I have worked on a Four-Week Psalter for Morning and Evening Prayer, but that is not very interesting.
I always work on being “me.” But, to be honest, I think I’m losing the battle. I work at being completely transparent with and in God. What that means, I have no idea!
I read the above and thought it was interesting. (I will not quibble about using the term “hermit”!)
There is a difference between being called to solitude—to a life of focus on Jesus—and choosing to isolate yourself for personal growth. In baptism, each person is asked, “Do you turn to Christ?”. It is our common vocation to find a personal and unique answer. Sometimes, we are called to a particular place. Jesus went into the desert after his baptism, and some people are still called to the desert – to “white martyrdom”. (And, like Jesus, to enter a different fight.) So, the desert is not a call to isolation or personal growth but to follow Jesus in a particular place. It is to be anchored both in the person and the context.
Being alone and following Jesus into the desert is not always the same. Anyway, read the post!!!!
If you have not read Kierkegaard’s parable about the geese, here is a really good version.
Distance! In a physical sense. Love in a spiritual.
I have no neighbours at the moment. One side is the church, and the other is a car park. There is lots of space!
But how am I a good neighbour to those in my life? I make choices that benefit them (or perhaps for their good). And I do that without asking or looking for anything in return. The starting point is not “the good” (an ideal I created) but the good in the other. I have a duty to love, and that duty is to the person, not to an idea. I try to live that with the people in my life. It is not easy and, at the moment, almost impossible.
I have reflected on the ” risk ” question in the last week or so. I feel stuck at the moment. Knowing where to go from here is easy; actually, doing it is different. The risk is in the doing, and, to be honest, I am not in an emotional state to take risks.
So I am stuck, down on myself, irritable, and argumentative (it is better to stay in solitude). I am struggling with prayer. All my hope is in the medication I am on, but that has not worked as well as at other times. I am having really strange vivid dreams.
The biggest risk is doing the thing that will unstuck me. But there are no magical solutions and maybe I am simply the problem.
Refrain: Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul.
Common Worship, Psalm 62
1 On God alone my soul in stillness waits; ♦
from him comes my salvation.
2 He alone is my rock and my salvation, ♦
my stronghold, so that I shall never be shaken.
3 How long will all of you assail me to destroy me, ♦
as you would a tottering wall or a leaning fence?
4 They plot only to thrust me down from my place of honour;
lies are their chief delight; ♦
they bless with their mouth, but in their heart they curse.
5 Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul; ♦
for in him is my hope.
6 He alone is my rock and my salvation, ♦
my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken. [R]
7 In God is my strength and my glory; ♦
God is my strong rock; in him is my refuge.
8 Put your trust in him always, my people; ♦
pour out your hearts before him, for God is our refuge.
9 The peoples are but a breath,
the whole human race a deceit; ♦
on the scales they are altogether lighter than air.
10 Put no trust in oppression; in robbery take no empty pride; ♦
though wealth increase, set not your heart upon it.
11 God spoke once, and twice have I heard the same, ♦
that power belongs to God.
12 Steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord, ♦
for you repay everyone according to their deeds.
Refrain: Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul.
In Hegelian philosophy the outer (the externalization) is higher than the inner.
Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy), 60.
In baptism, God calls us out of darkness into his marvellous light.
Common Worship – Baptism
To follow Christ means dying to sin and rising to new life with him.
Therefore I ask:
Do you reject the devil and all rebellion against God?
I reject them.
Do you renounce the deceit and corruption of evil?
I renounce them.
Do you repent of the sins that separate us from God and neighbour?
I repent of them.
Do you turn to Christ as Saviour?
I turn to Christ.
Do you submit to Christ as Lord?
I submit to Christ.
Do you come to Christ, the way, the truth and the life?
I come to Christ.
Where is the satisfaction if there is no risk (“guaranteed not to fail”)? And where is the motivation if there is no risk?
While there may be many things I would like to attempt, the risk is what makes them meaningful to me.
The difference remains, however, and is between being, or at least striving to be, what one admires—and being personally detached. Let us now completely forget this danger connected with confessing Christ and think rather of the danger of actuality that is inescapably bound up with being Christian. Does not Christian teaching about ethics and obligation, Christianity’s requirement to die to the world, to surrender the earthly, its requirement of self-denial, does this not contain enough requirements—if they were to be obeyed—to produce the danger of actuality that makes manifest the difference between an admirer and an imitator, makes it manifest precisely in this way, that the imitator has his life in these dangers and the admirer personally remains detached although they both are nevertheless united in acknowledging in words the truth of Christianity? Thus the difference still remains. The admirer will make no sacrifices, renounce nothing, give up nothing earthly, will not transform his life, will not be what is admired, will not let his life express it—but in words, phrases, assurances he is inexhaustible about how highly he prizes Christianity.
Practice in Christianity
a fool and his prayer book 