Each Lenten season is different, requiring and asking different demands and disciplines. This year I am committing to studying two books: Diana Butler Bass' new book, Grounded and Kathryn Greene Mc-Creight's book, I Am With You: The Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book 2016. I invite you to join me in this study or just come along and comment as you are led. The art will come mostly from the illuminations of The Saint John's Bible which is a favorite of mine.
I will share the meanderings of my Lenten journey and invite you to do the same. Reminder: this is the Internet, a Lenten blog, not a place for confidential discussions or politics. But there is so much to talk about and consider on our journey. So, we will see where the Holy One invites our conversations and thoughts to go. I pray these forty days will bring us liberation, renewal, intentional repentance and restoration.
Using the Amazon Free Kindle reading app while I wait for my copy in the mail, I have started reading GROUNDED. Reading the following sentence, a commentary on WWI and WWII, is, to me, puzzling: "God, [like the monks from Mount Calvary chased by the roaring inferno fled down the mountain] [my brackets], seeking shelter in the midst of the city." I'm thinking: when does GOD, the omnipotent, seek SHELTER from ANYTHING? Maybe He went to the shelters in the city with His love seeking the victims of the ravages of war -- the frightened, the persecuted, the needy.....
ReplyDeleteI think this is more of a metaphor. Humankind has placed God so far above in the heavenly realm that many young people struggle with a seemingly distant God. Instead, as with the Transfiguration tomorrow, Jesus does not remain on the mountain or allow Peter to build dwelling places. He comes down from the mountain and heals a tortured boy and "gives him back to his father." In some sense, Bass is urging our generation to find God not only in heaven but here: active and relational.
ReplyDeleteWhen I hear the questions "Where is God?", and "Who is God?" I think of the 2007 book "The Shack", which was recommended to me by a 1970s' pastor at St. Paul's. That book is one of my alltime favorites.
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ReplyDeleteThat is a thought-provoking book. We used it in a spirituality course at Spring Hill and it fostered good conversation.
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