shalom. Everybody shares and participates, is a part of it - no one is left out. This vision is one of universal justice and peace….

In reality, we are not separate individuals, as we often feel ourselves to be. We are meshed, we are intertwined, we flow into and out of one another and all others. There is no way to fix the boundaries. The Christ who flows into us is simultaneously flowing into the billions of the world’s people. Where do we end and they begin? Millions of cells in the human body make up the body’s totality. All are working harmoniously on behalf of the whole, unless some of the cells become sick or cancerous. Each of us is part of God’s total people, and we cannot separate ourselves from the totality.

Until awareness of this universal belonging dawns upon us we are a hindrance to the human family. It is a great day when the boundaries drop. We are part of others, and they are a part of us. We are constantly flowing into them. We cannot protect ourselves from their sickness and pain and brokenness. Nor can others protect themselves from ours. All become united. The common life of humanity is not an ideal, not something that would be just wonderful if we could but realize it. The universal quality of life happens to be a reality, and we utterly defeat ourselves when we violate that premise. We can live in the illusion of separateness, but it is an illusion.

The overall vision of God and the kingdom gives assurance that all of humanity is going to be freed from its present bondage and is going to be reconciled with the source of its life - God - and with one another. And each individual or cell in the body will know total, inner reconciliation and total fulfillment of all of its potential…. A basic question, of course, is how often or how deeply do we see this vision as really happening so that we live by it? We say the prayer, ‘Thy kingdom come,’ but when we pray do we see it as happening? Or as we say, ‘Thy kingdom come,’ do we feel that everything is going to pieces? Do we ever feel our prayer moving all of humanity toward the Shalom?

The vision is so fantastic that believing it requires supernatural faith. The nature of our sin is so profound and our alienation is so deep that the vision is seldom taken seriously. I can believe the vision when I am in the midst of my community. But all one has to do to shake that belief is to walk down the streets of Adams Morgan, down Columbia Road, as I did this morning. I saw at least 10 people - addicted, homeless, hopeless - just as those who work in the neighborhood see them or others like them every hour of the day.

In the midst of all the negative situations and data, there is no easy way to hold that universal vision - the vision that God, using us, is going to usher in the Shalom - that the kingdom is really coming - that one day justice and peace will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Hope is the deep conviction that the vision will come to fruition; the confidence that it will really happen. Let us suppose that we have this conviction, and we want to use the few remaining years of our lives to move the vision forward. What is the power, what kind of leadership, will move it toward its destiny?"

Gordon Cosby is co-founder of The Church of the Saviour (1947), and is a member of the Friends of Jesus Church and two spiritual support groups

Being present: why I think the divine hours might help me

I have recently been trying to practise being present to my life/reality - taking my every day ordinary life and instead of running from it or wishing it away, follow the advice of Eugene Peterson's translation of Romans 12:1-2, and lay it down before God with God helping me do that.

I have also been thinking with my reflections on deep church and reconnecting with christian tradition how some form of office of prayer might be helpful - giving me words when my own are a list of complaints or wishes for a better life...

It was therefore may not a total coincidence that I received an email last week asking me if I wanted to review a copy of the 'Divine Hours' pocket edition [UK/USA].  I readily accepted, thinking with my commuting life this could be just what i needed to help me on the train into London and, inparticular because this quote on the blurb really stood out for me:

"As Tickle writes in her introduction, “prayer is always a place as well as an action, and the daily offices are like small chapels or wayside stations within the day’s courses.” For all those who want to carry a “small chapel” of prayers with them, The Divine Hours Pocket Edition™ offers a convenient, easy-to-use, and deeply spiritual guide to a devotional practice..."

As church of late has been about this space of reconnection, an antidote to the me-centricness of my consumer orientated life, i am looking forward to seeing how this helps me across the day and throughout the week - i'll let you know.

In the meantime, do any of you pray the hours or have your own/other regular rhythms of prayer/contemplation/worship?

Abstinence makes my consumer heart grow less wronger?

Whilst I have been burrowing my head in the sand of deep church I notice that the blog world has been pulsing with debate about the southern baptist decision to abstain from alcohol [John and Helen both have good posts on this].

Now I'm not southern baptist, or baptist from any other point of the compass [i was going to say I'm not even American but due to an accident of birth i hold dual citizenship] so what on earth has this got to do with me.  As I read the posts and comments on christian view on alcohol and whether to abstain or not, I'll tell you what I thought...

'How dare any institution ,or any person for that matter, tell me how I should live my life!  If I want to drink alcohol then dammit, I will!  And what's even better is I can think of bible verses to back me up'

What I wanted to do was write a long post ridiculing people who lived by such legalistic notions and celebrating my freedom to do what I want, with some of those good sounding bible verses thrown in and then go for a pint or two...

But the more I thought about the more I find myself trapped in my own prison, in which I am the jailer - I am not really free I am self obsessed, selfish and unable to accept that anyone would want to deny themselves something - such that i feel i have to assert my right to do what I want free of all restraint.

Is practicing abstinence really such a bad thing?  In a consumer dominated world, when i can have what I want when I want it at my convenience - that I have come to expect this as my right?  Maybe if i want to start detoxing from the effects of my consumer addiction praticing abstinence is in fact a good thing?  Certainly if i was a recovering alcoholic for instance the southern baptists would sound an ideal church for me to go - maybe as someone who is as touch with his consumption as an alcoholic is with their drinking I need to go along as well?

Not that I know any southern baptists, which is a shame, but if I did I wouldn't offer them alcoholic drink if they came to dinner out of respect of their convictions, i wouldn't meet them in a pub either, in fact i wouldn't try and drink alcohol in front of them out of respect for their practice.  So why should I start now on the internet telling them they are wrong - when i am reacting out of my own wrongness and self addiction?

The fellowship of the unashamed...

At church on Easter Sunday, Jason was reflecting on the liberating power of Jesus for our past, present and future.  Jason read out the prayer below, which has become known as the Martyr's prayer [NB: for clarity this is its poular title and Jase did not imply it was written by a Marty] and for me it was a crack in my ordinary facade of life, that beneath it their lies something so much bigger and more untamably wild that I am committed too. 

As Jason reminded us God's presence and him being present are two different things, I may not feel much of his presence but that does not mean he is not present. 

This prayer then is for me a lifting of the fog of my life to remind of what I have committed myself too, a knowledge that my past is being recyled into life, my present is being renewed and my future is one of life and restored humanity.

"I'm a part of the fellowship of the unashamed. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I'm a disciple of His and I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still.

My past is redeemed. My present makes sense. My future is secure. I'm done and finished with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, mundane talking, cheap living, and dwarfed goals.

I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don't have to be right, or first, or tops, or recognized, or praised, or rewarded. I live by faith, lean on His presence, walk by patience, lift by prayer, and labor by Holy Spirit power.

My face is set. My gait is fast. My goal is heaven. My road may be narrow, my way rough, my companions few, but my guide is reliable and my mission is clear.

I will not be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, deluded or delayed.  I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice or hesitate in the presence of the adversary. I will not negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.

I won't give up, shut up, or let up until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, and preached up for the cause of Christ.

I am a disciple of Jesus. I must give until I drop, preach until all know, and work until He comes. And when He does come for His own, He'll have no problems recognizing me. My colors will be clear!"

Amen

What do you think/feel/experience as you read this prayer?

The best of us...the worst of us [a video blog]

I am often left with the thought that the best of me is also the worst of me - my talents, gifts, attributes where I excel I can use to bless people or just bless myself.  A theme I explore in this 1m 20s video post below.

Your thoughts:

• is this your experience too?
• feel free to join me and share your talents at their best/worst
• what/how do you think we can do about blessing with what we've been blessed rather than using it to just make ourselves feel good?