a month of Sundays

Retirees sometimes compare the experience of waking up with no alarm clock or urgent race to punch a time clock as "every day is like Saturday." By contrast among Sunday worshipers there is a different feeling of expectation and slight excitement about dressing up and getting ready to sing and shout praises. Now imagine waking up as if every day is a priceless gift to use to best of one's abilities; a precious resource to steward -neither hiding or squandering, but instead usefully building the Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven. Start each day like it were a Sunday and a chance to engage with one's maker.

What do you mean, “God just is.”?

Even prominent agnostic thinkers like the late Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins accept that logically the existence of a spiritual creator can be neither be proven or disproven. So to call oneself atheistic in not so much the belief in an absence of God, but more precisely the refusal to venture any position except that One Cannot Know, or agnosis (non-knowledge). So if we travel down the road that supposes a supreme being for a moment, what supports that view? (relying on mortal syllogism and the visible spectrum that amounts to the distance across a dime, say 1.6 cm, on the complete electro-magnetic continuum if scaled from coast to coast of the continental USA)

1. LIke the story of the five blind Indian wisemen each touching a different part of the elephant, our own senses are small and limited, even when helped by technology to extend our thinking, sorting, and pattern-finding. [partiality]

2. Our lifetimes are relatively short and thus we can discover and mature a finite amount while striving to comprehend something that is infinite and an expanding universe that appears from our position to be expanding at an accelerating rate. [mortality]

3. LIke the wind, there are powers that we can't touch or see, but whose effects we accept as real. [indirect signs]

4. As in algebra, one can insert a place holder (call it X) in order to complete the equation and arrive at answers. Similarly of God, we can suppose the creator's abiding presence and with that understanding conduct our lives 'as if' such teachings were true; at least the impetus or root of the teaching may be true, even if the outworking by generations of clever people have allowed customs and spurious matter to creep in and clutter the source idea and meaning.

However, placing one's faith in a given denomination or spiritual teacher does not mean that one's work of searching and vigilance is done. Humans feel an urge to make sense of things, even when that logic is self-reinforcing, small or partial. Yet two conditions must be acknowledged when taking part in a faith community and the traditions it has inherited: one is that God and creation are infinite, so by definition any summary or grasp will impose a boundary on something that is boundless, the other is that things built by humans, including religious institutions and bodies of thought, are prone to falseness whether intended or not. And so one is obliged forever to guard one's trust in any teachings or practices; scrutinize them critically at the same time that you own or accept them on this trial, probationary basis.

Clues to Spiritual Growth

The definition of Spiritual Growth or Maturity is fairly open-ended: faith is deeper, Fruits of the Spirit appear, relationship (of love) with God and with Neighbors develops to full-time and healthy give and take (something like human relationships). Greater wisdom (applied knowledge) and discernment (distinguishing between things that a less mature person fails to perceive or appreciate as significant) are part of one's spiritual growth, too. Of course the whole experience has a time dimension, sometimes compressed when life events accelerate the pace at which one has to respond or process.

    There are also some clues to how to grow:

1. "Fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" [awe rather than chills]

2. Faith without deeds is dead. So respond to God's calls, and do so  in love.

3. Deeds without love [loving spirit; charity/karitas] have no effect.

4. Strive to deepen your knowledge, but know that the Infinite can't be grasped fully.

5. The love of money is the root of evil (thoughts, deeds, attitudes)

6. Praise God; Express gratitude of God.

7. Accountability to propel one forward: daily devotional time (pray or study), participate in small group (book group, discussion, activity or service group), and identify at least one mentor you look to emulate, as well as at least one mentee who relies on you to emulate.

8. "Rearview mirror": even if one's present stage of growth is hard to quantify or compare to role models and one's peer groups by directs inspection or introspection, perhaps an indirect view will work; that is, adjudge one's responses to the events of life and the obstacles one reacts to. Where once the spiritual beginnier may have been governed by knee-jerk responses to a stimulus, another person with more life experience and with more of the above list of defining components of spiritual maturity will have different responses to a stimulus. Perhaps they react in a longer time-frame, or reflect and pray before taking action, or deliberately take inaction as a form of decision. Perhaps they are governed by their hearts and defy human or at least consumer (zero sum game) logic; hearts that share space with God and a love of their fellow persons. This indirect way may be one way to gauge one's maturation, like looking at things through a rearview mirror, or by the shadows being cast rather than viewing the subject directly. In this indirect way, then, perhaps one my find indicators that allow a comparison of one's self now to an earlier self, and to speculate on still further maturity by extrapolation of what more maturity might look like and feel like, indeed to speculate on some final destination: how far has a mortal mind ever matured along these lines? Can one ever be fully mature and be more of God than of self?

movie, "Peter and Paul"

The film does a good job of placing the principal figures and events into a timeline and plot thread so that the many details fit into a large fabric. The question at the end, apart from knowing how accurate and representative the details and tone of the thing is, is to ask (1) about differences of individual Christ-followers then and now (is the scope, pace and significance of spiritual maturation and the ways to strive to be a Christian in the world); and to ask (2) about differences in the institution of the organization that gives one a way to express and request care-relationships with others and with God the Creator. In other words, if one were to compare the New Christians (1st generation; primitive church bodies) to legacy Christians of 2013 (that is, people with passive exposure or active inheritance of church-ianity) or to New Christians of 2013, then what differences are present and consequential? 

Is the primitive group of believers (lacking written scripture, facing survival despite persecution, little infrastructure or leadership wellsprings) a model or the kind of vehicle from Rabbi Jesus' time that would best bring us to the target (loving one's neighbors; loving one's God)? Or instead is our institution of 2013 a better vehicle to carry participants and invite along newcomers to the twin tasks of taking care of each other, and of relating to Elohim? 

Or indeed is there somewhere better that falls in-between then and now; having more supporting checks and balances and rich resources suited to the many learning styles and life experiences and therefore best suited to building each person's customized set of stairs that go from starting place in life up to the target (see above, again). Also, that 3rd way, would be having less of the dross that is layered onto 2013: stripping away the commercial dimensions, the corporate church-ianity, the Victorian swap of christmas cheer at the expense of the true glory of Easter, the pop-music scene of Christian commercial expression, the avalanche of publications in so many languages, the accessories and "lifestyle" Christianity that can lure but distract seekers of the Truth and the Way.

missionaries' methods apply back at home society, too?

Meeting missionary family on furlough after 2-3 years overseas, I learned about the hardships their main (allowing for Bible translation and delivery of printed copies in the native language of each social group), as well as secondary goals (giving English lessons or proof-reading, building social relationships of trust and mutual support, looking out for fellow missionaries, as well as the newly practicing local Christians). So much preparation and systems of support make this kind of frontier outreach possible. An analogy might be the pyramid shape of a big military campaign in which the front lines require many more workers backing them up, then the numbers visible at their sides. And yet, by imagining a similar missionary pyramidal organization at work in USA or another nominally Judeo-Christian a different picture emerges.

    When there is a church building, a program of activities and expectations, as well as a certain level of shared knowledge and history, as well as annual calendar of the Church Year and education materials in a language understood by newcomers and old timers, the work of engaging in substantive conversations and actions is much easier; the pyramid of support is not rooted in far away organizations contributing money, volunteers, money and other donations, not forgetting on-going prayer and letters. How do the two points of contact compare in the end: the new Christians who form relationships with missionaries on the one hand, and the old and somewhat new Christians who visit or get involved in worship, study and service in their native land, language and culture? Ignoring the material or financial measures and looking just at the hearts of people in both situations, does one have a stronger or weaker relationship with God and with one's neighbors? Does one have a wider (all encompassing) or narrower (pigeon holed) relationship; a deeper (penetrating from pleasantries to core identity and aspirations) or shallower relationship; an unshakable vs. fragile bond?

    In sum would any of the strategies for engaging local people that missionaries rely upon also work back home among longtime Christians and also the inexperienced new Christians back in the home society of the missionaries?

men's bible study 8 July 2013

Continuing with NT book of Hebrews in which many fine-points, details, boundaries and definitions are worked out for an audience well acquainted with Jewish legacy, law and expectations.

Today we carry on from ch. 10.

1. How is the idea of Original Sin (fall from grace in Garden of Eden) regarded among Jews then and those several traditions now today? As a point of contrast, among Muslims one is born sinless.
2. When buffeted by life's temptations and travails one strives to keep the long view and that point on the distant shore in line. One way of describing this is "directionally guided."
3. "Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart, in my heart... sometimes it makes me tremble, tremble, tremble" (negro spiritual): once the Holy of Holies has been torn open (the curtain shredded from top to bottom upon the death of the earthly Nazerene Jesus) and God no longer resides at a fixed (Temple) address then the fearsome and awe-filling presence is everywhere among all.
4. The laws once were given to Moshe, but these are shadows of the true meaning which next will be written directly on the hearts of God's people [reference to Old Testament idea; not something emerging brand new from the New Covenant]
5. "...Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done" fits in with the 'delayed gratification' idea that The World around us and God's creation we are stewards of really is a fleeting thing and one should rather 'store up your treasures in heaven'. And yet persecution and doing God's work in adverse conditions *is* its own reward now (not something to endure for some later, heavenly reward) to the extent that one's hardened heart is changed in the process of undertaking hard expressions of God's love of one's neighbors and of God.

small group - CrazyLovebook.com weeks 2 - 8

WEEK TWO [chapter 2 upshot: ‘you are going to die’]

WEEK THREE [chapter 3 upshot: ‘God wants to speak through you and to you... God your father/creator’]

1. Your experience of your relationship to your family dad bears on your expectation of God... there are so many family experiences, many of which are conflicted or hold ambivalence. And there is the quote, “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.”
2. What about mother-parent relationship as a template for one’s God: nuturing, guiding, judge or source of discernment (or not)?
3. What about grandparent’s parenting of your parents, and that tone/style or relationship then carried from yourself to your own children?
4. Coming to the point where it is ‘normal’ or ordinary (unremarkable, unmarked) to pray in small and great moments during a day or a life course; in places of natural awe or squalor. Coming to the point where one’s relationship with God-Jesus-Holy Spirit is easy and natural to discuss with peers and with strangers; not preaching at them, but entering into a place of conversation.

WEEK FOUR

WEEK FIVE

WEEK SIX ‘love’

1. Motivated by love/hunger (something you crave and look forward toward) versus guilt (something you ‘should have done’ better; a nagging feeling of debt or duty). A middle ground between discipline (external structures & responses; responsibilities) and freedom (acting out of desire and making meaning of things).
2. Opening epigraph ...I thirst to have more thirst... Human, earthly experience is a string of appetites, some bigger than others. We hunger and then are (partially) satisfied for the moment (until next time). This is like the weekly sermon, a weekly time and place to expect and to prepare your heart to engage God, express praise, and allow oneself to be examined by God’s all seeing eye and heart.
3. Conundrum: our earthly relationships and appetites wax and wane, but to BE in love with God and to love one’s neighbor as oneself is not something that waxes and wanes. It is a satisfaction of being present and sharing a time and place. So would one’s relationship or appetite develop best by having times of fullness and times of desolation? Or is the lifetime goal to achieve a presence (of mind and heart) with God and then strive to remain together and avoid separation? Is the ideal a static state of being in peace and joy, or something dynamic and a distant, future goal to strive for and delay today’s gratification for that future, imagined place of being. Are you already arrived or should you defer those things around you and be blind to today’s conditions so as to struggle and strive to keep one’s eyes on that golden future?
4. Analogy of growing one’s heart in the trials of one’s life experiences. Muscles have to be exercised (pulled or pushed and then rested) or they atrophy. Some exercise routines are for stamina: high frequency of repretitions of light weights. Some exercise routines are for strength: heavy load but few repetitions.
5. Just like the detective programs say about (dastardly) deeds: it takes motive and opportunity to commit something.  
6. Comparing love in human relationships to love of God (and God’s love of us), it would appear that the essential quality is of being together. When apart you hunger to be together again. When you are being together, then you are comforted and at rest; at home; at the destination.

WEEK SEVEN ‘with God on purpose’

1. Paddling on the river vs. drifting along: How to actively seek out God’s will but not direct oneself; how to discern God’s direction.
2. Life-stage: start of life is forward looking (endless time available; macro lens), middle life is a mix of looking forward and back (wideangle; able also to perceive some fluidity in time: being able to imagine forward and back in time when seeing the person before you --how the present moment connects to the youngster that came before and the oldster that has yet to come), and old age (perhaps?) is filled with memory and possibly curious about extinction and what may follow. If living to a ripe old age there is the growing awareness: one’s place in a longer chain of being, that one cannot take the accumulated stuff of one’s estate along to what follows (‘you can’t take it with you’), that you are “just passing through... just looking.” Woe to those who die before the fullness of age matures.
3. Practically speaking how does a mainline church body differ to a community service club such as Kiwanis: both have a prayer and meet weekly to get to know one another and serve the wider, outside community. Perhaps the praise and glorifying and gratitude is God directed in the one, but the other is focused more on “love your neighbor as yourself.” And an organized church tries to create opportunities for other seekers to come in a pick up an oar and join in the project to help others (poverty, ignorance, illness --with or without spoken connection to God’s hand and feet) AND to help people who are seekers like oneself.
4. There is an important distinction when motivated to contribute self, abilities, resources by what others expect or require (obligation; guilt; contract) rather than to be motivated by a calling or internal urge or will to do so, whether invisible to others, with tacit agreement or with spoken criticism. When one proceeds to do the right thing, regardless of external conditions then the reward is bigger than yourself and eternal. Called: some degree of inevitability whether desired or not (bigger than one’s own will), something extends from the engagement (not just starts and ends with oneself), some filling up rather than emptiness at the end, some self-propelling (movement under its own power; sweeping oneself up).

WEEK EIGHT Profile of the obsessed (single-minded; “crazy” in secular world)

Natural wish for self-preservation and avoidance of risk or harm. Natural urge to mirror other’s emotional state: joy for joy, sorrow for sorrow. But how to go beyond forgiveness and actively reach out to love an enemy, since we all are children of God, thus we are brothers and sisters to one another. Is this a balance of self and other (loving others as loving oneself), or no holds barred surrender to God; not to steward one’s gifts and resources for wise or discerning spending.

“If you don’t have something nice to say, then keep quiet” helps to prevent conflict, but relationships can advance in strife and struggle as well as joy and harmony. “Be wise as a serpent” teaches that you can engage and love even one’s enemy; maybe not as unguarded and straight-forward as a relationship mutually respectful and holy, but still possible by choosing the time and manner of loving. And when one has been harmed, then trust may have been broken, but forgiveness is still advisable and indeed commanded. Then to go beyond forgiveness and actively reach out in love (wisely as a serpent) takes lots of care, prayer and seeking. Speaking truth (call into account; challenge but support) but it doesn't have to be brutally honest.

Paul’s teaching about new believers not having to follow Jewish laws has a parallel to our times: people striving to achieve a certain look or lifestyle to demonstrate their clean and virtuous Christian living may truly being earnest seekers, but more likely may simply be confusing appearances with the intangible, invisible heart of relating to God. By conforming to appearances one may simply be trying to self and others “I’m as good as you; I’m better than you.” And by asserting one’s Godliness as a visible thing (clothing, postal address, car) it can consume the energy one should be using to seek God. The superficial details can distract or opt one out from growing closer to God.

There is an ongoing, emergent quality to one’s relationship to God and one’s neighbors (whether friend, enemy, or stranger). Much as Alcoholics Anonymous meetings begin with self-introductions, “I’m Joan and I am a recovering alcoholic” ( -ing, in a state of development).

As we navigate our daily and lifelong plans for ourselves things come up that were not in the plan. One part of spiritual growth is being able to seize the opportunities that present themselves rather than defend against these things that intrude into one's plans. Following the analogy that "life is a journey" it can be powerfully transformative to see the unscheduled changes, detours and bumps as equally or perhaps more valuable than the itinerary of one's own making.

WEEK NINE Gallery of real-life champions who step out in faith to take whatever comes, whether it is their expected direction of God’s.

WEEK TEN Now what to do with the foregoing reflections, admonitions and exhortations.

After reading & talking, what is different: that author so freely brings God and holiness into daily cares and decisions. After all, whatever triggers a reflection, studying or prayer and action should be all day and night; not just on Sunday. Working on one’s heart and relationship to God & one’s neighbors is an unending task. Mindfulness sharpens vision and appetite. Imagine substituting “I pray” instead of “I hope” since ‘hope’ is so casually expressed, but seldom heartfelt to its full measure.

    The experiences of fellow small group members is as memorable and instructive as the text at some points. And the more we read the book the more the significance is confirmed and appetite to know and do more grows.

    Ask not what you can do best to use your talents, but look beyond that to ask instead how can I glorify God: how can the relationship grow wider, deeper, and stronger.

small group study of Francis Chan, Crazy Love (week 1)

Title, Crazy Love. I wonder if the emphasis is on Crazy -it defies human reasoning that God should focus on individual lives and know all the hairs on one's head; a veritable carpet of souls occupying his spaces and generations. Or maybe the emphasis is on Love -that we mortals during our allotted days need to be crazy with our LOVE and rise above the routines and expectations of Society as we advance God's will on earth as it is in heaven.

Majesty and vast universe of creation. We may begin with a notion that God adheres to sanctuaries and altar areas. Then we may one day go to the opposite position and look for God in the infinite cosmos. And finally we may hold these contrasting positions in our minds simultaneously: God is past and present and future all at once. God is at the tip of my nose, eyeball to eyeball with all around me but also God is so vast: and that is OK, even though it boggles my mind and escapes my puny logic. 

“Like dew in the morning” our lives are brief. In the time we have in our hands many opportunities and obstacles present themselves for response or for actions to initiate. We view the merit of a given action in terms of credit or blame that comes to us, to others, or for the glory of God. In other words we are results oriented, rather than concerned primarily about the process and the relationships that are formed and exercised along the way. And yet, perhaps in the mind of God what matters most is not the result, as such, but instead the consequences of an undertaking in terms of our hearts (toward a heart of agape love and toward growing relationships and responsiveness to God; and to one’s neighbors, including strangers, foreigners and those in need). So next time a project attracts large sums of money, time and talent, perhaps the result --however worthy-- is only secondary in importance to the changes in the hearts of those connected in some way (as planner, maker, functionary, or recipient of the project results and services).

Chapter 1 video [prayer; God's face]: freshly worship, freshly pray so that it is constituted from scratch, always fresh, not foreclosed or mere habit.

Chapter 1 video: Much like "live" vs. "canned," studio polished music - the engagement and relationship with God and One's Neighbor is in the doing, not the printed or memorized text. Just as choirs aspire to "sing it like you mean it" (not just produce tuneful notes as a group),  so, too: pray it like you mean it (not just say the formula).

Chapter 1 video: visualizing your approach of GOD's presence in all sorts of facet of Creation - a bug, a bird, a raindrop, a person both interior and exterior, defined and infinite.

sit in church vs actively worship; Big Hearted; taming one' god?

Worship service on Sunday morning: the sense that pew sitters come as spectators, ready to view and be interested in what is served up to them. But this is mistaken, the quality of what comes out depends on those who put something in. In this perhaps a church potluck meal is a better visual image to hold when attending the public worship: each brings something to share and the combined total is impressive indeed! In other words "going to see the worship" actually is going to see oneself and one's peers, not any sort of high falutin, other-worldly performer who promises to wow you.

The two laws and the heart of the matter- Be Big Hearted

The many teachings, examples, and string of events told in the OT and NT all connect to the two commandments: Love God and Love your neighbor as yourself. And these in turn come from the ultimate matter, which is connection (relationship) with God and his/her creation. In practice this very often has not to do with one's thinking part, but one's feeling part: one's intention and emotional responses, thus one's heart: what is in one's heart also will be evident in what one expresses by word and by deed. By this reasoning, the practice/rehearsal of Christianity (a process rather than a final destination) is "heart work." The goal is to become "big hearted" enough to care for other's hearts; not just one's own felt needs.

God in the wild vs Tame God

The measure of one's grasp of God is whether that imagined god is manageable and finite, reliable and predictable on the one hand, or altogether likely to surprise and upturn one's tidy and tame world of routines and relationships. And yet the OT and NT show us the nature of God and how we should develop in our relationship with God and his/her creation. Those instructions and teachings do not change or feel unexpected; the Word as codified as a single bound volume with chapters, verses and more recently, too, subheadings in *not* changeable. Although life experience and changing circumstances of society and the world may affect what is visible and salient in one's own eyes: no matter how many times the hymn is sung, the psalm is chanted or the liturgy is read, still we may be surprised when a long buried inflection or suddenly literal or ironic meaning springs from the page to challenge us or reveal new meanings to our hearts. No, what is liable to surprise us is not the Word and the instructions of how we related to our God. Instead the infinite God will surprise us in our world and individual lives; that part will carry unexpected turns and twists that we then must respond to.

interior or exterior God? roots of Priestdom? all you can eat holiness?

Topics arising in the course of Monday morning men's Bible study 6/3/2013.

interior or exterior God?
Leo Tolstoy's title, "The Kingdom of God is Within You," makes the case that the Lord's Prayer refers to "...Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as in heaven" and the true meaning lies in one's building a kingdom in one's own heart; a heart of gratitude, glorifying (but also vigilance) and service. Where then is the split between expending one life on the visible world and on the interior world; knowing there is a link between what is in one's heart and the deeds one does.

roots of Priestdom?
Surely the 1st and 2nd Temples on the Temple Mount had keepers of the Holy of Holies (the inner sanctum) and their job was to intercede on behalf of ordinary believers. And the tribe of Levi had the job of caring for the Arc and sacrifices in the wandering days. There is a path that goes from Temple Judaism to synagogue Judaism and from Rabbi Jesus' "house churches" (ecclesia; primitive Christianity) to the administrative machinery of the Roman Empire under Constantine I. But exactly at what point did the flat "organizational tree" go to Religious Specialists who would intercede for ordinary persons?

"all you can eat" holiness?
For a mortal mind how much holiness can a person take at one time? Thinking of an analogy of "unlimited talk time" (cell phone service plan), or "unlimited bandwidth" (Internet plan), how does one's outlook change when there is no scarcity. Perhaps it is like the full-time resident of a tourist destination who feels content with the *potential* to visit all the events and cultural assets of the fair city, but in practice only does so when entertaining out of town guests. Maybe explaining or describing or articulating one's relgious path and interior life also depends on an interlocutor who is "not from around here;" someone whose knowledge/familiarity can't be taken for granted and must be spoken about step by step. Just so of one's appetite for holiness: there is only so much one's senses can fill up on, and when it surrounds you there is less rarity and less urgency to seek for it.

child of Adam, child of God

In the world of language, logos, logic and human reasoning it seems impossible that a person can be 'dust' and also filled with God's love and power: infinite and eternal. And yet the model Jesus shows covers this spectrum of mortal and divine: he was servant, humble, powerful (healer and voice of God's will) and mostly under control (meek in the full and true sense) --all at the same time. He was learned (Rabbi) and skilled craftsman. He spent some meditative, quiet time and also social time among life's high and low. Thus as a model to follow, we, too, should cross boundaries of This World and Not-of-this-world; Worldly mingling and Not-of-this-world presence of mind. Be "in the word/spirit" but also be "of action."

One keyword is 'meek' (humble but powerful) and dictates how to act in the routines of daily life.

Another keyword is (agape or karitas) 'love' as in "these 3 remain: faith, hope, and love" (karitas/charity) and dictates how to approach the routines of daily life (world view).

measuring spiritual growth

One metaphor is "journey" --everyone heading to the same general destination (earthly extinction), many traveling the same road but stopping and shopping at different points and noticing different things and the conversations along different lines; some travel off-road or go on by-ways instead of the main road. And some go on foot or stretcher, while others go in sportscars or schoolbuses.

How can one intelligently talk about growth of spirit? Do we moderns mean the same thing that people of Dietrich Bonhoffer's circle in the 1930s-40s, or the purposes of the PIlgrims, or the penetrating gaze of Society of Friends (Quakers) and Anabaptists like the followers of Menno, or today's Catholics & Eastern Orthodox?

What is the scope of the idea: the development of one's reach and one's grasp [the hand metaphor], the depth or width of one's vision and understanding [a spatial image], something cumulative and chronological that steps up year by year of the life course? Is movement one-way or do some regress from heights once gained? Will the sequence of steps be fixed, although some skip over and others dwell at length on particular points of the continuum? And will one person's experience be comparable to another's way or is each path scaled to the salient events of each person's circumstances such that no crude indicators will point to one person being "more advanced" than another?

Some clues come from the Bible: things like discernment, wisdom [fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom] and the fruits of the spirit [manifest among those engaged and invested in the Way of God]. But how much is internal [of the heart] and how much is external such that others may perceive? Perhaps the monastery societies have developed ways to detect or self-detect a sort of inventory or spiritual audit in order to mark one's beginning [baseline measurements] and current point and then to indicate what direction to bear towards and what methods to use for the intermediate steps that lead to that end point.

One day there may be a way to do a quick litmus test to see how one is doing at the moment and to compare to one's place in the scheme of life in the past, as well as comparing to one's peers. But in the meantime it seems that a good place to enter the topic of "growth" is to recognize that all this study, thinking and talking accept the relational nature of the religion: love God with all your self, and love your neighbor as your self [neither diminish the one or the other since both are worthy of respect and love]. Thus we may ask of one's fitness or the state of one's spiritual growth, "relationship-wise how are things between you and your God? between you and your fellow persons?"

Here at least, in the field of relationships, we are accustomed to discussing, estimating relative strength or characteristics, and shape or direction of relationships. Certainly relationships involve others, by definition, and they are living, moving things of variable tensions and intentions. They need caring and attention and to some degree will perform according to the amount of energy invested in them. One-sides relationships are not satisfying for either party. Certain relationships you are born into, or otherwise come "as is" and given. But others are entered into and cultivated entirely voluntarily. This difference in basis (voluntary vs involuntary) will tint the quality of what can be undertaken together (pair or larger collection of persons). Relationships are sometimes discussed in terms of flexibility (some are brittle, others resilient), in terms of depth (some are casual and transitory, but others are enduring), in terms of trust (some are deep and unconditional; others not).

--
Guven Peter Witteveen, anthroview@gmail.com

; skype address: gpwitteveen

speaking in tongues

Last night I was at the community education building, formerly the middle school, where the monthly meeting of our town's educational foundation was taking place. Since our normal room was occupied, I went searching for a custodian with keys to let us into another room. Along the way, I found one room was set up with speakers mounted at head level and some sort of soothing keyboard music was playing while through the door's window I saw a man gesticulating and from his mouth came a string of syllables that seemed to be 'glossolalia' (speaking in tongues). About the same time a middle-aged woman let herself out from the room's other door in search of some water from the drinking fountain. In a quiet voice to herself she repeated, "thank you, Lord" and "hallelujah."

Needless to say, this seemed incongruous to my mission to find the custodian, although I did vaguely remember that Wednesdays there was a gathering of Christians without a church building of their own.

The experience made me reflect: for non-believers, or those who once believed but no longer practice any habits of the heart, perhaps the elements of church-attendance trigger a similar alien or unfamiliarity when they hear or see Christians expressing themselves in public places. The question arises: how best can one situate one's consciousness and mindfulness between the secular and the sacred world; is there an in-between space, or must one zig and zag between the one and the other?

The Jesus Seminar - True or False?

A prominent purpose of the Jesus Seminar since the middle 1980s has been to sift the teachings and timelines of Jesus from the layers of culture and history that have separated us from times then. But is this misguided Positivism, laboring under the mistaken idea that there is a single or at least relatively more objective way of knowing the meaning and the events of long ago? Or is there value in wrestling with closely read texts, translations and other evidence from physical remains, cultural and linguistic properties, understandings of ritual functions and concepts of purity, along with the facts of geography, flora and fauna? 

As the 12 step plans begin, "the first step to solving a problem is to recognize that there is a problem to begin with." So by problematizing the published Bibles (and commentary literature of the ages and sages) that we routinely accept, perhaps indeed there is a chance of creating space to breath and reflect between us and our times on the one hand and the Word of God on the other. It may be foolish to think that there is one correct understanding of events and teachings. After all, the moment that we rest easy with some certainty of knowledge about God, that is the moment that we have foreclosed all other meanings; making the eternal and infinite fit into the small box of our mortal minds. And yet, the exercise of the Jesus Seminar to apply social & natural science to the ordinary textual tools of analysis does cast the things told into a different light. At the very least it supplies another standpoint to triangulate deeper and fuller meanings and contexts of significance.

Bruce Chilton's Rabbi Jesus (2002) and then Rabbi Paul (2005) show what is possible by focusing events of the Bible through these multiple lenses.

we are swimming to the other side

At the annual Calvin Worship Symposium on Saturday my overwhelming impression was the diversity of organizations (faith traditions) and individual seekers after the LORD. All the energy that goes into maintaining boundaries and enforcing difference could better be spend building bridges and sharing experiences in an effort to see God more clearly, follow him more nearly and love him more dearly, as the lyric goes.

If you were to ask a sample of the attendees, men and women of all ages and home countries/states, what is Christianity is all about, chances are that a few shared practices or at least beliefs would emerge, but beyond that there is likely to be a wide range in depth and breadth of understanding. For some just a few rigid facts hold the religion together, for others the spirit of the thing trumps the details or letter of the law. So for them membership is not to belong to one building, but to the fellowship of all believers.

The closing worship service and communion were majestic in sights and sounds and scale, but underneath all that one can still listen for the still small voice of God.

the little creatures of this world, too

Spotted outside my kitchen window at the edge of my neighbors' land: 'live' trap meant for ridding the town of rabbits, or at least his corner or it. But now detaining a squirrel who appears to have frozen to death in the subzero winds that have come in the past 36 hours... What would Francis of Assisi say now?

Of course this is nothing compared to the meat industry as parodied online at www.themeatrix.com


Then there is the Preface, Old MacDonald's Factory Farm by C. David Coates

Isn't man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife by the millions in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billions and eats them. This in turn kills man by the millions, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative --and fatal-- health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer. So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year sends out cads praying for "Peace on Earth."

During sermon of Jan 13 (and again 20th): the subdued lighting of a dark morning is overbalanced by the stunning brightness of the LCD lamp.

Maybe it is my sweet-tooth for eye-candy, but my mind kept drifting over to the static image on the wall, rather than to mull the words.

Seated on this morning in the last row gave the feeling of great distance from the sermon. Maybe that is by contrast to my customary location closer up. But I just wonder if there is a connection between physical distance and psychological distancing.

WWJD: contrasting the modern conveniences of our time to that of the early house churches gives one pause to think if we have richer engagement or just more sensory channels for distraction and disengagement.

Bundle of observations to begin 2013

:: Red Herring of Christmas?

Maybe it took over during the dark days of the Industrial Revolution to bring a little cheer to the masses, but whatever the motive and opportunity, somehow the main trajectory of Christianity to dwell on the Holy Week, death and resurrection has been overshadowed by the bright and shiny Christmas story. Of course the advent of God among his people (and attention to Epiphany, therefore) is important and necessary step that makes

possible the main story of public ministry and outcome. But surely the modern day conflation of the birth with ritual gift exchange is disproportionate to larger themes of Christian life and learning. How might the year look with a subdued or otherwise demoted celebration of Christmas? Isn’t it time to get back to the teaching/instruction of Jesus & the model he demonstrated in deeds? All the rest is distraction, dissipation or prone to temptation.

:: Time Presses DownCould it be an artifact of middle age to begin to see people, places and events as part of an expanded timeline, rather than as something contained and defined in the present moment alone? This wider consciousness includes some awareness of the contingent, temporary and uncertain nature of proceedings, too. So, for example, it occurred to me that the Sunday morning worship consists of a few paid participants leading the word and song. But that the attendance from one week to the next ebbs and flows according to willing people who otherwise are not obligated to be elsewhere. In other words, the communal experience of worship is dependent on the willing participation and appearance of all those who occupy the pews from one week tothe next; some weeks are full but others are somewhat sparse. And while it seems unlikely, still there is a possibility on a given week that schedules conflict for almost everyone, with the result that the benches sit practically empty, as one imagines of the huge houses of worship in Europe.

:: Dour Christians?What does a follower of The Christ look like in the course of daily life; in the arc of a lifetime? Popular portrayals including things like: selflessness, plain speaking and presentation-of-self, earnest and optimistic, but also more on the side of seriousness than on the side of levity? Is clear vision and dedicated action compatible with a light heart? Or must a True Believer embrace the lack of beauty and respect and go forward with a heart that is heavy; or at least is not light. One thinks of the images of a jolly friar, the vat quantities of abbey-brewed beer and wine, and the joy of balanced amounts of manual labor among parishioners and monks.

:: Revelation includes “shock and awe” rhythm and textureBut perhaps it is best to wrestle with these passages in the same way as any other pages in the Bible: to ask of the text what the message (upshot) is; ask how it helps us to understand the core of Christian thinking and action about drawing nearer to God in love, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. From that standpoint, Revelations means that God remains committed to his people (expanded to include more than Jews alone) andthat people should continue to love each other, even in trying times.

:: Balancing “Citizen” and “Pilgrim”Most of one’s waking week and lifetime is lived outside of the Word of God. The weekly worship service normally includes a few passages given as Liturgy. And some people do Bible study alone and with otherson a weekly basis, too. But still the majority of conscious time is spend outside The Word. How would it be the other way around, though? Imagine spending most of one’s  moment to moment awareness steeped in the stories, people and places of The Bible and only enter into concerns of The World once per week for an hour on Sunday mornings (or Friday night at parties, for instance)? Surely times would look very different under these reversed conditions.

:: Trend in communal worship services

The order of worship that each denomination follows probably stems from a time before the Protestant Reformation to the time before the East and West split occurred in the Catholic Church, and before that to the Order of Service at synagogue, since house churches of Primitive Christianity often began with Jews seeking the ways of Rabbi Jesus. So the language shifted from local languages of the house church to the official language of the Roman government after Constantine I. Thereafter Latin prevailed until unofficial and later official edition of the Bible were produced and in use at church services and homes. Finally in the 1960s, after Vatican II, services went from Latin into local languages. The result was to make the distant, mysterious, exotic language of worship become something closer to lived experience.

Similarly of dress styles (a little more casual) and sermon style (increasingly conversational), there seems to be a trend to reduce the gap between experience in The World and experience in Worship. The question then is how far can the shift away from bounded, sacred space and toward informal, stream of (consumer) consciousness: will one style come to colonize the other so that The World includes the heart of Jesus interpersonally, or the reverse in which The World takes over the environment of church activity, intention and experience?

:: Hunger for meaning (own perspective on the world) & significance (received meaningfulness)

One of the defining characteristics of humans is to make meaning of one’s present circumstances and the motivation to intend meanings in one’s prospective circumstances. In this arena, it could be that one can satisfy this urge best by having a wide assortment of concepts, experiences and visual exposure (sort of a personal gray matter database), as well as practice in talking with others about such things. Many people both expand their world of experience and gain practice with the terms by going to college. Traveling has long been seen as a form of life-learning, as well. So there may be some real differences between a person lacking the stimulation of college or travel (or voracious reading and/or discussions; purposeful and structured Internet browsing, watching, reading and engaging others, too) and a person who has all those things at a typical level, or at an extensive level; namely, that the person with the benefit of these experiences/education may be expected to have more ways and more models for finding or making meaning from the circumstances that he or she faces on the path of life.

Looking for one subset of learning, what difference might there be for a person who actively seeks answers of the Bible and the people, places and things of Christian (Jewish, Muslim) history and culture, on the one hand, and a person who does not seek answers to these things. If the same generalization is true from above, then the difference results in the Big Learner having more tools for making meaning than the Small Learner. The former has a wider vision, a deeper understanding, and has more pieces to build a picture of the subject than the other person. In short, it is easier to detect connections, see patterns and understand relationships when you have a big pool of experience to draw from than when your pool of learning is restricted. Thinking like a mathematician, what is the trend as you increase the volume of learning to the Nth degree, approaching infinity (that is infinite knowledge and connections of languages, ideas, events): will the ability to make meaning also grow until everything is connected and all is one? Or is there some moment before that point corresponding to some sort of Enlightenment?

spiritual growth: consumer, producer, bricoleur?

The opening lines to the welcome meeting in grad school included something like, "as undergraduates you were consumers of scholarly writings, but now you will learn to produce this work for others to read." This distinction between consumer/reader/listener/student and producer/author/maker applies equally well to Sunday morning worship experiences: most sit back and expect to receive some truths, or some beauty and mystery. But a few set forward, on the edge of the seat or are poised ready to jot ideas and margin notes to the words sung or spoken. Those interactive worshipers constitute a third category: neither consumer entirely, nor fully ready to take the podium and hold forth on a subject. Maybe the best word for those who go beyond just listening is 'bricoleur'. This term was readapted by Claude Levi-Straus to mean the way that people creatively take the things found in their environment and use them for whatever purpose is at hand. In today's Internet language this is the idea of 'repurposing' a tool or material in a way different to what it originally was intended for. So while a brick was meant for building with mortar, it can also be piled up to form a temporary base for grilling over hot coals.And while a paper milk carton holds milk. Later the bright design may be used for craft or decorative purpose. Just so with the words and images of a worship service: when an active listener takes them from the confines of the worship hall out into the world of one's lived experience, sometimes a creative bricolage results: the old idea takes on new meaning or insight in the new situation.

Normally a person wends his or her way to the weekly worship and cycles through a similar routine of stand up, sit down, sing, sing, sing. A certain satisfaction comes from finding things week to week much the same; expectations are fulfilled, appetites are satisfied instead of merely being whetted to make one's hunger grow stronger. Taking the role of consumer who comes to the place of worship in order to pick something up, all attention is directed outward and forward, looking out for the desired elements. And yet, what if things are quite the reverse; as Leo Tolstoy's title declares, The Kingdom of God is within You.

The Lord's Prayer's pray says ...[and may it be that] Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. So if this kingdom of God is within you, then the Sunday worshipers are misdirecting their gaze. Instead of looking in front of them to the person in the pulpit or the singer near the altar space, the congregants would do better to look inside themselves! Assembling for weekly shared praise and thanksgiving should not be about taking one's seat and sitting back to consume what has been prepared. Instead it should be more like a potluck feast, in which all attending will have prepared something to share; and for the communal benefit. If we cannot all be producers, at least we all can be bricoleurs who take the elements of our lives and readapt them for use in the work of building spiritual growth in ourselves and others.

In other words, practically everybody is accustomed to attending church with the expectation that "it" [the thing they may be actively searching for, or the thing that motivated them long ago to begin seeking and now is only the echo of that original seeking cry] can be found in the time and place of a particular sanctuary during the worship service. In other words, the "it" that they seek is assumed to be external and requires looking to the front of the sanctuary. But suppose all these externals of the Order of Service and the design of the interior spaces merely are a kind of scaffolding that arranges the flow of experience and participation such that a person has an entryway into an interior place of reflection and risking and resolving to hold a certain attitude and enact certain plans or a readiness to seize certain opportunities when they should arise. What if the whole institutional worshiping exercise is something of a mirror to one's own heart? That is, what if the kingdom of God is within you? In that case, all the externals are in support of that greater and ultimate site of spiritual construction: one's heart (and mind)? Church, then, is not a place to go for answers, but merely the arrangement of equipment and tools and mentors that can help each person to do their own workout. Church is not for spectators but for players; not for consumers but for producers and bricoleurs; it is for participating. It is as George Fox wrote in his 1660 autobiography: each person has the authority and wherewithal to engage with God and his or her Neighbor; to grow in these relationships by a heart of love.

Three things to grow

Recent men's Bible Study conversation brought up the idea that a person needs three sorts of things to propel him or herself forward with spiritual development and exercise:

1. Word of God (read Bible with eyes or lips, wrestle with the meanings)
2. Worship regularly with others (not a private, but social experience of praise & thanks)
3. Fellowship (not to go it alone, but to live out the meanings with others interdependently)

So as one moves through the 3 physical dimensions of space and across the passage of time, the meanings recorded in ink and written in parts on a person's heart as well; the interaction and service to others & from others, and the repeating celebration in communal worship all play a part. Lacking one of the legs of this tripod will delay the stream of challenges and resolutions that comprise a life well lived.

Holy spirit in action? Board Meeting.

The regular meeting of the leadership group, the Board of Ministries (BoM), held an eventful session recently in order to balance the 2013 budget in the face of rising utilities and health insurance costs, despite fixed income sources and expanded programming initiatives. As well there had been financial mismanagement that had been discovered earlier and was now to be given final settlement.

So the session began with a prayer, including a reading of James 3 in which 'wisdom' is defined and the dangers of a spiteful tongue or careless remark are spotlighted.

Here were a dozen or so well educated and active, responsible members of the business and professional community coming together in a voluntary association to conduct the church's business. Things proceeded amicably, but with deliberateness and little levity. QUESTION: with or without any empirical presence of the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, the session unfolded. So is the mere supposition of this guiding spirit enough to produce the same outcome, regardless of the actual presence of same?

Expanding on this suppositional view, is the assumption of Good and Righteousness functionally the same as actually having those active forces in our hearts/minds? Can a community of believers by dint of their strong will to bring Thy Kingdom Come into the world enough to actually cause it to become so? And do the daily ranks of Tibetan Monks praying for world peace, therefore, perforce, tip things in that direction through sheer force of will/intention?

sermon Dec 2 - all the fuss about decorating Christmas

[A] On the one hand the visual effect of all the greenery and lighting cheers up the gloom of approaching winter solstice.

But on the other hand this sensory stimulation and cue of past memories of family and giving/receiving presents is a distraction (temptation?) from the everyday message, and the Christ birth message, that should be uppermost in prominence.

There remain the old questions: 

1. WWJD (what would Jesus do?) --how would he make sense of the full-blown industrial production of "the Christmas season"

2. If you met Jesus, what would you talk about; what would you want to know? Surely the proliferation of The Christianity Establishment, franchises, commodities, denominations, and hierarchies or specialists would be something to filter through his original experiences and the world of primitive Christian churches. After all, he was a (fulfilled) Jew, not a Christian as such.

3. If you met a curious foreigner or extraterrestrial would was filled with sincere curiosity and respectfully asked you to describe the main ideas and parts of Christianity, how would you begin. On the one hand it is a simple message: God loves you in full grace and you have only to accept that love, and to extend it to those around you. But on the other hand there are lots of legacies, details, and splitting of hairs for doctrine, practices and feelings.                                                      

[B] Communion was served to day. For an onlooker unfamiliar with the ritual, it must seem strange to take such pains with bits of bread slowly chewed and a sip of the juice of the grape in synchrony.

But the functions of rituals are many. One of these is to slow down the normal, taken-for-granted habits of throwing back food. Some participants will dwell on the historic act that is commemorated, others feel the shared experience of brothers and sisters around the room and those around the world, still others will focus on the essence of creation embodied in these two sources -the grain and the grape. It is possible that some take away the message of belonging to purity and those elected to moral superiority. But others may feel the humility that the symbols represent: the master taking the position of the servant, producing the feeling of gratitude on both sides -the giver and the receiver, bound together in this action.

[C] Sermon snippet: that some people come each week to regain some inspiration and gladness. The worship experience reproduces the right frame of mind and gives some forward motion to one's week.
Others engage with the thinking and discussion of the liturgy and sermon: weaving their fingers of mortal logic around the events and meditation. And yet, ultimately God's ways by definition will exceed or defy our small logic. So perhaps some participants also accept the glimpses of divine craziness that fly as sparks from the pulpit when flint meets metal.

topics 27 Nov 2012 - Tuesday Men's Bible Study

Started the book of TITUS: probably written in the A.D. 60s or later to Titus on Crete from Paul, but in a style suitable for out loud reading to groups of Christ followers on the big, rugged island.
 
-"encourage and rebuke with authority" (not speaking from your own authority, but that of God's holy spirit; based on relationship and intended with love/integrity/sincerity, not moral superiority or its ironic inverse)
 
-Jesus as 'fulfilled Jew' --nothing new, but reasserting the *spirit* of God's convenant with his people (and all people, not only his chosen people): grace given by God for each person to hold; relational
 
-linkage of head knowledge (doctrine/logic/detail; 'saber' in Spanish), heart knowledge (feeling and attitude; experiential rather than verbally articulated; 'conocer' in Spanish) and action: each of these is tied together, like the seed and what fruits, like the innermost heart and the words and deeds that emerge, so too one's mental picture and one's orienting attitude/assumptions and one's train of actions.
 
-The letter lists the behaviors to prohibit; one's that lead away from holiness. But to give a list of prohibitions without revealing the active principle behind them is not very effective.

not Eat, Pray, Love but instead Help! Thanks! Wow!

http://www.npr.org/2012/11/19/164814269/anne-lamott-distills-prayer-into-help-thanks-wow [I see so many titles at amazon.com by this same Anne Lamott; pun on "le mot" (the Word)?]

This author interview provokes thought and fits nicely with yesterday's finale in the 5 part sermon series about prayer at our church, fccsj.com

In order to make some of the sermon ideas real and to personalize them in practical habits, a set of small groups met on different days and times so that as many who wanted to participate could do so conveniently. From this repeated experience of guided prayer, conversation, reflection, readings and singing, I could understand the simple message about prayer "anytime, anywhere, and for any reason." So instead of waiting to be prompted at a formal dinner setting by the host, or invited to Be in a Spirit of Prayer during the service of worship, now I find myself at unexpected times thinking to myself, "this merits prayer," right here, right now; without any ado. Slowly the feeling of an appetite or hunger for prayer has emerged so that I "need" a moment to give thanks, offer up praise, or just think 'wow'. This sort of grateful and mindful heart adds a lot to the day.

Imagine a daily experience that is topsy-turvey, such that most of your moment to moment thinking is an extended prayer or prayer-like care for events around you and the people you interact with. By contrast, only a couple moment would be the altered state of consciousness lacking this prayerful mindset; using the consumer worldview for a moment before going back to the "normal" perspective of prayer-in-motion. One's life *as a lived prayer*. How different the day would look and the priorities appear when taken in this way.

Truth/beauty as well as Holiness have come up again and again in the course of the sermon series, either directly or indirectly. This hearkens back to the observation I made as a stranger in a strange land this past summer teaching a short-course in westernmost China. Seeing the daily rush and rumble of life in the capital of Urumqi and the many people of the 13 ethnic groups there, I wondered what it is beyond the survival needs and social obligations being fulfilled that ultimately motivates a person, no matter the age, gender, economic condition or social status. The two things that floated to the top of my mind were a hunger for respect [peer-source] and a love of beauty, whether if comes from pleasing sounds, sights, tastes, smells or 'atmosphere' one inhabits. Perhaps these two hungers we want to satisfy day by day really amount to the divine; a love of the Creator, who is composed of pure respect + beauty/truth/justice/mercy/power.

Tuesday men's bible study Oct 9 - prayer

Praying for open interchange. Operative word: open.

 

Let me be open to the opportunities all around me: Give me eyes that see clearly, ears that are open, and a heart ready to respond and feel and care. But also let me be open as a channel for others to see in my person and my example something of value that heartens them. This free flow helps each one to communicate better to one's neighbors and to God. It is instrumental in cultivating the central relationship of the living all across God's creation.

heart-ology (core of being as basis for God relationship)

Heart-ology: that subject of all Jesus' teaching

 

In discovering and building one's relationship to God the central location for hard work and "bottom line" is one's heart. But this choice of word brings up images of the body's pumping mechanism, of Valentines cut outs and stories of romance or feats of loyalty. So rather than say 'heart' perhaps a better word is "one's core or deepest center."

 

[emotional or moral center, as contrasted with intellectual response; one's personality or disposition]

 

Consider the many forms and expressions that include the word 'heart'.

 

Hearty, heart-felt, heart-rending, heartless, good-hearted, cold-hearted, warm-hearted (cold hands warm heart), take heart, disheartening, heart of the matter, heart-and-soul, big hearted, chicken hearted, tender (soft) hearted, hard hearted, in my heart of hearts (innermost heart), evil hearted, black hearted, heart weary, heavy hearted, heart sick, heart breaking, heart to heart, lose heart, play with heart, learn by heart, take to heart

 

In summary, the task before each person who seeks to know God's character and thus develop the relationship with God has to dwell on what lies in her or his own heart: are actions motivated for self-glory or God's glory, does one go forth to compare efforts to peers or to please God, when reflecting on the results of one's work is it to seek approval (trophies for one's moral scoreboard) or for another reason. As the story of the Widow's Mite tells us (and Paul touches in 2^nd Corinthians), the intention and habit of the heart to give to others and to God's glory is the goal. It is what is intended and internal that matters most to God, not the particulars of size or price tag.

 

So the biggest work while we walk the earth is to discover and then nurture one's affinity to the creator, mainly by attending to what is in one's heart: humble (meek), sincere, ardent and abiding in times that are good and times that are bad. As such the enterprise is about one's core being, one's identity, one's lifestyle (exterior) and approach to the lifecourse (interior)… these three remain: Faith, Hope and Charity [love]. But of these the greatest is Charity.

 

Each of these key words tie into one's core, one's essence, that which lies in one's heart. FAITH for that which cannot be directly seen or known calls for a calm and resolute heart. HOPE for that which is not yet present or arrived. And CHARITY or LOVE for those around you similarly so engaged in the work of the living of the world, to reach out and encourage (hearten) one another.

 

We need to be in the business of knowing our own heart, and those of our neighbors; maybe even that of God? In short, we need to know normal developmental stages and maladies that depart from that normal maturation. We need to know what nourishes and that what impoverishes a person's heart. We need to grasp how heart relates to mind; mind to spirit; spirit to soul; soul to body; body to heart.