Any modern missionary knows that one of your tasks is
to keep up the blog, preferably with lots of fantastic photos and inspiring
stories. I haven’t even tried to write a blog in the last year. It’s not that I
don’t have something to say or that nothing has happened. I just don’t know how
to communicate adequately the depth of God’s work when this last year has been
for me one of inner change and there are no photos to show what that looks like.
It’s also not that I haven’t been writing but my
writing has been more personal reflection or for work and study. Writing
something public has felt too confronting. I have this drive to be honest and vulnerable
and that makes it hard to write what I imagine people want to read. In some
ways it feels too much like striving to be part of a competition one can never
hope to win. There is so much written now. Everyone is posting, tweeting,
blogging and commenting that it feels like we are trying harder and harder to capture
attention in an age of shortening attention spans and over stimulation.
Maybe I’ve just grown weary. Actually I know I have grown
weary. The last 15 months have been a real challenge health wise for me. But
the experience of lowered energy levels has made me search for slow and restful
rhythms that are restorative and kind and I am losing interest in trying to
impress anyone anymore.
The danger in being open and saying what is on my mind
is that I may be misunderstood or risk rejection. If I express my frustration
or rail against the injustice I see around me here in Cambodia, let alone in
the news, my words may well be unbalanced, critical and unkind and 2015 seems
to me like a time for greater gentleness, consideration and compassion. Maybe now
is not the time for too many words.
Richard Foster, in A Celebration of
Discipline, wrote “Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of
instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today
is not a greater number of intelligent people or gifted people, but for deep
people”.
As we start 2015 I believe we need a
new depth of love and wisdom. We need spiritual discernment and to be moulded and
led by the Holy Spirit.
One way to grow in this is to delve into the riches of
ancient Christian devotional practices and explore how they can be used to deepen
and reinvigorate our connection with God in a new age. There is no real need to
invent something new. The new is so quickly superseded these days. Something
new will soon be something old. We have
a rich heritage that has been tested over the centuries. There is much to gain
from those who have gone before us.
I am continuing to learn how I can
take things such as the Jesus Prayer, the Examen, Sabbath, Lectio Divina and
the use of daily offices and merge them into my 21st century life
with all its challenges and underappreciated privileges.
How can you seek to grow in depth this year?
No comments:
Post a Comment