Monday, April 25, 2011

Franciscan Monk Prayer

Discovered this prayer and found in extremely moving and powerful.

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, hard
hearts, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you
may live from deep within your heart where God’s Spirit dwells.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who
suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you
may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their
pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe
that you can make a difference in this world and in your neighborhood, so that you will courageously
try what you don'think you can do, but in Jesus Christ you’ll have the strength
necessary to do.

May God bless you so that you remember we are called
to continue God’s redemptive work of love and healing in God’s
place, in and through God’s name, in God’s Spirit, continually
creating and breathing new life and grace into everything and
Everyone we touch.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

The Great Divide

Christian Spirituality/Living a complete life
 Dividing our lives into seperate spheres. Too often our lives can be divided into what is termed "spiritual" and what is termed "secular". For a follower of Jesus this cannot be, disciples of Jesus should not live divided lives. Disciples are called to be holy (set apart) but that does not mean we seperate from the rest of the world and hide in caves and that certaintly does not mean we live seperated/divided lives (spiritual on Sunday and secular the rest of the week). Christian Spirituality does not signify a flight from physical life, or a withdrawl from the challenges of life in the world; rather it describes the process whereby Christians seek to live holy lives, while engaging the challenges of this world. It is a call to actualize Jesus' mandate to be "in" but not "of" the world (John 17:15-18), and to live by what Paul declares: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2). This is who we are...this is what we do.