In order to offer balance to my last post, today I report that I am not out of sorts, and it’s not because my coffee was just right this morning. It’s my attitude, but more specifically my openness to God. How easy it is to forget God when the little or the big situations in life take front stage, when I try to take the lead role, when I try to give God a bit part, or worse than that, when I kick God off the stage. No God on my Playbill.
I am trying to lead all of my life with voluntary simplicity, a term elaborated on by Duane Elgin’s in his books “Voluntary Simplicity” and “Promise Ahead: A Vision of Hope and Action for Humanity’s Future.” “Simplicity is not about a life of poverty, but about a life of purpose,” he tells us. Voluntary simplicity is not only about simplifying our possessions and circumstances, but about leading a life of meaning, which by its very nature is spiritual.
This idea trusts me back, once again, to God’s call to me to pray for people, a call that all too often languishes as one of many acts in the play that I am leading. It’s an isolated scene in the midst of others, leaving me out of sorts. When I think of prayer as my vocation, however, all the scenes and acts come together as one play about God working in my life. God, as playwright, director and lead actor, but definitely needing me in a supporting role.
I have more to say about this, but I don’t know what. It’s a process, and I need to be with it, pray with it. I guess I’d say I need more rehearsal time.
I am trying to lead all of my life with voluntary simplicity, a term elaborated on by Duane Elgin’s in his books “Voluntary Simplicity” and “Promise Ahead: A Vision of Hope and Action for Humanity’s Future.” “Simplicity is not about a life of poverty, but about a life of purpose,” he tells us. Voluntary simplicity is not only about simplifying our possessions and circumstances, but about leading a life of meaning, which by its very nature is spiritual.
This idea trusts me back, once again, to God’s call to me to pray for people, a call that all too often languishes as one of many acts in the play that I am leading. It’s an isolated scene in the midst of others, leaving me out of sorts. When I think of prayer as my vocation, however, all the scenes and acts come together as one play about God working in my life. God, as playwright, director and lead actor, but definitely needing me in a supporting role.
I have more to say about this, but I don’t know what. It’s a process, and I need to be with it, pray with it. I guess I’d say I need more rehearsal time.
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