"For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth." ~ Deuteronomy14:2
Sunday, November 14, 2010
The Alphabet of Spiritual Literacy
A
Attention – Pay attention. Stay awake and totally alert. See with receptive eyes and discover a world of ceaseless wonders.
B
Beauty – Walk the path of beauty. Relish and encourage its inward and outward expressions. Acknowledge the radiance of the creation.
Being Present – Live in the present moment. Don’t obsess about the past or worry about the future. All you need is here right now
C
Compassion – Open your heart, mind, and soul to the pain and suffering in the world. Reach out to others and discover the rewards and obligations of deep feeling.
Connections – Cultivate the art of making connections. See how your life is intimately related to all life on the planet.
D
Devotion – Express your feelings of praise and adoration through devotional practices. Pray with words and pray with your actions.
E
Enthusiasm – Celebrate life with passion. It adds zest to everything and helps build community. Hold nothing back.
F
Faith – Recognize and accept that there is another dimension to life than what is obvious to us. Live with obstacles, doubt, and paradox, knowing that God is always present in the world.
Forgiveness – In both your private and public lives, discover the sweet release that comes from forgiving others. Feel the healing balm of being forgiven and of forgiving yourself.
G
Grace – Accept grace and your world will be larger, deeper, richer, and fuller. Look for its intimations everywhere. Let this seed of the Giver of Life bloom in your words and deeds.
Gratitude – Spell out your days with a grammar of gratitude. Be thankful for all the blessings in your life.
H
Hope – Let this positive and potent emotion fuel your dreams and support your service of others. Through your attitudes and actions, encourage others never to lose hope.
Hospitality – Practice hospitality in a world where too often strangers are feared, enemies are hated, and the “other” is shunned. Welcome guests and alien ideas with graciousness.
I
Imagination – Give imagination free rein in your life. Explore its images and ponder its meaning-making moments, and it will always present you with something new to be seen, felt, or made known.
J
Joy – Rejoice and be exceedingly glad. Find this divine energy in your daily life and share it with others.
Justice – Seek liberty and justice for all. Work for a free and fair world where oppression and inequality no longer exist.
K
Kindness – Let Spirit flow through you in little acts of kindness, brief words of encouragement, and manifold expressions of courtesy. These deeds will add to the planet’s fund of good will.
L
Listening – Cultivate the art of deep listening in which you lean toward the world in love. All things in the universe want to be heard, as do the many voices inside us.
Love – Fall in love over and over again every day. Love your family, your neighbors, your enemies, and yourself. And don’t stop with humans. Love animals, plants, stones, even the galaxies.
M
Meaning – Constantly try to discover the significance of your experiences. Seek further understandings from sacred texts and spiritual teachers.
N
Nurturing – Take good care of the best that is within you. Self-exploration and personal growth continue throughout our lifetimes and equip us to tend to the needs of others.
O
Openness – Hold an open house in your heart for all people and things. Practice empathy with others and receptiveness toward the universe.
P
Peace – Promote peace every day. Your small steps will link you with others who are combating violence in the world.
Play – Be playful. Express your creative spirit in spontaneity. Hurrah the pleasures of being, and let loose your laughter.
Q
Questing – Savor questions and thrill to the quest. See your life as a journey that quickens your faith and deepens your soul.
R
Reverence – Practice reverence for life. The sacred is in, with, and under all the things of the world. Respond with appropriate respect and awe.
S
Shadow – Give up trying to hide, deny, or escape from your imperfections. Listen to what your demons have to say to you.
Silence – Slow down. Be calm. Find a place where you can regularly practice silence. There you will find the resources to revitalize your body, mind, and soul.
T
Teachers – Be willing to learn from the spiritual teachers all around you, however unlikely or unlike you they may be. Always be a sensitive student.
U
Unity – Practice the art of seeing the invisible. Use the wisdom of your personal visions to renew yourself and your community.
V
Vision – Practice the art of seeing the invisible. Use the wisdom of your personal visions to renew yourself and your community.
W
Wonder - Cultivate a vibrant curiosity and welcome the reports of your senses. The world is alive and moving toward you with rare epiphanies and wonderful surprises. Remember you are standing on holy ground.
X
The Mystery – Accept the unknown as part of life. Don’t try to unravel the profound mysteries of God, human nature, and the natural world. Love the ineffable.
Y
Yearning – Follow your heart’s boundless desire. It takes you out of yourself and fosters an appreciation for the multidimensional pleasures of life.
You – Accept that you are a child of God. Sing your own song with gusto. Fulfill your mission as a copartner with the Holy One in the unfolding drama of the universe.
Z
Zeal – Be passionately aroused by life. Cherish every moment, honor your commitments, and treasure your kinship with all.
Once you are familiar with the letters of spiritual literacy and begin reading, you will discover that you have favorite types of books. Do you like novels, mysteries, biographies, or wisdom literature? Just as you have a preferred genre of reading material, you will have favorite ways of reading the world.
Being spiritually illiterate would put us in a similarly dim and shallow world. If we could not read the signs of Spirit in daily life, we would not see the web that connects us with other people and the natural world. We would miss those intimations of “something more” that are possible in our work, our leisure, and our relationships.
Like other illiterates, we would find ourselves trying to compensate and cover up for what we sense is a real void in our lives. We would know that everything around us contains signs and wisdom, but we just wouldn’t get it.
Spiritually literate people from our time and earlier assure us that this need not be our reality. Spiritual literacy changes your perspective on life. Your body is a temple of God, and your home is holy ground. Your encounters with others reveal your connection with the Oneness, and your activities put you in touch with Spirit and enable Spirit to work through you. When we are spiritually literate, we discover that the whole world is charged with sacred meaning.
The Word Is Alive... Breathing Life Into All Who Believe
Defying Gravity, John Elefante
2012 - Precious, Pleasant Stones, We Being Refined to be His Jewels
“And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.” ~ Isaiah 54:12
"I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels." ~ Isaiah 61:10
In youth, we were all used to handling stones or kicking at them with our feet. Who hasn't picked up a stone and flung it through the air once or twice. At the time, it probably never occurred to us that something so common as a rock or a stone might have any value to it. Maybe today you feel common and ordinary, but as a child of God you are unique and precious in His sight! Our heavenly Father keeps a rock collection made up of people just like you and me. God sees value even in a lost soul, and through the blood of Christ, He brings the truth to the world - the realization that rocks can change!! Have you ever tried to change the shape of a rock with your own hands? It's impossible! Only the hand of the Lord can change us, but change IS possible!!
"And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible." ~ Mark 10:27
As in the case of the rock tumbler, a coarse grit is used on the first cycle, then a progressively finer grit. It may seem at present that the Lord's tumblings in your life are too abrasive, but it won't always be so. The smoother you become, the less abrasive He'll have to be. Yield to the process of perfection, for the end results are worth it! According to the directions for a rock tumbler, once the tumbling begins, it must continue till the cycle is finished. If the contents of the barrel are left standing for an extended period of time, the mixture will harden and become one solid cement-like cake. It's that way in our lives too. We need continual tumbling to keep our hearts from hardening again and the Lord knows it better than we do! Don't lose hope, don't give up - just patiently wait on God to bring about your beauty.
"As for God, his way is perfect" ~ Psalm 18:30
"He hath made every thing beautiful in his time" ~ Eccles. 3:11
Yes, through the various elements of nature such as wind, water, heat and pressure, over time this change is brought about in rocks. You know what's interesting about rocks? Each one is different. Some are larger or smaller. Some types are softer or harder. All this affects the tumbling process. The rocks that remain roughest after the first cycle must be taken out of the barrel, removed from the smoother ones so that they can continue to become smoother yet in the second cycle... Would you be one of those rocks that hindered the refining of another?? For good tumbling, it is instructed not to mix different types of material together in the barrel. For example, agates and amethysts when tumbled and polished together will not give the best results because the agates will chip the amethysts and neither will take a good polish. The bags of stones provided are wisely selected so that each individual bag can be tumbled and polished in one batch. God knows what He is doing in all our lives. Trust His tumblings! He knows precisely what people to put together in particular circumstances or trials of life because it is best for those selected, in order that each might take a good polish.
Yes, different rocks go through different changes, but if they change enough, they finally end up looking very much alike!! That should be our goal, ladies! Each one of us will experience some tumblings in life as we go through various forms of pressure at different times and for various lengths of time. However, the end result should be the same - we should all come out to be more like the image and likeness of Jesus Christ! Our lives as Christians should be bordered or outlined with pleasant stones. This is the reason for the pressure God's designing hand places upon us individually as He carves and polishes out the image of His precious Son in us. He brings out that which would otherwise never be seen by the world!
”He putteth forth his hand upon the rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots. He cutteth out rivers among the rocks; and his eye seeth every precious thing. He bindeth the floods from overflowing; and the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light” ~ Job 28:9-11
"And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head." ~ Ezekiel 16:12
"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in...
About Raising the Standard Series and the Renaissance Concept of the Two Books
UPDATE: 12/2011 - Completed Raising the Standard study. Character Sketches Volumes 1-3 are in the blog archives. New direction for 2012.
The seed of this topic and of the following topics in the "Raising the Standard" series was found in two wonderful volumes I received several years ago as a gift from a friend, Character Sketches, From the Pages of Scripture, Illustrated in the World of Nature, Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts Inc. 1983. For anyone who is not familiar with this publication, it is a wonderful "two books" approach to youth ministry... not only giving Scriptural lessons, but also giving examples in nature and educating youth both with the observable facts and stories of animal behaviors, and profiling Biblical characters who best exemplify each godly character topic key point. Highly recommended for all, but most particularly a very cohesive bible study for young people. It is a beautifully illustrated and informative set.
What's the two books approach?
Today’s theologians should seek a coherent way to integrate what we are learning about the natural world through the best science with what the Holy Scriptures tell us about the God of creation and redemption. Perhaps we could revive the Renaissance concept of the Two Books. According to the concept of the Two Books, nature is a book of revelation. Nature reveals to us something about the mind of God the creator. St. Paul alludes to the book of nature.
“Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.” ~ Romans 1:20
The second book, of course, is the Bible. In this book we learn of God the redeemer. Nature gives us general revelation, whereas the Bible gives us special revelation. The two books together provide the resources for understanding reality in relationship to God, the creator and redeemer.
"But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee: and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell the: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee." ~ Job 12:7-8
Once you are familiar with the letters of spiritual literacy and begin reading, you will discover that you have favorite types of books. Do you like novels, mysteries, biographies, or wisdom literature? Just as you have a preferred genre of reading material, you will have favorite ways of reading the world.
Spiritually literate people from our time and earlier assure us that this need not be our reality. Spiritual literacy changes your perspective on life. Your body is a temple of God, and your home is holy ground. Your encounters with others reveal your connection with the Oneness, and your activities put you in touch with Spirit and enable Spirit to work through you. When we are spiritually literate, we discover that the whole world is charged with sacred meaning.
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