Category Archives: colloquy

journeying through the inner-life

One Year Bible

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I think I’m going to give the One Year Bible Blog my best attempt in 2006.

The purpose of this website is to encourage you to read through the entire Bible in a year. This encouragement to you is offered in two simple free ways – 1. This daily blog with reflections, commentary and questions. 2. Weekly free e-mails filled with encouragement, commentary, and questions.

In 2006 you are invited to join us in reading the Bible for 15 minutes each day! So far we have 359 people, located throughout the world, who have signed up for our weekly e-mails in 2006!

The Oblates’ Prayer

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The Oblates’ Prayer. Order of Saint Benedict. OSB. AIM USA.
O Loving God,
I ask your blessing this day
on all the Oblates of Saint Benedict
and those with whom we are affiliated.

Help us to become people
of prayer and peace.

Though scattered far and wide,
help us to be together
in the spirit of your love.
Give us hearts wide enough
to embrace each other
as well as those
whose lives we touch.
Enable us to listen and to learn
from each other
and those around us each day.
May we be models
in our homes, neighborhoods,
and communities
of wise stewardship,
dignified human labor,
sacred leisure,
and reverence for all living things.

Above all, O God, may our presence
among others
be a constant witness of justice,
compassion, and hope to all. Amen.

And I was just starting to like the guy

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Luther on the Liturgy of Hours:

Now that [pastors and preachers] are free from the useless, bothersome babbling of the seven hours, it would be much better if morning, noon, and night they would instead read a page or two from the catechism, the Prayer Book, the New Testament, or some other passage from the Bible, and would pray the Lord’s Prayer for themselves and their parishoners.

By the way, I have been using the Liturgy of the Hours lately.

But then he goes on to say,

And should we so flippantly despise such might, benefits, power, and fruit–especially we who want to be pastors and preachers? If so, we deserve not only to be given no food to eat, but also to have the dogs set upon us an to be pelted with horse manure.

How can you stay mad at someone as cute as that?

Found Art

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I was browsing through a local ‘look-at-all-the-culture-our-city-has’ magazine which included a special section profiling the many art studios and galleries in the area. Now, I like to consider myself a somewhat cultured person. I’ve been to the Louvre in Paris. When the Monet show came through town, I soaked it all in. I am all for people having the freedom of expression, but as I looked through that special section on art, I realized that I don’t understand the latest trends in expressing oneself.

I am especially intrigued by found art. And yes, found art is exactly what it says it is. People find things, see beauty in them, and try to share that beauty with others. Found art might be simply a broken piece of glass. It might be a wet piece of paper lying in a gutter with a note written to an apparently busy husband and dad, reminding him to “remember to pick up your son this time – it’s his birthday.” Found art could be a happy meal toy sitting on top of a perfectly colored fallen leaf. Whatever the object is, someone takes the time to collect it and display it for others to see. This whole found art thing would almost seem like a joke, except that I am willing to bet that you have seen these things yourself. You might not have picked them up and displayed them in a gallery or even told anyone else about them, but you saw the beauty in them, and for a moment they changed your life.

I’ve been considering becoming a found object artist. I think the only thing that holds me back is the fear that others would not see the beauty that I see. Not to get all tree-falling-in-the-woods on you, but is something truly beautiful if only one person believes it is? I mean, it’s not like we all see beauty in the same places right?

To be honest, that is my biggest fear, that no one will see beauty in me. Maybe what has me so intrigued about found art is that I feel like just another object tossed out in this crazy world looking for meaning and hoping for purpose. I am waiting for someone to come along, pick me up and call me beautiful. Someone who can see me just as I am, but recognize something deeper, something more, something beautiful. That’s what I found, or rather what my God found in me. He looks at me and sees the beauty of his Son’s sacrifice, not instead of me… but within me. God recognizes that same beauty in each of us. Maybe what he sees in us is more important than what we see in ourselves. Maybe it’s time that we re-think our perspective.

Getting back into the flow

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After a short break last week, I’m getting back into the flow of prayer, family, class, work, and homework. I am still blown away by how necessary prayer is and how much ‘extra time’ it provides. This should not be a surprise to me, but it always is. I am also trying out a program called Life Balance to organize/tame my schedule and todo lists. It is a beautiful piece of software, and I will be purchasing it as soon as possible.

neo monasticism

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So, I have been exploring the idea of some kind of neo monasticism. Some kind of intential, communal, kingdom living that reflects and refracts God’s action in the world through our lives. A deeper commitment by a group of Christians to be in the world. I don’t know what that means, but I feel it out there. I just don’t know what it is yet. I did run across New Monasticism, on the web and I am reading some of what they have to say.

For the last 8 months or so, I have been attempting to tie myself into a larger liturgical tradition through Celtic Daily Prayer out of the Northumbria Community, a geographically dispersed community, practicing being ‘alone, together.’ They point to Deitrich Bonhoeffer as an inspiration for their new and different monasticism:

The renewal of the Church will come from a new type of monasticism which only has in common with the old and uncompromising allegiance to the Sermon on the Mount. It is high time people banded together to do this.

I don’t know what this neo monasticism will look like, but as my wife says, I’m weird… so I guess that gives some indication. Northumbria Community also put flesh on the bones of my longings with these words from William Stringfellow:

Dynamic and erratic, spontaneous and radical, audacious and immature, committed if not altogether coherent. Ecumenically open and often experimental; visible here and there, now and then but unsettled institutionally. Almost monastic in nature, but most of all enacting a fearful hope for society.

So, it’s time to instigate the kingdom around here. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know who will be a part of this “thing” but I do know there is at least one other person within 5 miles of me who knows there is more to this life than going to work, going to church, and dying.

This Morning

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This morning I listened to sub-freezing temperatures blow in to the city at about 30 miles per hour. It’s calm now, but the cool moist air of the last few days has been dried out by the freezing cold. Now when I walk outside, my eyes will water and then hurt until I can get inside again.

This morning I also prepare to appeal my disqualification from the university based on credits attempted versus completed because I took an incomplete in one of my classes last semester. I don’t mind it so much… I’m use to myself. I’m familiar with near-misses and scraping by. Not that I plan on these things happening, and I would rather them not. But as my good friend, quasi-adviser, and Dean said about me yesterday, “Thomas invented the phrase ‘A day late and a dollar short’.”

I hope all of this changes some morning… I’m looking forward to warmer weather and more responsibility. I can only cling my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who loves me, regardless.