MEDITATION:
Written by Richard Foster, a contemporary author and co-founder Renovare, an interchurch movement committed to renewal of the Church. This is an excerpt from his book “Celebration of Discipline.”
The Christian discipline of simplicity is an inward reality that results in an outward lifestyle. Both the inward and the outward aspects of simplicity are essential. We deceive ourselves if we believe we can possess the inward reality without its having a profound effect on how we live. To attempt to arrange an outward lifestyle of simplicity without the inward reality leads to deadly legalism. Simplicity begins with inward focus and unity. It means to live out of what Thomas Kelly calls “The Divine Center.” Kierkegaard captured the nucleus of Christian simplicity well in the profound title of his book, “Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing.” Experiencing the inward reality liberates us outwardly. Speech becomes truthful and honest. The lust for status and position is gone because we no longer need status and position. We cease from showy extravagance not on the grounds of being unable to afford it, but on the grounds of principle. Our goods become available to others. We join the experience that Richard E. Byrd, after months alone in the barren Artic, recorded in his journal, “I am learning…that a man can live profoundly without masses of things.” Contemporary culture lacks both the inward reality and the outward lifestyle of simplicity. We must live in the modern world, and we are affected by its fractured and fragmented state. We are trapped in a maze of competing attachments. One moment we make decisions on the basis of sound reason and the next moment out of fear of what others will think of us. We have no unity or focus around which our lives are oriented. Because we lack a divine Center our need for security has led us into an insane attachment to things. We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic…because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. “We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like” … It is time we awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick.
PRAYER:
Written by Sam Kim, a contemporary seminary professor.
Holy One, there is something I wanted to tell you, but there have been errands to run, bills to pay, arrangements to make, meetings to attend, friends to entertain, washing to do… and I forget what it is I wanted to say to you, and mostly I forget what I’m about or why. O God, don’t forget me, please, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Eternal One, there is something I wanted to tell you, but my mind races with worrying and watching, with weighing and planning , with rutted slights and pothole grievances, with leaky dreams I keep trying to plug up; and my attention is preoccupied with loneliness, with doubt, and with things I covet; and I forget what it is I wanted to say to you, and how to say it honestly or how to do much of anything. O God, don’t forget me, please, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Almighty One, There is something I wanted to tell you, but I stumble along the edge of a nameless rage, haunted by a hundred floating fears and … I forget what the real question is that I wanted to ask. and forgot to listen anyway because you seem unreal and far way, and I forgot what is it I have forgotten. O God, don’t forget me, please, for the sake of Jesus Christ. O Father in heaven, perhaps you’ve already heard what I wanted to tell you. What I wanted to ask is forgive me, heal me, increase my courage, please. Renew in me a little of love and faith, and sense of confidence, and a vision of what it might mean to live as though you were real, and I mattered, and everyone was sister and brother. What I wanted to ask in my blundering way is don’t give up on me, don’t become too sad about me, but laugh with me, and try again with me, and I will with you, too. What I wanted to ask is for peace enough to want and work for more, for joy enough to share, and for a awareness that is keen enough to sense your presence here, now, there, then, always.
Pathways Press.com 