Ponder: prayer as "a natural activity of the soul"

“With the dignity, even austerity of the Prayer Book there goes also a basic simplicity which is not affected by the richness of its language. Its prayers are the expression of a filial relationship between a child and his father—a weak, sinful and erring child, a Father of infinite majesty and power, but still a child and a father.  Their language is the direct address of a person talking with a person.  Because of this view, which has been learned from the Bible, Anglican writers have little to say about complicated techniques of devotion; they are content to accept prayer as a natural activity of the soul, as ordinary in its way as converse between human beings.  There must of course be a keen awareness of the overwhelming greatness of the Being who is approached, and a corresponding sense of the unworthiness of the one who is drawing near.  So vast a difference in the capacities of the two may lead to seeming disappointments, to hesitations and doubts s a man is led through ways which he is incapable of understanding at the time, but love, faith, and perseverance will prove the unfailing goodness of God toward us in the end.”

C. J. Stranks, Anglican Devotion, 276-7

Ponder: "the residual sadness of the lonely heart"

“I often run across people who have gone back to menial work in their 60s and 70s because they just want to get out of the house. When you ask them more questions, you find that they are devoted to home and work, but that they often don’t have rich connections outside these spheres.  Many of their friends came through work, but those friendships tend to fade away when the job ends. There are older people who feel unneeded. There are younger people who feel lost. Somehow these longing souls never find each other.

Suburbia isn’t working. During the baby boom, the suburbs gave families safe places to raise their kids. But now we are in an era of an aging population, telecommuting workers and single-person households.  The culture and geography of suburbia are failing to nurture webs of mutual dependence.

We are animals who can’t flourish unless we can’t get along without one another. Yet one finds too many people thrust into lives of semi-independence.

These are not the victims of postindustrial blight I’m talking about; they are successful people who worked hard and built good lives but who are left nonetheless strangely isolated, in attenuated communities, and who are left radiating the residual sadness of the lonely heart.”

David Brooks, Dignity and Sadness in the Working Class, New York Times, 20 Sep. 2016

Ponder: "receptivity over activity"

Eudaimonia, then, is not joy. It is not “the summit of integral well-being.” It does not fulfill all desire. For we can intelligibly desire what we cannot intelligibly intend, what we cannot bring about through our agency. One of the ways in which Christianity upended pagan thought was in elevating receptivity over activity; if God is our final good, that good is not, contra standard pagan thought “something we can achieve for ourselves.” God is the ultimate, if imperfectly known, object of desire. What we desire is not simply that we be properly responsive to God in and through our agency. More than this, we desire fellowship with God, a participation in perfected relationship with God, one aspect of which is its fruition: the enjoyment of God. Joy is not simply a matter of objective relations; it is intrinsically experiential, an experience of fellowship, of finding fulfillment in God."
Jennifer Herdt, The Task and Gift of Life

Ponder: They miss me if I'm not there.

"That's what these programs sell, along with soul and power, a venue far more intimate than the gym.  They offer a place to belong, a correction to that loss of social connections that Harvard's Robert D. Putnam diagnosed in "Bowling Alone."  Washingtonians are sweating together.  In a recent study and symposium, two Harvard Divinity students compared CrossFit to church, a place where unaffiliated millenials find community and spiritual togetherness.

Solidcore is Anne Callas's community.  "If feel like they miss me if I'm not there," says the 34-year old librarian, who is training to become a coach.

In a city as transient and as uptight as D. C., this is awsome--the ability to create relationships and community," says Solidcore's Bradshaw.  Indeed, the two-year old program's goal, according to the promotional video, is "to create a second home."

Karen Heller, "Sweat Equity-What's Behind the Rise of Intense Boutique Fitness Programs?"  The Washington Post 4 Dec. 2015, C4