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: 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

Commentary: God, Where Are You? by Gerard Hughes

My friend Ian gave me this memoir of a renowned British Jesuit when I was ordained, together with a two-volume rubrical guide to celebrating the liturgy.  He told me that both of them would be good for me, in quite different ways.  I expect he’s right.  For nearly a decade now, I’ve pulled the rubrical guide out early in Holy Week to remind myself precisely how to unveil the Cross on Good Friday and how to bless the Paschal Candle. This year, I decided I really ought to give Gerry Hughes a turn as well.

Ian was certainly right about these being two very different sorts of books.  For though Hughes was a faithful Roman Catholic throughout his life and priest for many decades, he wasn’t the sort to fuss much about liturgical niceties, and over his life, seemed to develop an allergy to rules of most kinds.  Though the book has a few moving descriptions of Christian worship, Hughes concentrates on the ways that God is revealed in life outside the sanctuary: in loving relationships, common work for justice and peace, sad and troubling experiences and the beauty of the natural world.

Hughes is best known as a writer of spirituality for ordinary people, tracking the mysterious ways of the “God of surprises” who reveals himself in deeply personal ways.  “I can only know You,” he prays in the book’s moving preface, “through my own experience, my only access to You…No one can teach me who You are, or what You are like, unless you show me Yourself.  My experience is unique to me: it is there and there only that I can catch glimpses of You and know Your attractiveness.”