Practicing our faith

I've just finished re-reading a book edited by Dorothy Bass -- Practicing Our Faith. Having read it several years ago, I went back to it at this time because our joint Lenten Studies with Westminster this year will deal with 'Christian practices.' Brian and I are in the process of deciding which 'practices' we will cover during the five evenings during Lent. (We haven't set the day of the week yet.)

Each chapter of this book is written by a different author. The chapters cover these practices:

Honoring the body
Hospitality
Household economics
Saying yes and saying no
Keeping sabbath
Testimony
Discernment
Shaping communities
Forgiveness
Healing
Dying well
Singing our lives

And, of course, there are other practices not covered in this book.

The season of Lent is a time of intentionally growing closer to God. Focusing on the historical spiritual practices of the Church is one way of getting closer to God.
Let me share some random quotes from this book...

"Forgiveness is not simply a one-time action...it involves us in a whole way of life...Its central goal is to reconcile, to restore communion--with God, with one another, and with the whole creation."

"By the fourth century, governance and leadership of a certain kind [in the church] triumphed, largely because Christianity gained status as a universal imperial faith in an empire walking the edges of disintegration. To state it without nuance: stability won out over change, hierarchy prevailed over egalitarianism, male-held office triumphed over gender equality, power was more centralized than dispersed, and social, political, and economic privilege lodged with the few rather than the many."

"Jesus constituted his community around power turned upside down."

"The discerning person can tell when prayer is not genuine contact with God but a conversation with oneself; when apparent humility is actually a twisted from of pride; when a vision is really an hallucination and an ecstasy a psychosomatic disturbance; when inspirations are projections of suspect desires and when a vocation to celibacy is more a flight from intimacy than a call from God."

"The Holy Spirit eludes capture by any formula."

"On the Lord's Day the people of God celebrate a mock trial, in which the law is read, confession and testimony obtained, and the verdict once again given as it was once before all time."

"What is not good on Sabbath, or in Sabbath time? Not good are work and commerce and worry."

"It is a good deed for married couples to have sexual intercourse on the Sabbath Day."

"The New Testament word for hospitality: philoxenia, a love of the guest or stranger."