Without Even Trying

This is the blog post of a child who is learning to love life in all its beauty. A quiet child who rarely shares his internal world, but who nevertheless makes observations and learns and loves.

We rode through the woods. Me, my mom, and Matt. I remember me ALWAYS being in the middle. Mom was always in the back, and Matt was in the front. We rode through flowers, wildlife, and trees. EVERYTHING WAS GREEN!

I remember a bridge that had fallen in the late 1800s. They left a memorial that we passed. I also remember us riding by the river going over hills under the trees. I was hoping it would never end! but about halfway home on our trip back, my legs fell apart. So we stopped and sat at benches and talked about camping.

Mom said we would be taking bike rides alot more often because we need the excersise. After this im going to ask if we can again tonight as fathers day bike ride. But if she says no, i will get on again and either blog or FFR (flashflashrevolution). I will never forget that bike ride. It was my first in this (my favorite now) path.

Sometimes, we present spiritual practices as a very adult thing, a thing only mature faith engages. "Only those who are seriously dedicated to profound spiritual growth need apply."
We talk about contemplative walking and looking for what shimmers in the landscape that we might hear from God. We talk about striving to reach the post-skeptic, mature naiveté.

 And then, sometimes we think that the way in which we share our experience must be a thing of perfection, no tinges of poor grammar or misspellings, no ambiguity and yet intriguing.  And so, frequently, we fail to offer anything at all, because what we produce feels too raw or unpolished. Frustrated, we set aside "purposeful" evangelism and simply to clear our minds, we  take a bike ride with our children.
 ...and do our greatest holy work without even knowing it!

The Most Basic Practice

Dr. Lauren F. Winner has a 7-lesson DVD available from Paraclete Press that is described as "Seven Ways of Christian Formation inspired by the Jewishness of Jesus." Being Jewish, and a Christian convert in her young adulthood, Lauren Winner has a uniquely qualified perspective on the more meaningful linkage between Jewish traditions and Christian practices. She addresses topics like hospitality and prayer and fasting among others. One practice in particular makes an interesting highlight for use in previewing the series. That practice is mindful eating.

While she left the Jewish practice of "keeping kosher" behind, she did retain the spirit of the tradition in her Christian practices.  "Scripture is shot through with suggestions that God cares a lot about how we eat and how we interact with our food," she notes. She does not think this that divine interest stopped when the Christian era began.

Consider, she notes, that the first sin involved food. The Passover was a sacred feast to initiate the Exodus, and later Hebrew disobedience was revealed through attitudes toward manna. Jesus offered His "last important communication" with His disciples over a meal; and, of course, the Eucharist, The Lord's Supper is a food-oriented practice that continues to this very day.

How much thought do we give to any of this? Even if we don't have an addictive issue related to our eating habits, how mindful are we when we take a meal?  Does it fill a role in our lives that is too much or too little? Do we even taste the food, or do we rush through the prep and the eating, thoughtlessly feeding ourselves as our hands and minds do "more important" work? Do we eat numbly, mechanically putting food to mouth out of habit?  Now that we think about it, is there something about our way of nourishing ourselves that might need to change, not so much for its physical features as for its spiritual ones?

Dr. Winner notes that as mundane as it is, "...the act of feeding ourselves, something so connected to our creaturely-ness, becomes the place where we meet God." Before considering issues of content or the volume of food we consume, have we simply looked thoughtfully at how we eat? Is the act of eating for us a conscious acknowledgement of our "creaturely-ness" as Dr. Winner puts it?

As the season of Lent approaches, a time when many choose to fast a particular food or all food for one day of each week, take several days here to contemplate your own eating habits and how the act of eating could be more of an act of communing with God.

Give God a Picture

“If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning... Face it, friend. He is crazy about you!” So goes a favorite quote by Max Lucado.

Suppose it was your task to choose which picture He'd carry. Which picture would it be? In this era when the "selfie" is prolific and easily attained, when editing programs allow a vast array of expressive qualities to enhance a picture, the possibilities are almost endless for what you might choose to offer of yourself.

Take a moment and peruse the different pictures you have of YOU, maybe ones that have served as profile pictures on Facebook or as avatars on games or forums. Which would you like to present in a moment of sacredness? Which would you want Him to carry? More importantly, why that one? What does that picture tell you about how you see yourself? About how you'd like Him to see you?

To expand the exercise, thumb through portraits of you from the past. Ones you've liked, ones you haven't. Again, consider what about certain pictures resonated or irritated you? Your expression? The setting? The time of life they represent? Finally, bundle up all of this "you-ness" and present it to Him, remembering that no matter what you like or don't like about the image you carry at various times, nevertheless you are loved unconditionally by the one who keeps your picture near.