Saturday, January 7, 2017

Thoughts for Week of Jan. 8

Sunday-Ps.29 probably is a sign of cultural contact with religions in early Israel. It would be similar to adopting some phrases from other faiths or even culture such as “The Force.” Consider rewriting it as an exercise where you draw on other sources to make a prayer.

Monday-Lesslie Newbigin-Nostalgia for the past and fear for the future are equally out of place for the Christian.
Tuesday-"He so loved us that for our sakes he, through whom time was made, was made in time; and he, older by eternity than the world itself, was younger in age than many of his servants in the world; he who made man, was made man; he was given existence by a mother whom he brought into existence; he was carried in the hands which he formed; he nursed at breasts which he filled; he cried like a baby in the manger in speechless infancy - this Word without which human eloquence is speechless." St. Augustine:

Wednesday-Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the plowshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring, and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird; keep a place in your heart for the unexpected guests, an altar for an unknown God.  -Henri-Frederic Ariel

Thursday-Buechner-To try to express in even the most insightful and theologically sophisticated terms the meaning of what God speaks through the events of our lives is as precarious a business as to try to express the meaning of the sound of rain on the roof or the spectacle of the setting sun. But I choose to believe that he speaks nonetheless, and the reason that his words are impossible to capture in human language is of course that they are ultimately always incarnate words. They are words fleshed out in the everydayness no less than in the crises of our own experience.

Friday-According to the desert tradition, we have forgotten our true worth and the source of that worth; we have fallen asleep to the true nature of life.  We have numbed ourselves to the struggles of living.  In the desert tradition, sin might be described as this act of forgetting the treasures we each carry simply by virtue of our divine inheritance.”

Saturday-"Body and soul work together to allow us to experience the world and God. The body is integral to how we encounter the world. . . .The five senses, which Hildegard  calls 'treasures', become portals to engagement with the world." (revised from.--- Christine Valters Paintner)

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