Care through the process of restoration; Partnership toward overcoming and thriving.
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Prisoner of Hope
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The invitation this morning....
12 " Return to your Fortress,
you prisoners of hope;
even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you."
Resting in the blend of spirit, mind, emotions, and body that I dwell in, I come into contact with the edges of this question all the time. It is easy to lean more fully on one or the other. Most of us have a comfortable automatic bend toward finding solutions in spirit or material ways. Robert Mulholland, a respected spiritual formation writer and trusted Christian theologian, expands an answer to this wondering that satisfies my soul. I hope it illuminates for you as well: "We need to realize that not only is psychology not a substitute for spirituality, but spirituality is not a substitute for psychology. While most Christians would not tend to make the first assertion, many would and do tend to make the second. As we have already noted, spiritual formation is often seen as the answer to all problems. Often, profound, deep-seated psychological problems are met with demands for deeper faith, more rigorous obedience, more vital spirituality. ...
Beloveds, welcome into a fresh turn of digits and a fresh trip around the sun as 2024 opens its unwritten pages for us to live out. I have shared with many of you that, personally, I am starting 2024 out with a limp . I have a meniscus tear that is not healing and it will be patched up in surgery on January 9th. I was thinking how sometimes God gets his best work done when we are wrestling to be OK, when we are in unsure places, when we limp. When Jacob wrestled for his blessing from God and ended up with a new name, Israel, the father of the 12 tribes of Israel…from where Jesus came to us. I would say that was worth the wrestle in the night. (Genesis 32: 22-32) As we poise ourselves toward whatever we hope for in the new year, the l yrics of a song we sing at church often comes to my mind: “ Whatever picture I have isn’t big enough; Whatever picture I have isn’t good enough; Whatever picture I have doesn’t sum you up; Couldn’t sum you...
How do you begin this cocoon business? You have to find your Spiritual Cremaster. What in the world is that? It’s the place you start. It’s your anchor. I’ll just let Sue tell you : “When the caterpillar begins to spin its chrysalis, it forms a spiny little protuberance at the end of its abdomen called the cremaster. The cremaster is like a button or patch of Velcro that fastens the pupa in the cocoon and holds it in place. It’s the anchor point, the place from which the caterpillar hangs “ The still point is our cremaster. Without it, there’s no dance of transformation. It’s the place where all cocoon making starts. We need to find the point in our soul where we go neither forward nor backward but are fastened in our waiting. We need to discover the “protuberance” from which our lives can silently hang and become new. What IS this still point? It represents the Center, the quiet core where God’s Spirit dwells in us. “Do you not k...
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