the beauty of liturgy

Almighty God, Father of all mercies,
we thine unworthy servants
do give thee most humble and hearty thanks
for all thy goodness and loving-kindness
to us and to all men [and women].
We bless thee for our creation, preservation,
and all the blessings of this life;
but above all for thine inestimable love
in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ,
for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.

And, we beseech thee,
give us that due sense of all thy mercies,
that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful;
and that we show forth thy praise,
not only without lips, but in our lives,
by giving up our selves to thy service,
and by walking before thee
in holiness and righteousness all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost,
be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.

in conversation with ruthus willus

my little sister used to do gymnastics. then she transitioned into competitive diving. but her coaches always told her never, ever to practice both gymnastics and diving at the same time. you see, in diving, it's ok to land on your head--that's often how you enter the water. but in gymnastics, if you land on your head, you've got some serious injuries coming your way. sometimes in the minds of young athletes, these two worlds--gymnastics and diving--got mixed up, and someone inevitably landed on their head and injured their neck while tumbling across the floor.

i wonder if it's the same with different ministry settings. that is, in the grantham vs. new hope argument, will i risk serious injuries if i continue to serve them both at the same time? will i subconsciously forget which event i'm attending and say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing? will i screw up?

i don't wanna read anymore, i just wanna love

who needs love more--the white upper- to middle-class suburban churched youth at grantham or the marginalized, poor, nonwhite, largely unchurched mechanicsburg students?

[is this a good way to make a decision? is this even a healthy way to think?]

there are pros and cons to each side of this decision, and i am doing a decent job at listing them. but the thing that i don't know is, which pros/cons outweigh the others? that is, which are more important?

O heavenly Father, in whom we live and move and have our being: we humbly pray thee so to guide and govern us by thy Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget thee, but may remember that we are ever walking in thy sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

toothbrush thought

is the idea of social work appealing to me because it has a more tangible outcome--i.e. breaking the cycle of poverty--as opposed to moving adolescents toward a more mature faith (as in ministry)?

ugh, this is tough. but evaluating my thoughts as a skeptic helps put things in perspective.

taize thought process

sometimes i think. (surprising, right?)

well, sometimes i think my spirituality is a very active (as opposed to a passive) one. this morning during taize as brian was leading us in prayer for the lonely, the oppressed, the anguished, the less fortunate, the lost, etc., all i could think about was what i could do for them. how i could serve them. how i could be Christ to them. i guess in that way i'm practical, too (but that's another idea entirely).

keep us from just praying
move us into action
we must go

i guess prayer changes me more than it changes God (thanks, c. s. lewis). when i hear of others' needs in prayer, it makes me want to DO SOMETHING. i guess this is the Spirit's gift of compassion and helping in me. it certainly wasn't evident a few years ago. praise God for transforming us into His likeness.

maybe this is why i see the Church best as a servant Church. i wrote an entire paper about that last year, and i'm a little bit proud of it (and of myself for writing it).

also, is this God trying to point me towards more details about my calling? or is this me trying to compensate for my inability to be intentional about my own spiritual formation?

ah, sometimes life is unclear. murky at best. like the water that my sister and i used to slop around in in the mountains, catching salamanders and building dams. there was a spring of fresh, clean, cool water (except for that one time when it made my uncle deathly sick) right across the road from my daddy's shack. (i guess that's why they built the shack there and not a half mile down the road. also, the shack does not have electricity or running water or even indoor toilets. mmm, rustic.) but back to my point. this spring water flowed out of the bank in a long pipe, clear and beautiful, but when it hit the dust-laden dirt road, it mixed and became cloudy and muddy and brown before it ran down the ditch alongside the road to the next shack a few miles down.

maybe that's what it looks like when divinity and humanity collide. dirty, cloudy, murky water.

ooh, and let's take it a step further: eventually, when all the sediment settles, the water becomes clearer, and you can see the what's going on at the bottom of the little stream. but it takes a looong time for the dirt to settle. and you have to be patient and still and wait for the commotion to calm down.

hm.

the question is

do i, or don't i?

simple question, simple answer.. right?