Maybe, finally, I’m beginning to understand the biblical idea of perfection! (more…)
February 10, 2012
“Perfection”?
Posted by johnmangels under Looking for God, Monasticism | Tags: Benedict of Nursia, by John Mangels, Joan Chittister, Norvene Vest, spiritual search |Leave a Comment
February 8, 2012
Character and Gift
Posted by johnmangels under Looking for God, Prayer | Tags: by John Mangels, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Prayer, spiritual search, The Monk of Farne |Leave a Comment
Part of me wishes there were simple, clearcut answers.
This morning, with my prayers, I read two things I believe are both true. And there is, to say the least, real tension between them.
I read an excerpt from Harry Emerson Fosdick’s The Meaning of Prayer that talks about helpful prayer only being possible because of the development of character. “[Our] iniquities have separated between [us] and [our] God.” I find myself thinking about Hauerwas when he talks about character: how we live in the ordinary course of our lives determines how we will react, without even thinking about it, when defining choices must be made. (more…)
January 15, 2012
Evangelism and Spiritual Direction
Posted by johnmangels under Looking for God, Sermons | Tags: by John Mangels, Evalangelism, Spiritual Direction, spiritual search, St. George's |[2] Comments
Preached (without any notes at all) about evangelism and spiritual direction this morning.
Talked about how we all have had bad experiences of being evangelized that color how we think about what many Episcopalians refer to as the “E’ word. I shared how in college some guy came on campus talking about the pigs and the Christians (are you a Christian, or are you a pig?) … After a couple of minutes of this I left. But not before telling the speaker that I considered myself a Christian. And for the first time in my life he had made me embarrassed to admit it. (Two people in the congregation had had good, as well as bad experiences of being evangelized. Everyone had bad experiences.) (more…)
January 12, 2012
Saints and the spiritual walk
Posted by johnmangels under Looking for God, Saints | Tags: Aelred of Rievaulx, by John Mangels, Daily Office, Mary Slessor, spiritual search, Urban T. Holmes III |Leave a Comment
In one of my books on the lives of saints, which I usually read in conjunction with the daily office, Mary Slessor was commemorated. She was a woman born into a working class Presbyterian family in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1848. In 1875 she went as a teacher to a mission in Calabar, Nigeria, where she served until her death in 1915. What struck me was a couple of phrases from Richard Symonds’ “Above Rubies” (about her life): ”Partly as a result of her lack of formal education, particularly in Presbyterian theology, Mary Slessor took a broad-minded view of local a beliefs and customs when she arrived in Calabar, and as a result acquired an unusual understanding of them.” ”Mary Slessor’s religion is quite as interesting as the work which it inspired. Although she recollected that as a girl ‘hell fire’ had driven her into the kingdom, she found it a kingdom of love and tenderness and mercy, and never sought to bring anyone into it by shock. ’Fear is not worship,’ she said, ‘nor does it honor God.’” (more…)
December 24, 2011
“Magi”
Posted by johnmangels under Epiphany | Tags: Daniel Berrigan, Poetry, spiritual search |Leave a Comment
This is a poem from Daniel Berrigan’s Time Without Number (from An Almanac for the Soul):
They set out in bright approving summer:
flags, gold, imagination attending
down charted roads, the star like a sun of night,
and at earth’s end, the unique King awaiting.Autumn too was lovely and novel: weather temperate
and the star mellowing slowly as a moon.
Then winter on them: the light snuffed out:
hearsay, frontiers, men inimical to dreamers –
and what direction in iron snow? — a hind’s track
diminished in ivory, a white birch stricken to ground
and the sky tolling its grey dispassionate bell
upon age, upon infinite heart’s weariness.So the great came, great only in need,
to the roof of thatch, the child at knee awaiting.
[To order An Almanac for the Soul contact the Iona Center, P.O. Box 1528, Healdsburg CA 95448; ionacenter@comcast.net; or 707.431.7426]
November 16, 2011
Worthiness at Communion
Posted by johnmangels under Communion, Looking for God | Tags: by John Mangels, Seeing God, spiritual search, Writers Group |Leave a Comment
Paul can be a hard case: blaming illness and death in the community on coming unworthily to the table. It feels a lot like blaming the victim or the patient. And it resulted, historically, in my church, in most members (for many years) receiving communion (at most) once or twice a year.
That’s really putting the fear of God in us!
So I like Luther’s take (if I understand it) that knowing and feeling your need of the sacrament is coming worthily to the table.
And I like Anne’s take even better: Isn’t it precisely when you come unworthily to the table that you most need to be there and be fed and graced by God? (more…)
November 9, 2011
All Saints’ Day Sermon
Posted by johnmangels under Communion, Personal, Saints, Sermons, St. George's | Tags: by John Mangels, Saints, Sermons, spiritual search |Leave a Comment
“… Do not go gentle into that good night
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”“Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so …
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
and death shall be no more …”
I thought of these words, from Dylan Thomas and John Donne respectively, when my friend and colleague, Marcia, died just before this All Saints’ Day. I think they capture some of the tension I feel between my sense of loss and anger when someone dies and my belief in the promise of fullness of life with God in the communion of saints. (more…)
September 2, 2011
Beauty and the Ugly Nitty Gritty of Life (or The Beauty of Holiness?)
Posted by johnmangels under Looking for God | Tags: An Almanac for the Soul, by John Mangels, Incarnation, spiritual search |Leave a Comment
So often I am finding clusters of thoughts, gathered to at least some extent around the seasons, in my readings from An Almanac for the Soul. And I guess, if I weren’t, I wouldn’t waste my time by continuing to read from it on a (more or less) daily basis. September 1, in theory, starts a new theme/week talking about this season as “boundary” time and the inevitability of loss in human life.
Karl Rahner is quoted: “Every end becomes a beginning. (more…)
August 6, 2011
Prayer Attributed to St. Francis?
Posted by johnmangels under Looking for God, Prayer | Tags: Malcolm Muggeridge, Mother Theresa, spiritual search |Leave a Comment
I’ve seen variations of the second and third paragraph of the following prayer, without the first paragraph (which I’ve never seen before) attributed to St. Francis. But seemingly this comes from Malcolm Muggeridge in Something Beautiful for God (about Mother Theresa). Anyway, I think the first paragraph adds something:
Make us worthy, Lord, to serve our fellow men throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them, through our hands, this day their daily bread, and by our understanding love give Peace and Joy. (more…)
August 6, 2011
Peter Walks on the Water — We do too!
Posted by johnmangels under Looking for God, Sermons, St. George's | Tags: by John Mangels, Monasticism, Seeing God, spiritual search, St. George's |Leave a Comment
Actually, when I wrote this sermon (for tomorrow) I titled it “Jesus Walks on the Water.” but my sermon writing is somewhat stream of consciousness (often) and I ended up somewhere unexpected. Reflecting on what I had written, I found myself thinking about how we, like Peter, walk on (or at least in) the waters of faith. So here it is:
Be honest now. What would you do – how would you react – if you were in the middle of a stormy lake, in a small boat, and you saw Jesus walking on the water towards you?
Or is this so common an occurrence that you don’t have to think about it? (more…)
