When someone is drowning, the only thing worse than failing to throw them a life preserver is handing them a reason. • Kate Bowler • • • Live into the “What” not the “Why” Religious people (me, for example) are really good at focusing on the “whys” of life. Pastors and theologians, in particular, makeContinue reading “Live into the “What” not the “Why””
Category Archives: Spiritual Formation
Richard Rohr: Thisness
Note from CM: Each day I receive meditations from Richard Rohr. I found Sunday’s article quite insightful, and hope you will too. • • • Irreplaceable “Thisness” Each mortal thing does one thing and the same; Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying what I doContinue reading “Richard Rohr: Thisness”
Another Look: Show Me the Way to Go Home
Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what wasContinue reading “Another Look: Show Me the Way to Go Home”
Another Look: Cleaning Closets
Note from CM: This post was written nearly eight years ago, long before we even thought about moving. Well, now we’ve moved, and the birds have come home to roost. So, I thought I’d run it again, for my own motivation as much as anything. We were able to weed out quite a lot ofContinue reading “Another Look: Cleaning Closets”
Demonic Silence?
Paul Wilkinson has a provocative post over at Thinking Out Loud on the subject of silence in worship services. As you know, Internet Monk has long been a proponent of silence as an essential part of a Jesus-shaped spirituality. We have encouraged that people intentionally experience silence both as a personal spiritual practice and asContinue reading “Demonic Silence?”
Another Look: Lent — “From that point on…”
We have begun our way into the Lenten season. It may be a good time for a refresher on the relationship of this season to the Gospel story. In our January 7, 2011 post, “Epiphany and the Days to Come,” we pointed out that the Epiphany season is representative of the first half of theContinue reading “Another Look: Lent — “From that point on…””
Another Look: The Power of Stories
Stories are better than doctrine, at least in the way we have come to state doctrines. Over the course of my ministry, I have constantly fallen into the trap of thinking that being able to state a doctrine means that one has mastered its meaning. It’s great to be able to rattle off what weContinue reading “Another Look: The Power of Stories”
A Few of the Many Quotes that Shape My Life
A Few of the Many Quotes that Shape My Life • • • All Spirituality is Living and Local So—spiritual theology, lived theology—not just studied, or discussed, or written about; not “God” as an abstraction but God in a participating relationship; not God as a truth to be argued; not God as a weapon toContinue reading “A Few of the Many Quotes that Shape My Life”
Another Look: Overrated — Expressing My Opinion
The irony is not lost on this author. In this post I will share my opinion, stating my opinion that sharing opinions is overrated. And I will publish it on a blog dedicated to giving people a forum for sharing their opinions. So there. As a young minister, I soon learned the truth of aContinue reading “Another Look: Overrated — Expressing My Opinion”
A spirituality “not pressed through the pores”
❧ A saint is capable of loving created things and enjoying the use of them and dealing with them in a perfectly simple, natural manner, making no formal references to God, drawing no attention to his own piety, and acting without any artificial rigidity at all. His gentleness and his sweetness are not pressed throughContinue reading “A spirituality “not pressed through the pores””
The Internet Monk Archives 