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...
I have that feeling…that as we come out of the hush or bustle of the summer, something is presenting itself. Something that presents Itself with hopes we will say Yes. Quite often, the fall season calls for a re-arranging, a new-year-esque lens to see our moments, coming and going, what we are up to, our rhythms of rest and work, through. Examination. It’s a soul-giving thing to stop and let it do its work. This poem recently came across my email via more than one list I am signed up to receive…which means you should listen, right? It is a poem I think we need to encounter in certain intervals of our process…in order to be “disturbed” toward what is next, in spite of our self-sabotaging settlement in the too small, too known, too safe. If it is available, gift yourself a moment of stillness and breath. Get quite inside and when you find you can receive…slowly roll the lines of this poem over in your mind. You might...
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