“The essential thing ‘in heaven and earth’ is… that there should be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
2022.
In our way of marking time, a new Chapter opens. New months, days, many, many moments and mini moments to be filled with all the experiences and emotions of the embodied human experience.
Mundane. Ordinary gilded with extra. Special. Sorrow. Rending. Repairing. Joyous. Excruciating. Glorious. Laughter. Mourning. Dying. Birthing. Abiding. Moving on.
Eugene Peterson says in the pages of A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, pg 11, “Everyone is in a hurry. The persons whom I lead in worship, among whom I counsel, visit, pray, preach and teach, want shortcuts. They want me to help them fill out the form that will get them instant credit (in eternity.) They are impatient for results. They have adopted the lifestyle of a tourist and only want the high points….. The Christian life cannot mature under such conditions and in such ways.”
And @emilypfreeman says of Parker Palmer’s book A Hidden Wholeness, “This book is a goldmine for anyone who wants to learn how to lead groups in listening. It’s re-awakened my age-old complaint that we have communications classes in college and we are always required to take Public Speaking. And old lady Emily raises her hands in the air: Where is the Public Listening class!? Why is communication limited to speaking only?! If I ever teach Public Listening 101, this book will be first on the required reading list.”
And I’m pondering on them all, holding them together and wondering how I can apply them even semi-well to this next Chapter in my own life and days of 2022.
This brings me to one of my all-time favorite quotes, of course ~
“But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” ~ C.S. Lewis
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Public listening….we do need that, and private listening. We just plain don’t spend enough time listening to God or anyone else or even ourselves. So then the challenge is how to change.
Thank you for your thought provoking posts!
Thank you for your ever kind encouragement and coming along beside me as a fellow comrade. Reflection and stillness certainly are formational tools for us, aren’t they?
We are now at a different chapter in our life. This chapter is to do, and I feel like giving myself permission for that.
“I give you my obedience and let you do something new in this moment and in this experience… For whatever it may be. Be it as small and as big. Let the work or play not be a means for self-satisfaction (aka getting ‘better’), but rather be an adventure into and toward you true self.” – Michael Rozman on being obedient, having hope, finding joy. This is what we all seek, yet so far away for so long. We crave it, not just as a necessity of our spiritual and physical bodies, but also a necessity of ourselves, because this is how we know who we truly are… Being someone else than us, for our own good, in our life and beyond. The first step out on your journey, the one we have no idea where to take it… When it comes from within, it has the power to change everything… Like a spark caught & fed with the best stuff you can get. It doesn’t go away; but by feeding, nourishing. It’ll grow, eventually. To what?…
Erik Johansen – ShunRio recently posted…How do you mirror someone when talking