August 26, 2014

Chapter 4 - Lines


Part 2 - How to get close without getting hurt
Chapter 4 Unveiled Faces: Authenticity

p 69  The decision to sin always includes the thought that I cannot really trust God to watch out for my well-being.

p 72  [In the Fall] The man and the woman decide there is something they want more than community with God. They do not trust Him. They disobey. - sin always kills relationship.

p 74  To know and be known - which had always been the greatest joy of the human race - now becomes the greatest fear of the human race.

p78 Since we have the assurance of God's love no matter what, we can do a very bold thing.  We don't have to pretend to be more radiant than we really are.  We can live with "unveiled faces". (reference to Moses)

p 80  The irony of the masks is that although we wear them to make other people think well of us, they are drawn to us only when we take them off.

Self-disclosure has enormous power.

p 81  Jesus lived a common life.  He let his friends see him in unveiled moments of joy, sadness, anger and fatigue.

p 83  Sin causes us to seek hiddenness and separation, which in turn destroy community.  In confession, we enter back into community.  We come out of hiding. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, "If a Christian is in the fellowship of confession with a brother, he will never be alone again, any where."

p 86  In real life we live in a fallen world. We all fall, we fall often, and sometimes hard.  If we try to handle our fallenness on our own, if we try to keep it secret, eventually it will destroy us.  God has made a better way. He has formed a community in which people can live with unveiled faces. It really is possible to do life without hiding. All it takes is trust.

**this last point is so HARD!  Trust is hard, and living unveiled is hard.  Especially when or if you feel that you are one of very few doing so or if others around you seem uninterested, unwilling, or simply too busy to bother with another person... even a fellow Jesus follower.

August 21, 2014

Chapter 3 - Lines


Chapter 3: The Fellowship of the Mat: True Friendship

p 46  Psychologist Alan McGinnis notes that rule number one for entering into deep friendships sounds deceptively simple: Assign top priority to your relationships.

p 46  If you think you can fit deep community into the cracks of an overloaded schedule - think again. Wise people do not try to microwave friendship, parenting, or marriage.

p 48 Jean Vanier writes, There is no ideal community. Community is made up of people with all their richness, but also with their weakness and poverty, of people who accept and forgive each other, who are vulnerable with each other. Humility and trust are more at the foundation of community than perfection.

p 52 There is a world of difference between being friendly to someone because they're useful to you and being someone's friend.

p 55  Do you have any idea what the faith of one person can do for a friend?

p 57  Paul Waddell writes, "In spiritual friendship, the principal good is a mutual love for Christ and a desire to grow together in Christ. This is what distinguishes spiritual friendships from other relationships."

p 59  Dallas Willard ~ "To understand Jesus' teachings, we must realize that deep in our orientations of our spirit we cannot have one posture toward God and a different one toward other people."

p 61  There is no gift like the gift of community.

August 12, 2014

Stalled



I'm finding myself stalled at the moment.  Life is moving along of course... the kids are busy with many things, I'm reading some, cooking some, puttering around and sewing a bit.  But there is this feeling of hanging in limbo and a vague sense of frustration and weariness that is lingering emotionally/spiritually.
 
In less than a week my youngest child will be 15 years old, and the following week we will begin our new school year. I believe it is our 12th year of schooling, officially senior year for my beautiful daughter.  How is all this even possible?  There is no panic though. My software is ready for the new year, just about all the books have been purchased and are ready.  Lesson plans are mostly put in place.

Steve is on vacation next week and we hope to have some fun as a family with day trips, etc.  We are discussing college ideas, gap year ideas and some possible travel plans.  We are on the brink of so much once again and yet I don't feel stressed or overwhelmed with any of it - which is its own sort of strange.  

Perhaps stalled is a good place sometimes.

Blessings on the journey~