Very excited about the prayer rope I just bought from easternchristian.com. I prayed the "Jesus Prayer" for the first time late last night, sitting upright in my hammock outside. It was pretty awesome. So much meaning packed into so few and simple words. Amazing that Christians worldwide have been doing these kind of things for centuries, and only recently have Protestants rediscovered their value. (that's the whole "protest" part of being a Protestant.)
For anyone who knows me relatively well, you may have heard me mention my own struggles in the last 9 months or so with "acts of personal piety," which for my background, usually consisted solely of reading the Bible for 15 minutes a day. While there's nothing wrong with this, I have always struggled with keeping focus, and I began to question why I was doing such things in the first place. Out of obligation? To be filled with "warm fuzzies about Jesus"? On top of all this, going to seminary had made it very difficult to open up any part of the scriptures and NOT analyze it to death. Being given new tools to analyze scripture has been a phenomenal gift and learning tool, and I wouldn't trade it for anything, but it has put a sizeable damper on my prayer life.
So, despite my fears of becoming too "gimmicky" and trying too hard to be cool (which I do enough of already), I am beginning to creep into the roots of our faith, kept alive today by the Orthodox tradition. We'll see how this goes. What will be next? Icons? Creed recitation? Ignatian Examen? Longer Retreat? All of those sound really attractive to me right now... for now, I'm dipping my toe in the water.
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4 comments:
Dude, I bought my chotki from them about two years ago. I love it. I bought one and then bought another a few weeks later.
Then I moved on to icons, rosaries, ignatian examens, etc.
I haven't experienced a labyrinth (only a virtual one) yet. I am looking forward to to that.
By the way, if you ever want to pray some prayers together with our chotki's let me know.
Peace brother.
I've done some labyrinths before, but I'd like to do them again, understanding the signficance of it a little better.
Praying together would be sweet. Perhaps you could teach me some other prayers you know.
Orthodox aren't the only ones. There's a whole rainbow of traditions with various spiritual practice. Dive in! The water's fine. I think Mennonites, Moravians, and Monastics have some good practices too.
Labyrinths are very helpful as long as you don't see it as a "puzzle". Too many either want to race or "puzzle" it.
I think once you understand the art of meditation, you'll find a labyrinth helpful. They are all over the place. Check into the area Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and UCC churches. This is where I find most of the "real" labyrinths around here. These churches really worked at constructing them on their properties about 10 years ago and some have beautiful outdoor ones.
We are on our way.
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