Tag: Spirituality

Virtue in Blogging: Like or Dislike?

The more stink and infighting I hear chirping on the blogosphere, the more I realize the internet is like The Ring (a la Lord of the Rings). It seems few can wield it’s power all that well. Good intentions can switch to division and vitriol.

This is not a new sort of problem. 

Have you ever acted differently in your car than you do face-to-face with people? I have. I first time I drove with my husband-to-be, the man truly surprised me. Hallmark placidity turned to zeal and strident use of a motor vehicle.

It’s a problem of the flawed human heart. It’s spiritual, not behavioral.

Something about the material confines of transport too often unleashes something worse than normal in our thoughts and behavior. The internet is the very same way.

Instead of road rage, we see web rage. Comment sections on many news stories, for instance, are filled with toxic language and malicious conjecture.

But, this is not the end of the story!

As we pull back and examine ourselves, we feel the call, even the duty, to do better. What may sustain that initial motivation and produce better actions and results is community committed to a higher way.

This is where The Spiritual Guidance for Bloggers Project enters the fray. It’s a spot where we agree to virtue over high blog traffic. It’s not just a place online to thumbs up “like”, but rather a community where we encourage each other to be more personally reflective as we encounter and broach challenging issues.

click for FB page

I ask you to be a part of the solution, not the problem of blogosphere rancor. Join at the Facebook community, where resources, support, and hopefully face-to-face gatherings will build better kinds of online interactions.

I’ll just bring up one more thing, and I ask that you would help me with your prayers and suggestions. I sense the entreaty to assemble a guided prayer retreat day for soul care for the weary blogger (essentially, for Creators & Communicators). 

Maybe toward the end of August. I’m not certain what it would look like, or even if anyone would care to come, but I envision a consecrated time of rest, prayer, fraternity, silence, unplugging, renewal, and vision-casting. Will you help me figure it out?

(click for image attribution)

Reflections on Reflecting [or what happened with the Jesuits, part I]

Aside from my utter confusion in my first Mass experience (stand up, sing this, say that, sit down, pass peace, say something else…all things a casual Evangelical finds alien), I was so very filled and fortified by my recent all- day retreat at the Jesuit Center‘s Guided Day of Prayer (which was Lenten themed).

It stood together in contrasts:

  • A quiet and calm place & my restless and weary soul
  • Freedom in the boundless love of God & the the intricate, foreign  formality and rule of Catholic liturgy and Holy Communion.
  • Muted joy of Lenten season & the bright love and goodness of my spiritual siblings
  • A banquet of food and refreshment & the observing of stark silence
  • A wide open day of prayer and reflection & the speed at which it passed

A scheduled day of silent prayer retreat is something you might not know you need until you get it. I sat in the beautiful chapel and wept off and on for over an hour, much to my own surprise.

I found it amazing how God can use a place and others to all at once pierce and convict my sullied heart of sin and obstinacy while also flooding it with his omnipresent love and overflowing grace. Let me tell you, it’s healing.

But let me be clear: It’s healing, not in an “I feel all better now” type of way. It was very much like the “undragoning” spoken of in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. (I was Eustace Scrubb.) It smarts, but then too, it brings refreshment.

In the absence of noise and obligation you begin to hear, see, listen and perceive with keener clarity. In determined places and times of silence Reality becomes louder and more involved. Love becomes saturated in, through, and around you, the creaturely image-bearer of the Divine. You come again to the Center, the Real. Home.

Several analogies shared at guided portions brought me great insights. I’ll share those in soon in part II.

Many retreat centers offer space for a time of quiet and prayer for just a little money.  Here’s a directory to find one near you.

The Spiritual Guidance for Bloggers Series: An Introduction

Click for Attribution link.

If I were to caption this photo for the project at hand, it would say,
“Sweater cubicle? or are bloggers too isolated for their own spiritual good?”

As I promised on Timothy Dalrymple‘s blog a bit ago, I am covering the topic of spiritual guidance for bloggers (as a series). Thankfully, some talent bloggers are joining us, too.

In plenty of ways technology has outpaced our spiritual reflection. The needed inner gaze at the practice (spiritual or otherwise) of blogging itself has not been encountered effectively. Bloggers have specific spiritual needs and encounter spiritual pitfalls that are under-addressed…even on blogs themselves, where you’d expect them to be handled. Well, no more.

In the next few weeks, I’ll lay this topic out and do just that, with the help of some talented bloggers as featured guest contributors.

For me, it’s an EPIC mashup of blogging experience (since 2006), and three scores of credit hours with my seminary education (M.A. in Religion, Spiritual Formation concentration) cross-fertilizing at the perfect juncture to rock this thing out. Boom. Pow!

For example:
Pitfall #1. Bloggers can be grandiose when introducing a new series.

If you are a blogger, this is especially for you. You and I both need this.

If you know someone who blogs, please send them over. Encourage him or her to read and participate in this series. If they seem reluctant, or just too busy, just say, “See, that’s exactly the whole point!”

A peek at some of the upcoming themes:

  • Seductions Specific to Christian Bloggers and What to do About it
  • Overcoming the Spiritual Pitfalls of Blogging
  • A Writer’s Mistress is a Blog (humor)
  • The Best Spiritual Disciplines for Bloggers
  • Blogging and Community: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Plus, Articles from fantastic Guest Writers:

– Thom Turner

– Joy Bennet

– Ed Cyzewski

– Anita Mathias

– Jennifer Luitwieler

– Sarah Bessey

– Warwick Fuller

– Ray Hollenbach

…and others.

Contemplative Reading Recommendations

Advent Season is the perfect time to get all high octane spiritually speaking. Read, meditate, pray, and learn from others, and you will be so enriched as you enter the Christmas season.

My favorite undertaker, and writer friend, Caleb Wilde has been blog writing about God and Greek influence. And it struck me how much the Contemplative stream of Christianity may help inform us about things and in places where our finite intellectualizing fails us. The intersection of life and death is one of those spots.

I asked Caleb who and what he’s read from this (as Richard Foster says) “Stream of Christianity”, and he asked for recommendations. So, I thought, I’d offer them to all of you.

Please recommend your favorites too.

My not-by-any-means exhaustive list of favorite Contemplative Stream writers.

By way of a high-qulaity but compact primer I recommend Richard Foster‘s who gives a fantastic overview to each of the 6 Streams of Christianity. His “Streams of Living Waters” book covers the basic 6 traditions categorized as: Charismatic, Holiness, Contemplative, Social Justice, Evangelical,  and Incarnational flavors (if you will) within all of Christianity through the ages since Christ.

Gaining Christian spiritual insights from devoted lovers of God outside your own era and your own experience of a specific faith tradition is an invaluable blessing, and very faith building. Foster outlines major points and people of the Contemplative Stream, starting with the apostle John, in the book you see below:

Classic contemplative standby: Frances of Assisi (1181-1226)

Brother Lawrence (1611-1691) The Practice of the Presence of God (short read, and free online. sweet.)

Frank Laubach (1884-1970)


Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941)

Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

Thomas Merton “In My Own Words”

Henri Nouwen 1932-1996)

Here are 2 useful previously posted articles on this Stream.
1. Kataphatic and Apophatic Prayer Explained
2.Meditation to Contemplation – Kataphatic to Apophatic Prayer (an prayer exercise/experience)

Welcome to Advent

The season before Christmas is a special one, and not because of great shopping deals. It’s not because we make gifts, or sing carols, or decorate, or bake special things, visit with family or light candles at the Christmas Eve service. It’s not even about giving more to others. Well, that’s just the tip of the Christmas iceberg.

Advent is about anticipation and hope. As Christians, we celebrate the things God has done and is doing in various seasons of the year. Creating a special time of year for focus on particular spiritual truths allows those truths to gain more weight and more meaning in our everyday lives. Advent lasts four weeks, and it’s a holiday season full of introspection, reflection, hope, and divine mysteries.

Rituals and traditions often cement social and relational bonds, ready our hearts for worship, and create the vital space and time for better adoring our Creator. Not only does memory solidify our perceptions of reality now, but it prepares us for future love, service, and devotion, to God and others.

In these four weeks of Advent I’ll feature meditations, reflections, art, and more (from me and others) interspersed among typical posts to focus our spirits on the good things of God, and the time we celebrate the most amazing gift of grace from our Living God, Jesus, the Incarnation. Our Redeemer, Savior, and King.

To participate in a richer way, view the Artists Advent Project page.

Blessings this season.