Amidst the craziness of everything, especially the senior year of seminary, it can be hard to find time for prayer and meditation. With approval panels, papers, first call forms, and everything else that happens, when do you slow down?
Fortunately, there are also options available here at the seminary to explore different spiritual disciplines. Spiritual direction and contemplative prayer are a couple of the options that I have been enjoying. As part of spiritual direction, we are reading Richard Foster's book, Celebration of Discipline. I just finished reading chapter 7, on the discipline of solitude. To hear God, sometimes we have to shut out the rest of the world, and just listen. It is not easy to do, especially finding the time, but it is worth it.
In group meetings, we use silence, a form of solitude, to gather our thoughts, to listen to the Holy Spirit, and to hear what God is telling us. While Monday has become a very long, full day, the last couple of hours of the day include a group spiritual direction session, followed by intercessory prayer. It makes for a full day, but in reality, these two hours are among the most relaxing of the week. Time spent in prayer and silence is refreshing, relaxing, and renewing.
The disciplines of silence and solitude, of time spent in intentional meditation, are ancient practices that are being recaptured by Christians. These disciplines are opportunities to find new ways of spending time in prayer and meditation, of allowing God to speak to us in a way that we might actually hear.
For me, this time has become something that I look forward to. Quiet contemplation, a quietly read Psalm, and community prayers help end my Monday. How do you find quiet time? When and where are you able to sit and listen to the Holy Spirit? If you answer no, might I suggest that you check out Foster's book, or find somewhere close by that offers contemplative prayer, or centering prayer, or another form of meditative prayer. One of these forms of prayer may be what you have been missing. Prayer, like other things in our lives, does not just happen - unless we are intentional about it. God meets me in the silence, and assures me that I am His. May He meet you there, also.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Weekends
We often write about how much is going on with school or internship; schedules, deadlines, projects, and papers. Thought maybe I should write tonight about this weekend and what our time off is like. In spite of the hectic school schedule, we do try to spend time each weekend relaxing a bit and since we are not assigned to a field church this year, we have the option of worshiping where we wish on Sundays. Both seem like quite a luxury!
With last Monday-Wednesday off for Fall Break, we have actually had seven of the past nine days off, but most of them seem to have already vanished into distant memory! This weekend was a good mix of homework, household chores, worship, work, and relaxation - which really just means that we are starting out the new week already tired out...
Just to give you an idea of this weekend’s schedule: Saturday was spent doing household chores: bathing our dog Smokey, doing laundry, trimming some shrubs in the yard, and moving some boxes from our carport to more permanent storage. Last night, while Ray watched a NASCAR race on TV and worked on the computer, I did some reading for one of our classes (about 175 pages and I’m still not caught up!).
This morning, we attended worship at one of the many Lutheran congregations in the area (one of our friends is the new vicar there); then went out to lunch with our son, his wife, and our granddaughter. After lunch, we met our daughter and her fiance at the SC State Fair. We enjoyed a concert by Josh Turner, then spent a bit of time watching the delighted 3 year old ride carnival rides! Ray and I left all the “young’uns” at the midway and headed for home. After a quick supper, we went to the library on campus, where I worked the evening shift. Now we are back at home, with time to do a bit more reading (and perhaps another load of laundry) before we turn in for the night.
With last Monday-Wednesday off for Fall Break, we have actually had seven of the past nine days off, but most of them seem to have already vanished into distant memory! This weekend was a good mix of homework, household chores, worship, work, and relaxation - which really just means that we are starting out the new week already tired out...
Just to give you an idea of this weekend’s schedule: Saturday was spent doing household chores: bathing our dog Smokey, doing laundry, trimming some shrubs in the yard, and moving some boxes from our carport to more permanent storage. Last night, while Ray watched a NASCAR race on TV and worked on the computer, I did some reading for one of our classes (about 175 pages and I’m still not caught up!).
This morning, we attended worship at one of the many Lutheran congregations in the area (one of our friends is the new vicar there); then went out to lunch with our son, his wife, and our granddaughter. After lunch, we met our daughter and her fiance at the SC State Fair. We enjoyed a concert by Josh Turner, then spent a bit of time watching the delighted 3 year old ride carnival rides! Ray and I left all the “young’uns” at the midway and headed for home. After a quick supper, we went to the library on campus, where I worked the evening shift. Now we are back at home, with time to do a bit more reading (and perhaps another load of laundry) before we turn in for the night.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Where has the time gone?
It is hard to believe that it has been so long since we have posted anything. Re-entry to seminary life has been more difficult than I had expected, especially the schedule.
Internship is preparation for ministry, and most Lutherans do their internship during the 3rd year of seminary, then come back to the seminary for the 4th year. This makes some sense, in that it gives us a chance to reflect on internship, ask questions about those things that came up during internship, and give us some time to get ready for first call. The disadvantage for those who opt to modify the schedule and do their internship during the 4th year is that they usually end up with several months of unemployment (or at least not church employment) while awaiting assignment. The disadvantage of the "normal" routine of 3rd year internship is the abrupt schedule changes, from school to internship, then internship back to school.
All this said, it is the last year of seminary, we are back in our house, back in classes, and well underway towards graduation. Unfortunately, one of the things that has suffered is keeping this blog updated. It has been almost a month since either of us posted anything. And yes, we really have been busy.
Our first several weeks back, we were busy unpacking, spending our weekends helping with the lake-side services and campground ministry, and trying to re-adjust to seminary life. We also went back to our campus jobs - Ruth in the library and me in the computer lab. I also inherited the student web site, which had crashed and had to be rebuilt. On top of all of this, we had to write approval essays. Well, enough of that. We have been busy, and not posting very regularly.
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You have probably noticed that the blog has a new look. Blogger has made some changes, and offered new templates, so I decided to try something new. I was not very happy with the way the blog was looking, and during one of the last changes, our picture went away. Now, with the new template, I was able to put it back and have more control over the look of the blog. Hope you like it.
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What else is going on? Well, we just had our fall break - a 5-day weekend! It was a nice break, but not all relaxation. Just as we were making our plans for the things we wanted to do, Rusty's laptop hard drive crashed, so we spent a lot of time recovering files. I had just had to replace my laptop, and am still getting files transferred over to it, so most of the first two days of our break was centered around computers - updates, backups, and repairs.
Another things that happened over break was that I had a chance to spend some time with a couple of friends and play with my new hobby some. There have been 2 ham fests in the area in the last 6 weeks, so I have gone to look (but with no money to spend) at ham radios, antennas, and other neat stuff. I now have (thanks to a friend) an antenna and a 10-foot pole so that I can get better signals on my radio. I just finished putting it together, and hopefully will get a chance to try it out soon. It seems that the adapter I bought was not the one I needed so I will have to find another one before I can make the final connections.
Enough for now, and I really do plan to get back into more of a routine of posting. Really.
Internship is preparation for ministry, and most Lutherans do their internship during the 3rd year of seminary, then come back to the seminary for the 4th year. This makes some sense, in that it gives us a chance to reflect on internship, ask questions about those things that came up during internship, and give us some time to get ready for first call. The disadvantage for those who opt to modify the schedule and do their internship during the 4th year is that they usually end up with several months of unemployment (or at least not church employment) while awaiting assignment. The disadvantage of the "normal" routine of 3rd year internship is the abrupt schedule changes, from school to internship, then internship back to school.
All this said, it is the last year of seminary, we are back in our house, back in classes, and well underway towards graduation. Unfortunately, one of the things that has suffered is keeping this blog updated. It has been almost a month since either of us posted anything. And yes, we really have been busy.
Our first several weeks back, we were busy unpacking, spending our weekends helping with the lake-side services and campground ministry, and trying to re-adjust to seminary life. We also went back to our campus jobs - Ruth in the library and me in the computer lab. I also inherited the student web site, which had crashed and had to be rebuilt. On top of all of this, we had to write approval essays. Well, enough of that. We have been busy, and not posting very regularly.
************
You have probably noticed that the blog has a new look. Blogger has made some changes, and offered new templates, so I decided to try something new. I was not very happy with the way the blog was looking, and during one of the last changes, our picture went away. Now, with the new template, I was able to put it back and have more control over the look of the blog. Hope you like it.
***************
What else is going on? Well, we just had our fall break - a 5-day weekend! It was a nice break, but not all relaxation. Just as we were making our plans for the things we wanted to do, Rusty's laptop hard drive crashed, so we spent a lot of time recovering files. I had just had to replace my laptop, and am still getting files transferred over to it, so most of the first two days of our break was centered around computers - updates, backups, and repairs.
Another things that happened over break was that I had a chance to spend some time with a couple of friends and play with my new hobby some. There have been 2 ham fests in the area in the last 6 weeks, so I have gone to look (but with no money to spend) at ham radios, antennas, and other neat stuff. I now have (thanks to a friend) an antenna and a 10-foot pole so that I can get better signals on my radio. I just finished putting it together, and hopefully will get a chance to try it out soon. It seems that the adapter I bought was not the one I needed so I will have to find another one before I can make the final connections.
Enough for now, and I really do plan to get back into more of a routine of posting. Really.
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