Back from Iona

Although the six of us--Carol and Bob Rogow, Claudia and Harry Smiley, and June and I--got back to the States on Thursday, it's only now that I've really had the open time to let you know that God blessed our trip to Iona so that it's memory now lies deep within us with thanksgiving. As we get to see most of you personally sometime this summer, we'll share our stories, especially about the people of Ireland and Scotland, and notably about Iona itself. I will be taking a bus back to Richmond, Kentucky, on Wednesday while June stays in Georgia. When I'm back in my study and can work comfortably with a better computer, I'll post a few of my favorite photos and tell you more about the trip. While Ireland and Scotland are beautiful in many places, it's truly good to be back home again.

See you in two weeks!

As soon as we return from Ireland and Scotland, I'll post a few pictures, especially those I hope to take while on the Isle of Iona. In the meantime, for your lectio, some words for Henri Nouwen:

Are you in love with Jesus? Do you know the incarnate God? In our world of loneliness and despair, there is an enormous need for men and women who know the heart of God, a heart that forgives, that cares, that reaches out and wants to heal.

On Pilgrimage in Ireland and Scotland

June and I will be in pilgrimage in Ireland and Scotland from May 11 until May 23. We're going with two other couples: Claudia and Harry Smiley, Carol and Robert Rogow. After flying to Dublin, we're driving up the east coast, bed and breakfasting along the way, for a few days so that eventually we can cross the Irish Sea by ferry and head up to and through Glasgow, Scotland. The high and outer-most point of our journey will be the Isle of Iona, the ancient "thin place" of Celtic Christianity, where we'll stay for two nights. A good bit of our time will be spent in and around the Abbey where we'll have opportunities to pray and participate in the Sunday liturgy. Please remember us in your prayers, asking that we have a safe and Spirit-filled pilgrimage. When we return, I'll do my best to share all that the Lord will have given to us during our journey.

Image: Inside the Abbey Church by Roger Wilco

May 8: Dame Julian of Norwich, Contemplative

This morning June and I attended the Eucharist at The Church of the Good Shepherd in Covington, Georgia. As we entered the sanctuary, Fr. Tim Graham handed us this information about Dame Julian of Norwich, whose commemoration is May 8 (and was transferred to our mid-Week Holy Communion, as is often the practice among many parishes). For more information about this remarkable woman, visit The Order of Julian of Norwich.

Lord God, who in your compassion granted to the Lady Julian many revelations of your nurturing and sustaining love: Move our hearts, like hers, to seek you above all things, for in giving us yourself you give us all; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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May 19 June 16: Lectio Divina: An Online Retreat and Practice Group

Yesterday I received the following announcement from Jan Carter, who provides leadership for a weekly Centering Prayer meeting in Lexington:

The ancient practice of praying the Scriptures is being rediscovered and renewed in our time. Known as Lectio Divina (Divine Reading), it is one of the great treasures of the Christian tradition of prayer. Contemplative Outreach is
pleased to partner with Spirituality & Practice to make this teaching more accessible through an online retreat format.

Lectio Divina flows out of the Hebrew method of studying the Scriptures which is called haggadah, learning by the heart. Haggadah was an interactive interpretation of the Scriptures by means of the free use of the text to explore its inner meaning. This online retreat will present the Christian version of this spiritual practice working with passages from the Bible. However, the method of divine reading can be used with any sacred text, so people of all traditions are invited to join us.

Lectio Divina online retreat and Practice Group will run from May 19 - June 16, 2008. This course is based on the Contemplative Outreach Lectio Divina introductory workshop. P articipants will receive a weekly email with step-by-step instructions in the Lectio Divina method. Two other weekly emails will provide answers to your questions and links to audio programs with commentary on this classic practice.

Replicating what you might experience during a face-to-face retreat, you will have access to a private Practice Circle at SpiritualityandPractice.com where mentors from Contemplative Outreach will provide further guidance and support. Here you'll have an opportunity to report on your experiences with this practice and learn from others working with it. The Practice Circle will be available for an additional month for further sharing as you incorporate Lectio Divina into your daily life.

The fee for participation in this online retreat and Practice Group is $39.95. To sign up, go to Spirituality and Practice: E-courses.

If you have any questions, please email Spirituality and Practice: E-courses.

If you in the least bit interested, I urge you to participate in this e-course.

Photograph: courtesy of W.T. Bryant

Bringing to Your Attention a New Blog

In our daily prayers we all pause, perhaps spending considerable time, to remember the needs of others and making intercessory prayer on behalf of those who have asked us to pray for them and/or who need our prayers. For the past several weeks some friends and I have been talking about the possibility of creating a small ecumenical group of Christians who might wish to learn more about non-violent Christianity, how we might both pray for and promote justice (so prominent a prayer in the Psalms), and how we might concretely help to feed the hungry and poor (again, so prominent in the Psalms). Right now we are in the early stages of thinking how we might gather together interested Christians. We're reading and studying; we're praying for the Holy Spirit's guidance and for discernment. As a "background" resource, I've created a blog which may interest you: Peaceful Christians, Promoting Justice, Providing Food, Protecting Environments. Might you take a look at it. Perhaps it may be something of a series of prayer concerns that you and I will want to incorporate into our daily prayers on a regular basis. And perhaps we may find some linkages that might connect the two groups. Think about; pray about it. I'll put a link on our blog here to the new blog: Peaceful Christians, Promoting Justice, Providing Food.

Making Intercessions for Sandy and Toby

This afternoon I receive an email from a friend who has written to a number of Christian friends in Richmond, asking for prayers on behalf of her friends. Here is a lightly edited copy of the email I received:

My husband is at the UK hospital right now, sitting with a friend whose wife was flown in last night, suffering from a brain aneurysm. She is in surgery right now, they give her a 50/50 chance of survival, with lots of terrible possibilities in the event she does survive (paralysis, brain damage, etc.) We all know people like Toby and Sandy . . . and they are very dear to us and especially to my husband. Any
prayers you wish to raise for Sandy, Toby, their family and the doctors, and
in particular for patience, understanding and acceptance would, I know, be most appreciated. Thanks.

In your daily prayers please offer intercessions for Sandy, Toby, their family, and the doctors. I will circumspectly keep you informed about those for whom we are praying.

Preparing for the Feast of Pentecost (May 11)

This evening I received this message from Daniel B. Clendinen:

May 11 is Pentecost, the perfect week to announce that we've just added translation of our webzine into four new languages---Dutch, Greek, Hindi, and simplified Chinese. We now offer Journey with Jesus in 14 languages; check out the country flags on our navigation bar.

For Pentecost we've posted the poem "O Comforting Fire of Spirit" by Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179). David Werther has a new music review. Richie Furay's "The Heartbeat of Love" (2007) will take you straight back to Buffalo Springfield and Poco.

I review Ron Sider's new book The Scandal of Evangelical Politics (2008), and the powerful film There Will Bloood. My essay for May 11 is called "From the inspiration of the Spirit to the Institution of the Church." Pentecost grace, peace, and joy to each and every reader.

Take a look at Clendinen's thoughtful essay as you prepare yourself for this coming Sunday's worship. And enjoy the beautiful icons he includes as the sacred images accompanying the essay.

Image Source

This Week and Clendinen's Journey with Jesus

I was unaware, as perhaps you are, that at the beginning of May the world is commemorating the genocide of six million Jews in the Holocaust by observing Yom Hashoah — Holocaust Remembrance Day. For this reason, in his commemtary for this coming Sunday's worship and prayer Daniel B. Clendenin writes not so much on the lectionary readings as on how we might remember the Holocaust and with Amartya Sen commit ourselves to three ways by which we oppose violence "caused by the illusion of identity."

May 2: Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Theologian, Doctor

On May 2 we remember one of the giants in the Faith: St. Athanasius. According to Lesser Feasts and Fasts, "rarely in the history of the Church has the course of its development been more significantly determined by one person than it was by Athanasius in the fourth century" (248). Whenever we say the Nicene Creed and confess that "we believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father," we owe, in large measure, that orthodox articulation of our Faith to St. Athanasius.

In the fourth century, Athanasius, often as a minority spokesman, spoke out vigorously against the heretical views of Arius. Yes, it's true, as Sam Portaro notes, "Arius was partially right; most heretics are. Jesus was a man, a mere mortal" (Brightest and Best: A Companion to the Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 83). Indeed, our Lord was fully human; he spent nine months in the womb of Mary, he went to school to learn how to read, he ate passover meals and drank passover wine, he wept, slept, worked in a carpenter shop, took boat rides, read Scriptures, spoke out against hypocrisy and misdirected piety, upset temple tables, lived a life of celibacy and poverty, announced the arrival of the Reign of God, and eventually died as a common criminal. But at the same time, without denying any of his manliness and humanity, Jesus was fully divine. As the eternal Word of God, Jesus created and still creates the world, loved Abraham, journeyed with the people of Israel, stilled a wild sea storm, turned water into wine, miraculously multiplied food, brought the dead back to life, healed lepers, and absolutely forgave and forgives sin. As Robert Capon in The Fingerprints of God rightly tells us, "His Godhead was 100 percent God, without a scrap of humanity in it; and his humanity was 100 percent human, without a scrap of Deity in it. Each was utterly true to its own nature, completely itself and none other; and yet each was perfectly one with the other in the Person of the Word of God" (106). We owe a great debt of theological gratitude to Athanasius for helping the Church preserve and live by that Mystery, the Incarnation. Like C. S. Lewis, you may enjoy (as several of us have during the past month) one of Athanasius most popular writings, On the Incarnation.

Uphold your Church, O God of truth, as you upheld your servant Athanasius, to maintain and proclaim boldly the catholic faith against all opposition, trusting solely in the grace of your eternal Word, who took upon himself our humanity that we might share his divinity; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.