Experimental Christianity
Lamb Chopped
Shipmate
in All Saints
I'm sticking this in All Saints because I'm not interested in a knock-down drag-out fight about whether it is possible to prove the existence of God experimentally or otherwise.
What I would like to talk about (if anyone else would) is the kinds of experiences my family have been having, especially this year. Are other people having similar things they'd be willing to share? I'm interested because this stuff has opened up a whole new area of understanding for me when I thought my wide reading etc. had pretty much covered the gamut--and now I'm back to preschool again!
1. My husband is right now attempting to manage a work situation where the "love your enemy" thing comes into play. Basically he can either put his foot down, use his political capital, and get somebody who's being an asshole fired; or he can attempt to handle it pastorally and see what happens. He was intending to do the former (the behavior was REALLY obnoxious) until we got slammed with the Gospel reading for last Sunday; he did a 180. Only God knows if the outcome will be any better--obviously he never guaranteed it would "work" in any way, just commanded us to do it--but we'll still be very interested to see.
2. My son (early twenties) has been learning to pray, etc. as an adult rather than a child tagging along with his parents' practices. When he asked me for pointers I was a bit flummoxed and said some basic things to him, but the main one was that he should ask the Lord to be his teacher and see how things went. I also pointed out that God could use imagination if he wanted to communicate, but that we need always to test whatever communications we think we are getting.
He's apparently getting on like a house on fire, and I'm sort of staring at the situation in bemusement. It has expanded to affecting several very practical areas of his life, including learning to drive and coping with medical stuff.
3. I too suddenly had my prayer life come disturbingly alive for me this past year (
) and am very grateful for it, but also thinking WTF? We are very boring mainstream Lutherans, and haven't become charismatic or gotten into drugs or anything.
Anybody else out there?
What I would like to talk about (if anyone else would) is the kinds of experiences my family have been having, especially this year. Are other people having similar things they'd be willing to share? I'm interested because this stuff has opened up a whole new area of understanding for me when I thought my wide reading etc. had pretty much covered the gamut--and now I'm back to preschool again!
1. My husband is right now attempting to manage a work situation where the "love your enemy" thing comes into play. Basically he can either put his foot down, use his political capital, and get somebody who's being an asshole fired; or he can attempt to handle it pastorally and see what happens. He was intending to do the former (the behavior was REALLY obnoxious) until we got slammed with the Gospel reading for last Sunday; he did a 180. Only God knows if the outcome will be any better--obviously he never guaranteed it would "work" in any way, just commanded us to do it--but we'll still be very interested to see.
2. My son (early twenties) has been learning to pray, etc. as an adult rather than a child tagging along with his parents' practices. When he asked me for pointers I was a bit flummoxed and said some basic things to him, but the main one was that he should ask the Lord to be his teacher and see how things went. I also pointed out that God could use imagination if he wanted to communicate, but that we need always to test whatever communications we think we are getting.
He's apparently getting on like a house on fire, and I'm sort of staring at the situation in bemusement. It has expanded to affecting several very practical areas of his life, including learning to drive and coping with medical stuff.
3. I too suddenly had my prayer life come disturbingly alive for me this past year (
) and am very grateful for it, but also thinking WTF? We are very boring mainstream Lutherans, and haven't become charismatic or gotten into drugs or anything.Anybody else out there?
Comments
All this sounds like an outpouring of God's grace, and a matter of rejoicing!
I believe that being able to observe oneself - that is to observe the mechanics of one's own behaviours and thoughts - is a critical skill in developing a good hypothesis and accepting whatever results the experiment brings.
I'm approaching Christianity crabwise - dialectically as it were. My faith is the faith of Thomas the Contender, a somewhat inferior brand that demands personal experience as its confirmation.
AFF
I chose the word by analogy. This year (really lifelong, but this year it's gone to extremes) it seems like we've been invited (by God, I mean) to try various little things (in prayer, in action, and so forth) and see how they work out. And the result has had my head spinning.
I confess, I'm hoping to hear this has happened to others. I'm aware of at least one other on the Ship. But for all the odd things that have happened to us in the years of our mission service, this has been a new level of wow.
And RockyRoger, you are so right. But I can't say it's been completely comfortable--much the reverse, a lot of the time. I guess I thought I knew what I was doing, mostly.
Yeah. They gave me a new bionic one which I'm running in.
KarlB , I have 2 bionic hips and they are working fine after many miles of use and abuse!
It's generally getting the idea about what's required of it.
Yeah, this "spiritual life" thing isn't something I really get, as I've possibly mentioned before. I just go through life with a hope that there's something beyond and that's is vaguely God shaped as I understand that through Christianity, but there's never a sense of something specific going on.
I did say this has not been normal for us
Still, this year has been really weird even for us.