Spiritual Autobiography

One of the assignments I have to do for this class is to write a short paper on my spiritual journey focusing on my earliest childhood memories.  Should make for a very interesting read:)  I came across some questions today that I think will be helpful as I think through my earliest memories and try to make sense of them.  I found them on this site:  http://spiritualdevelopmentcenter.org/ 

Here they are:

• What is your first name and age and where do you live?
• Does your name have a meaning or a story attached to it?
• As a child, what did your parents teach about religion? What did they teach about good and evil? How has your family’s religious background affected you?
• What scriptures or other books did your family regard as holy? How seriously were the teachings in them taken?
• How did you perceive God or the sacred when you were a child?
• Did your family observe any religious rituals? How were those rituals related to their beliefs?
• Have there been times when you felt the presence of the sacred outside your place of worship, when there were no priests, pastors, rabbis, or other teachers around? What was that experience like?
• How is your present religious affiliation or spiritual life similar to or different from your parents’? How did the change, if any, come about? Was it a long process or short? Easy or difficult?
• When have you experienced awe or wonder? Where were you, and what happened?
• Who are your saints, holy people, spiritual teachers?
• What are the important words and stories of the philosophies or religions that have shaped you?
• What holy days do you celebrate?
• Are your spiritual beliefs or values relevant to what you wear, what you do, who you are friends with?
• Has a belief in God, other deities, or a sense of something larger than yourself, shown itself in the ordinary, everyday events of your life?
• Do seemingly random events of your life seem to reveal interconnectedness?
• Call to mind the significant turning points in your life; what are they?
• What are the most significant decisions you have made?
• What are the most intense struggles and conflicts, successes and failures you have experienced?
• Have you ever felt or experienced a sense of being “called” to do something?
• How do you plan to live out your beliefs in the future?

Not exactly the typical questions you would answer to come up with your testimony.  Looking forward to the experience, digging a little deeper.  Maybe I'll be brave enough to post what I come up with;)

It's been a while.....

Well, I'm afraid that my dear husband just might have a heart attack when he sees that I've posted something on my blog again after a VERY long hiatus. But he's a blogging machine and I am most definitely not.

Since I last posted I have completed 2 introductory courses on chaplaincy. This fall I'm just starting on a class called "The Spiritual Formation of Children". I'm using one of my electives to take this class and I must admit that I'm intrigued by the topic. Spiritual formation is something that I've been reading about and experimenting with. A lot of the work Kevin and I have done on Emotionally Healthy Spirituality relates to spiritual disciplines. But interestingly I hadn't really made the connection between spiritual formation and children.

I had a bit of an 'aha' moment a couple of weeks ago, before I even started into this course. Kevin and I had decided that at the beginning of the school year that we would allow our oldest daughter to change her school night bed time to a half an hour later than last year. The stipulation we put on that change was that for the extra half hour each night that she needed to spend it in her room either reading, writing, or drawing. She is the kind of kid that would never spend any time alone if she could help it. She liked the idea of staying up later but was completely disgusted with the thought of having to spend that time alone. To be honest, before making this decision I really hadn't thought out why it was important for her to spend time alone. I can think of a hundred good reasons why I should have some alone time but it took a bit of thought for me to come up with some good reasons why she should learn how to be silent and how to enjoy solitude. We had quite the battle about this issue and in the end she chose to go to bed at her regular time rather than be alone for a half an hour.

The next day my text books for this course arrived and lo and behold as I flipped through the first one I came upon some thoughts about the spiritual discipline of solitude and how it relates to children. Interesting. I know that this course will provide the mother in me with all kinds of food for thought. Maybe I'll quit procrastinating and actually do some blogging about what I learn;)

Affirmed

So this class I'm taking is rapidly coming to an end. In a couple of weeks I'm heading off to for a weekend to do the classroom portion of the course which I'm looking forward to with a bit of fear and trepidation. So far my school experience has been long distance which is a fair amount of work but to be honest it feels fairly safe. So far it's been a bit of interaction with my professor. Actually, the last assignment I did for this class I had to post to my classes online forum for one of the other students to read and respond to. Boy, did I struggle with the idea of someone else reading what I had to say. I was a nervous wreck.

I've never been much of a go-getter kind of student. I always hated being pointed out in class. I rarely ever raised my hand to answer or ask a question. I liked to blend in. I'm recognizing now how huge areas of my life are controlled by the importance I place on what other people think of me. I hate that. It's such an obstacle to growth and healthy relationships. Deciding to go back to school really was an issue of obedience for me because I knew that's what God was asking me to do but my concern was really how unprepared and completely adequate I felt. Read: I felt pretty stupid about things I figured I should somehow be an expert in.

Anyway, I find it very interesting that this course on the theology of work is the one I find myself taking at the beginning of this whole school experience. I know that it's no coincidence. It really has helped me to form some thoughts about calling and work, especially how that relates to me as a stay at home mom. To be honest, I can't imagine myself doing anything else. I know I'm blessed. BUT I am quite convinced that whatever knowledge I gained in Bible school experience has long since evaporated as I've allowed my brain to turn to mush over the last 10 years or so.

The professor has given us two options for the final project for this course. They are:

a. If you are engaged directly in the marketplace (which I'm not): Based on readings, course interactions and personal experience, create a gospel-centered marketplace ministry plan that will guide your personal spiritual development and transformational Kingdom influence within your current occupational setting. This plan should incorporate an initial section that defines your theological foundations for the plan. As well it should contain a section in which you articulate a Christian worldview of your profession.

OR

b. If you (i.e. pastors or pastors in training) are engaged in ministry to people in the marketplace: Based on readings, course interactions, and personal experience, create a program of development and mentoring for people within your ministry setting that will equip them to engage in a gospel-centered marketplace ministry. This will include the training process, the content of that training, the mentoring process included, the spiritual formation components, etc. As well it will contain a section in which you articulate a Christian worldview of a Christian's perspective on the relationship between work and calling.

Interesting assignment and completely practical if you're working the marketplace or training to be a pastor...neither of which I am. SO, I sent off an email to my professor asking if I might be able to do the first option from the perspective of the stay at home mom and I was pleasantly surprised by his response. He was certain that I could do the assignment from that perspective. He didn't patronize me but suggested a variety of ways that he thought a stay at home mom would have a role in 'marketplace ministry'. That one little email was a HUGE encouragement to me. Now I have the task of evaluating and articulating my role as a stay at home mom as an agent for transformational Kingdom impact. Hhhhmmmm.....I'd better get busy;)

Back at it again...

It's been quite awhile since I've done any journaling about this class. Right now I'm working on two assignments. One is to interview two different Christians about their work and what they think about 'calling'. The other is to write a case study about marketplace ministry. I've never done an assignment like either of these before. Should be interesting:)

I came across a quote this morning as I was finishing up "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. He quotes a friend who once said "Christians are like manure: spread them out and they help everything grow better, but keep them in one big pile and they stink horribly". Interesting thought. It reminded me of this concept of the church gathered and the church scattered. As a body we're not really functioning as we were designed to if our focus is primarily on the church gathered. We are meant to be spread out in our community in order to be most effective. God has been working on this idea in my life over the last couple of years. Cultivating friendships with and deliberately making an effort to spend time with non-churched people has been refreshing and exciting and challenging all at the same time. Being a stay at home mom I could quite easily be homebound. Being a pastor's wife I could easily become church-bound. Combine those two roles and I'm embarrased to admit that for much of my adult life I've lived in that stupid bubble.

Losing sight.

I feel like I'm losing sight of the big picture. I feel overwhelmed and busy and on top of that I am apparently oblivious to the people around me. I have to figure out a way to balance this school thing with life because quite honestly what is the point of me going to school if in the process I am missing out on the important things in my life like relationships with friends and family and most definatley God. Something has to change today.

I

Ugh.

So I've done all my reading. I think I understand the material and now it's time to get something down on paper. I don't remember this being so hard the first time around. So, the first time around was awhile ago and admittedly my brain has gotten kind of mushy in the last 15 years or so but seriously my 4 year old has an attention span more conducive to writing a book review than I do. Feeling pretty discouraged right now.

My dad often says...

As I've been reading through this material about "marketplace ministry" I was reminded of something that my dad says on occasion.

"That pastor's so heavenly minded that he's no earthly good".

For almost all of my adult life I've been married to a pastor so I'll be honest and say that whenever he says that it gets me all riled up. I mean it's pretty hard not to take it personally. I've always taken it as meaning that he feels the "work" a pastor does, doesn't make much of a difference in the real world. That being concerned about spiritual things is great and all for the pastor but real people have real work to get done and most of the time the pastor just gets in the way.

I'm fairly certain that my dad never intended that saying to be misconstrued as a compliment:) BUT in my defensiveness, I've never really stopped to consider where that comment was coming from and if there was any truth to it. This idea of accepting criticism without allowing it to be completely devastating to me is pretty new. It takes practice to actually consider the validity of the idea even though the delivery may be lacking. So today I've been mulling over the idea that my dad just might be onto something...it's not like he hasn't been right in a myriad of other ways over the years!

So, my first question is, "Where is that attitude coming from?". The answer to this question is probably just as important as figuring out whether the attitude is right or wrong. Because I'm not my dad (ok, maybe I'm just a little bit like my dad;), at this point anything I offer in answer to that question would be pure speculation but here goes....

I wonder if this comment is a reflection of the lack of interest, respect, support, affirmation or genuine appreciation that he has received regarding his profession (in this case plumbing and heating) from any of the pastors he's had over the years. I mean we (and in this case I mean people in "paid" ministry) often give lip service to the idea that body is made up all different parts and each one is important but does the ministry of our church or even what we do on Sunday when we meet together as a body of believer's really demonstrate that? I would argue that church is not just a Sunday morning affair, that what happens every other day of the week is vitally important but do the people in my church truly believe that as well? Do the people who make up the local body of believers I worship with and serve with know their work, whether they work in the marketplace or stay home with their children or volunteer their services, know intrinsically that what they do is of great importance because they have been taught that at church?

My dad is great at what he does. He's a fantastic plumber...people pay loads of money for his services. He is respected in his profession and even though he's retired people go to him simply for advice and even pay to consult with him. Despite the confidence he has as a result of his experience and expertise in his profession he feels, and I think I can express this because he's said things like this on many occasions, that he has very little to offer the church. WHAT?!? Here's a capable and accomplished man who thinks that because his talents and gifts don't look as "spiritual" as the pastor's that he's not useful. Oh sure, he may single handedly keep the boiler going at the church with no pay or recognition and he might be the biggest reason the church's camp facility is maintained and functions every year with very few glitches. He might be the person that ANYONE in the church feels free to call if they have a plumbing dilemma. But for some reason he doesn't see doing those things as a significant or viable ministry. Granted, he has to take responsibility for what he does with those feelings and thoughts. But what role does the church and more specifically do the pastors in his life play in helping him to keep from falling for that misconception? I also have to wonder if in believing that what he has to offer isn't spiritual in nature he might feel let off the hook to really develop and mature in his relationship with God. Once again...pure speculation.

I suppose my second question would be something like this..."Is it possible to be so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good?" When your "work" is wrapped up in church do you tend to stress the importance of commitment to the church over the rest of life? Do we promote an elitist spirituality that reinforces the destructive mindset that "spiritual" professions are more noble than "secular" or regular professions. If so what does the pastor do when he needs a plumber? So many questions....think I'm going to take a break and chew on that thought for a little while.