If you click along the top margin on Spiritual Formation Group (Fall 2009) you can download the most recent materials that we went over.
We discussed the discipline of Prayer. We looked at some of the features of prayer in Paul’s letters, as well as “the Lord’s Prayer” as a blueprint for our own prayer life. We also ate pumpkin pie and had various warm drinks (coffee, cocoa, and cider).
Next week, the final week of the study, we will discuss the discipline of Discerning God’s Will.
Could this poem aptly describe the way that many of us approach Scripture?
Introduction to Poetry
Billy CollinsI ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slideor press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
And watch him probe his way out,Or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.I want them to waterski
Across the surface of a poem
Waving at the author’s name on the shore.But all they want to do
Is tie the poem to a chair with rope
And torture a confession out of it.They begin beating it with a hose
To find out what it really means.
This week’s installment of Folks @ Faith (Baptist, that is) will feature Gatsha Small. Very few people know this, but Gatsha is deliberately growing his hair out so that he can come to my (Peter’s) 80’s party with a genuine eraser-top haircut! Needless to say, he is the man…
*How and when did you start at FBC?
I started I think four years ago? I was looking for a church and a buddies girlfriend was taking him so I came with. They broke up, she never came back, he’s Catholic but I stayed.
*Best car you ever owned?
1986 Volkwagen Jetta. It was comparable to a Sheman tank. The odometer was broken and stuck and 156K when I bought it and that thing ran strong till the day I sold it 3 years later…sigh…I shoulda kept her.
*What’s cookin’ in the iPod?
I’m pretty much all over the place with my ipod, but speaking of music, does anyone know anything about Cross Movement? I think that’s the name?
*What’s your favorite food?
Steak
*Any hidden talent(s) that noone knows about?
I used to teach kids to ride horses for four years
*If you could have one thing said about you (i.e. like at your retirement dinner, or something like that), what would you want it to be?
That I actually did make a positive difference or change in someone’s life.
*Read any good books lately?
I’m trying to get through Atlas Shrugged at the moment
*Pick one: Great concert, Great movie, or Great book…
Great Movie
*Concert that you have attended that would most surprise us?
Journey
*Coke or Pepsi?
Coke. Pepsi doesn’t burn through your esophagus as well as Coke does
*DD or Starbucks?
The Bucks
*If you could summarize what God is teaching you right now in a single sentence, what would that be?
“You must learn patience and discipline.”
*Favorite CD (or record, 45, or 8-track, depending on when you were “with it”)?
3rd Bass The Cactus Album (It’s a cassette tape), If you’re going to make me choose vinyl then I’m going to have to go with Thriller
*What book has made the most significant impact on you?
Bible
*3 movies you would take with you to a deserted island (where you would spend the rest of your days)?
Batman Returns, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lilo and Stitch? (I’m just shooting from the hip here)
*3 books you would take with you to a deserted island (where you would spend the rest of your days)?
Not sure, but they would all be those huge picture books that Discovery or that Times publish. And one of them would be The Burj Dubai Opus!
*Favorite book of the Bible?
Not sure
*Favorite verse?
2 Timothy 1:7 “For God did not give us the spirit of timidity put the spirit of love power and of self discipline”
Walter Vale is an economics professor who is living life by default. He is on cruise control, running out the clock for no other reason than that he has no real sense of who he is. He is bored. Lethargic. Restless. Apathetic. He is dodging life as carefully as he can.
He teaches the same class semester after semester.
He tries in vain to learn to play the piano.
He meanders through life, hoping to slip under the radar.
He is a tragic figure. His life is a fixed portrait of the mundane, of purely functional living, of an overwhelming lack of connection.
Such is the scene in the film “The Visitor.”
Walter finds his carefully ordered life shockingly interrupted by Tarek, a young man who helps Walter discover some of the zest of life. Their relationship is brief, but Tarek’s influence changes Walter in very fundamental ways. I will leave it for you to watch.
These themes of isolation, of life without vitality, of restlessness and apathy shattered, of rebirth, of renewed vigor, and restored vitality resonate with me. Click below to watch the trailer. I would love to hear your thoughts if you watch the film.
…But when the Valar entered into Eä they were at first astounded and at a loss, for it was as if naught was yet made which they had seen in vision, and all was but on point to begin and yet unshaped, and it was dark. For the Great Music had been but the growth and flowering of thought in the Timeless Halls, and the Vision only a foreshowing but now they had entered in at the beginning of Time, and the Valar perceived that the World had been but foreshadowed and foresung, and they must achieve it.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion
Feel free to click on “Spiritual Formation (Fall 2009)” above to download the materials that we read about the discipline of silence.
In a society so bent on its noise and clamor, sustaining the discipline of silence is a radical counter-culture. It provides the opportunity to think. To reflect. To chase an idea or thought to its conclusion. To assess where we are.
All the messages bombard us with the need for noise. But if we would avoid the imposing values of the world, this discipline must play an integral role.
Got silence?
Have you had any regular pattern of isolation from noise lately?
OK, if I agree to give God what’s right, and not what’s left, will you stop with the church signs?
This week’s installment of Folks @ Faith features Carissa Stewart.
*How and when did you start at FBC?
We started a year or so ago when Kevin moved to the area. We visited a few churches and settled upon FBC.
*Best car you ever owned?
The best car I have ever owned would have to be the only car Ive ever owned, a Saturn named Al-Buraq.
*What’s cookin’ in the iPod?
Native American chants, Renaissance Christmas carols, Messianic Jewish music, Scottish folk songs, Japanese, and Veggie Tales.
*What’s your favorite food?
Ice cream. I gave it up for Lent once; I am never doing that again.
*Any hidden talent(s) that no one knows about?
Gourmet cook -KW
*If you could have one thing said about you (i.e. like at your retirement dinner, or something like that), what would you want it to be?
The number one way to stoke my vanity is to say that I am smart and wise.
*Read any good books lately?
Well, I recently finished A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess and am currently working my way through The Letters of Abelard and Heloise and The Malleus Maleficarum.
*Pick one: Great concert, Great movie, or Great book…
Great book.
*Concert that you have attended that would most surprise us?
Video Games Live
*Coke or Pepsi?
Neither, Yuck!
*DD or Starbucks?
I assume you mean coffee? Again, Yuck! DD has muffins, yum.
*If you could summarize what God is teaching you right now in a single sentence, what would that be?
I dont know but whatever it is, I hope its something important.
*Favorite CD (or record, 45, or 8-track, depending on when you were “with it”)?
That would probably be the soundtrack to Sweeney Todd. Kevin and I sing that together a lot, dressed up and S.T. and Mrs. Lovett for Halloween last year, and saw the play on our honeymoon.
*What book has made the most significant impact on you?
The Bible, obviously. At least I hope my worldview has been (and continues to be) shaped by the word of God. Of course, we cannot help but interpret it through the lens of our own culture.
*3 movies you would take with you to a deserted island (where you would spend the rest of your days)?
What would be the point? If it were a deserted island, there also certainly wouldnt be any electrical units to hook the dvd player up to, would there? If this were THE island, I suppose I would want Pride & Prejudice (the A&E version), the Shining, and the Phantom of the Opera.
*3 books you would take with you to a deserted island (where you would spend the rest of your days)?
A Hebrew/Greek/English Bible, the Talmud and the Quran.
*Favorite book of the Bible?
Leviticus
*Favorite verse?
Isaiah 30:18 Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.
This is the home for underdeveloped thoughts and other minor observations…
1. My favorite line from Rich Mullins’ song Land of My Sojourn has to be “when the old world started dying, and the new world started coming up…” Mullins definitely had the rare mix of being talented musically while being astute theologically. I am thankful for him (and others who follow in the same vein).
2. Though I cannot pinpoint exactly when I turned into my father, I am thinking that the day I started walking around with a handkerchief in my pocket was probably a significant development.
3. Some of the better movie-watches recently: The Visitor, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, Star Trek, Grace is Gone, and Searching for Bobby Fischer. Unfortunately, I did not get to see Tim Burton’s “9″.
4. I know that Heroes is only going to disappoint me again, but I cannot stop holding out hope that it will return to its original glory.
5. Toward the end of September, I completed my first half-marathon. When I came back from Ethiopia last year, I lamented the dismal physical shape that I was in, and that I hadn’t run regularly for about 10 years. I have been running fairly consistently since. In that time, I completed the NH Marathon last year, and the Applefest Half-Marathon this year. My pace for the half was around 8 minutes per mile.
6. I have been studying and reading John’s Gospel for the last few months. Alongside the text itself, I have been listening to Rikk Watts’ “Journey Through John,” a New Testament study class from Regent College in Vancouver, BC. I am thoroughly enjoying Watts’ (pictured to the right) style. It’s funny (and scary) that there was an overwhelming inability to perceive what Jesus was saying. Look for posts on this theme scattered throughout the coming months.
7. We moved into a new house in July, and are pretty well settled in. I think the house is enchanted (I would say MAGIC, but that would cause me undue problems). I am convinced that the trees in the backyard communicate with one another, and that the “play area” (you’d have to see it, too hard to explain) in my daughter’s room is a portal into another world. My kids won’t tell me if these things are true, though. I think they are sworn to secrecy.
8. I now have a new pet peeve: pigeonholing. It’s the “I have you figured out” mentality that permanently assigns simplistic labels to ordinarily complex people. It’s very lazy. If I do it to you, just punch me.
9. I have been working on the material for the Winter/Spring Spiritual Formation Group. It will be a study devoted to thoughtful reflection on key issues: Identity, Integrity, Vocation, and Calling. I am working to make the material accessible, but also maintain a level of depth (balance, balance, balance). I have to run the material by a few people, but I will spend the next few months shaping it to be ready for January 12. As with this fall’s Spiritual Formation Group, I will be posting the materials as the group proceeds through them. Most spiritual formation groups of this kind tend toward being generic. My goal here is to lay a theological basis and give people the opportunity to “individualize” the content (i.e. reflect on the specific issues they are facing at the present moment). We’ll see how it goes!
I think that God thinks about things in terms of years, decades, generations, and centuries. Think about it: the Israelites wandered around the desert for 40 years. Creation had been spinning out of control for a few thousand years before Jesus came. We have been waiting 2,000 years for Jesus’ return. And we keep waiting… God does not seem to be in a big rush.
Yet, when we think about spiritual formation, we think about things in minutes, days, and (potentially) weeks. The idea that serious, lasting growth could take years of diligent effort is not a popular one in this microwave spirituality, one-minute Bible, give me growth in pill form society. We want it, and we want it yesterday.
We have been meeting with in our home with a small group of folks for about three years (membership in the group fluctuates, but this Fall’s group is pictured to the left (unfortunately, minus Marie Abbott in the picture (she is pictured to the left, I had to steal that off of her Facebook page!)). My goal in facilitating this group is not to provide instantaneous devotional value, but to plant trees. I am not interested in catering to felt needs, but in providing resources and materials that will help facilitate spiritual transformation.
It is hard for any group to have any immediate “payoff.” Real fruit does not work that way. You may be encountering earth-shattering observations NOW, but I am more interested in what those insights will translate into six months, a year, five years, ten years from now. My goal is to plant trees, not feed people cotton candy. My goal is that, with diligent effort sustained over a long period of time, people will see this material making a difference in the way that they understand God, the way that they relate to others, and the entire way they view the world. High aspirations, I know. But that is my vision. And I am willing to wait.
By the way, the lovely New England fall trees pictured below were planted decades ago in my backyard. I am thankful that whoever planted them did so. I can now reap the benefit of their work.
