Sky Gaze Fam

...there must be a definite termination point in the self-examination process. Otherwise, we can easily fall into a permanent habit of self-condemnation. Confession begins in sorrow, but it ends in joy. On the matter of complexity. It seems to me that when complexities abound, so does sorrow, and when simplicity is present, there also accompanies joy. In this chapter on confession I see also a path (and a call) to simplify. We become overburdened with the weight of many things, and we are not able to bear it. My wife, my work, my daughter, each has complexity to it that I do not fully understand. I try to bend each of these to my control and find an inability to steer them as I want, they each having their own wills. I confess that I have tried to do what is not meant for me. The Lord is the Shepherd, and yet I am His charge. I have great sorrow in these things. Yet my sorrow is not quite what it needs to be, not quite pure enough. It is mixed with sorrow for myself that results ...

With profound common sense Francis de Sales counsels, “Do not feel worried if you do not remember all your little peccadilloes in confession, for as you often fall imperceptibly, so you are often raised up imperceptibly.” Does all this sound complicated? Do you fear you might miss one of the points and thus render everything ineffectual? It is usually much more complicated in the analysis than in the experience. Remember the heart of the Father; he is like a shepherd who will risk anything to find that one lost sheep. We do not have to make God willing to forgive. In fact, it is God who is working to make us willing to seek his forgiveness. Last night, tired and falling asleep, as we were getting pretty heady with Paul's analysis of Christ as subordinate to God, Brad spoke out, "it should not be this complicated." Today I come across this quote from Foster and it encourages me. When we get analytical, we find reasons, and methods; but when we listen to the heart we ...

I cannot say I experienced any dramatic feelings. I did not. ~Foster CoD On speaking of his confessional experience, Foster gives us the above quote. Dramatic feelings are indications of "all at once" experiences. I love those. They are filled with triumph, possibility, flourish, resolve, and overwhelming emotion. You feel like you are really getting somewhere. But as God draws us to a deeper life, He wants us to pay attention to the smaller details. There, of course, will always be place for the grand and magnificent, but our everydays are filled with smaller things. And it is here that I am seeking to re-establish my walk with God. Correction, I pray that is where God has me going to get deeper with Him. I remember a book that really impressed me, A Forest Unseen. In the book's introduction, Haskell, likens the beauty of 10 square meter spot in the forest to a mandala. He reflects on the beauty of a mandala built grain by grain of colored sand to make a magnificen...

The path is blaringly obvious if you assess that you are not making progress. Simply do what needs to be done to make progress, even the smallest thing. The trouble is that we can't always tell if we're making progress or not. Am I moving forward with You, Lord? How can I tell, because I feel like I am? Let me walk in what you have for me today, in the fullness of the measure of resurrection life. In Jesus Name, Amen

The purpose of penance is to help us move into that deeper sense of the sinfulness of sin. I live my life in contrast. When next to folks performing terribly, I feel I am doing well. When next to folks performing admirably, I feel miserable. Mostly, I feel miserable. On the other hand, there's so much that I say, "that's not so bad" about. Because of my life in contrast, I examine what's acceptable in the world today and I notice that I am performing outwardly better than many. And there is something in me that says, "I'm ok with that". But a relativistic life is no life to live if we want to be great people. Not great in the sense of our own fame and glory, but great in the sense that we are God's people and we aim to do His good work. Lord Jesus, 2000 years ago you rose from the dead to bring new Life to the world. Even now You are seated at the right hand of the Father and are living in Lordship through the Spirit of God. I make conf...

The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works. —AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO I read through the beginning of this chapter (Discipline of Confession) and was underwhelmed. It's as Foster says: "We imagine that we are the only ones who have not stepped onto the high road to heaven. Therefore, we hide ourselves from one another and live in veiled lies and hypocrisy." We even hide ourselves from our self. I don't want to be at the place of confession. It's an indication to me of being at the beginning. I want to have traveled a ways down the road, not discover that I've been traveling backwards and find that all of my travels have lead me to the beginning. But if it must be: We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. T. S. Eliot Lord Jesus, help me begin in confession, to not gloss over the obvious, to not miss the elephant in the room because...

“Practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another” (1 Pet. 4:9) Be kind. I get angry, I get frustrated, I get hurt... I get mean. Vindictive. Petty. I hold grudges. I feel that I am being wronged all of the time. It's probably true to an extent. But do I have to respond in kind? Rather, I need to break free from this cycle of hurt and be kind. Heavenly Father, help me to offer my services to others, the services that you call to my attention in a given situation. Help me to respond. I'm realizing the need for more quiet in my mind and heart. I complain of anxiety all of the time and I don't cease from taking input, so much of it unnecessary. So, I pray to help me quiet my center so that I can align to You and the subtlety of Your moves. Help me be responsive. "Perhaps you would like to begin by experimenting with a prayer that several of us use. Begin the day by praying, 'Lord Jesus, as it would please you bring me someone today whom I can serve.'...

Jeremy Taylor: “Love to be concealed, and little esteemed: be content to want [lack] praise, never be troubled when thou art slighted or undervalued….” I get so angry when I feel insult. Hypocrisy is also a burner. Am I not secure enough in myself to be ok with these everyday occurrences? So what if someone is insulting because they feel superior? Or if they are hypocritical because they feel that character is a fool's game? Are those not there choices? Sure, they impact me. They put me at odds with the offender, and potentially relegate me to a lower rung with those around me, should they believe the charges. But are those things true? Do I prove their truth by acting in retaliation? Lord, it is so hard to not retaliate, further, to bless rather than curse. It is inhuman. Help me today to do in the "marketplace" of real life to live by faith according to the inner man. Let me walk in step with the Spirit and learn Your rhythms, Your everyday, moment by moment oppor...

"If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh…we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ.” Bonhoeffer Just now I am listening to Ferris' 4 hour work week and reading CoD. The two are almost opposite. On the one hand Ferris is a proponent of self-centered life, and being more effective in the things you want. Foster is a Christ-centered advocate, focusing on being more effective in Christ and losing self-centeredness. They join on one point: they are hard-core humanists. They both preach for our joy, but have remarkably different paths to getting there. If I am not careful, I will not learn from Ferris what Christ has to teach me. I might learn some blend of Christian practice and the world's and be no better than when I started. Lord, help me to learn from Ferris that I am often wasting time and not focusing on what's important. Help me learn from Foster that I need more discipline in my life...

The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service. I'm having a difficult time accepting that I am subordinate to my colleague and once peer, Dr. Robertson. It is not really personal. That is, it's not the man that I have much against, but the situation. In fact, the more I reflect on it, it is rather a personal predicament, but the predicament is me, which is what makes it personal. The reason I am taking this so badly is because I think that it is a reflection on me, and that it speaks that I am not a good enough leader. As I reflect on my work, I see areas that have not held up well to scrutiny. And then I think myself an abysmal failure. But perhaps the reason that I am stuck is that I am so self scrutinizing. I wonder if others spend as much time in self doubt as I do. Probably not. And the absence of self-doubt may allow folks to exhibit a capacity that i have been lacking for a number of years: confidence! Lord, I care too much for myself, but i...

True service is a life-style. It acts from ingrained patterns of living. It springs spontaneously to meet human need. In reading this section on self-righteous service vs true service, I thought, "smug Foster, he probably doesn't really know about true service, just writing about it in the theoretical. How unfair and irresponsible. What a hard and burdensome load he won't lift a finger for" (Matt 23:4). Then I realized that my tinge of disgust might actually be conviction. After which I took notice. This morning sitting down in an over stimulated state (I'm concurrently thinking through how to not feel so pressed for time in the morning and the unwanted side effect of disquiet caused by listening to audio books in the morning) I wondered about if my morning meditations are having any impact. I'm not really giving them a good chance to. Morning meditation is part of the untenable pursuit of arriving to work by 5 if I wake up by 4. It just makes no sense t...

"Service banishes us to the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial." Foster CoD Does not this new chapter speak directly into the despair of my struggle? Has not each chapter delved deeper and deeper into the crux of the tweaks that need to be made in my life? And so it is, that as I feel my body churn, "not that, Lord", that I hear Him say, "yes, that, and it'll be fine." What does it take to be a good servant? On the one hand it takes doing what you're told to do. That's kind of the baseline. But on the other hand, there is a deeper task for the good servant. That is to perceive what is needed most and to serve in that. Lord, I have sought to not have compromised my station in life. As husband, as AP, as father, as Child of God, only let me not be embarrassed. Let me by no means be ridiculed. And I don't believe that You would will it so, but these aversions should not be guiding to me. So what if I am ridiculed? Why should I be emba...

CoD, Final Note on Discipline of Submission: "To be in a position of authority and to know that your roots are not deep enough into the divine life to command spiritual authority is a frustrating, almost desperate, quagmire." The above statement is probably a cause for much of my anxiety. "Unfit" is a word that I can't entertain, but is being entertained all the time by me. I can't help but think that God would have it just this way, that on the surface all that is asked would be beyond my capacity. In fact, it likely is. How can I hope to give someone spiritually what they need? Lord Jesus, in these days we can take it for granted that it's all a bunch of crap, and fall in line to pushing and pulling our own mounds of crap. Or else, we can call crap crap and have the faith, courage, and love to look to You to guide us in the clear. I am not able on my own to do what You've called me to, but I pray that I step into it anyway, and I pray You m...

Kind of a hard pill to swallow... it seems. Until it is swallowed. And then it is the easiest thing in the world. "It is finished" You are not your own. All the desires I have for my life, all that I think I deserve is a myth. It's hard to accept that. But when I do, if I can manage to do it, I will then realize that all I have, all that's been given to me, is from the Lord. He is my keeper. He is my fortress, my protector, my provider. He gives me strength. Reading from "Acts of Submission" in CoD, Foster considers 7 layers of submission, beginning with our submission to God, and finishing with the world. In reading, I say to myself, "wow, I'm indebted to all these?" Simply put, "yes". I am God's man. I must do as He has me to do. Lord, I pray for an end to the struggle. May my "why God" become "yes, God". And may there be joy, light, and love everlasting in You. In Jesus Name, Amen 1 Corinthians...

Foster brings up a posture of submission... "count others better than yourself". This doesn't really make sense, because, well, what if they're not better than me? Why should I count them better than me? Can't I just love them? The imperative to be beholden to a mental construct seems odd. I don't know why I'm stuck on this, but with so much other of the Gospel, I don't get it, but I get it. It's the paradox of opposites, and the truth that can be found when you lose yourself to find yourself. But "count others better"? There's a way that I'm not seeing this one, that I've got to get a hold of. Ultimately, I will submit to the authority of scripture, and the Word of God. But submission takes on a much preferred form when it is in the beating of the heart, in addition to the bending of the knee. For now, the bending of the knee. Lord, help me to count others better, to prefer the brethren, to take care of people. In my se...

In my mind is a dark place. My first thoughts, reflected upon in the light of the gospel, make me cringe. I make rapid judgements, pronouncements. When I make associations between different things, I say that "this is true". This morning, reading CoD, I find myself deeply moved by the writing on submission, I think of Foster. He has that Don Fransisco hippy look to me; probably wears sandals, lives in Colorado or the West Coast, has long hair with some hippy hair tie, and he is super smart. I can tell all of that from a smiling picture! Really, I can! But back to the pronouncements. I believe I may make them because I've long been sensitive regarding my intelligence. My mind works to prove my intelligence: if I am able to make these associations rapidly, well then I must be intelligent. Thinking rapidly equates to intelligence, and so I think rapidly to prove my intelligence. My sensitivities govern my sensibilities. Turns out I was fairly right about Foster. He doe...