listening 3, a prayerful community
EQ: How does God the Father listen to His people?
Ephesians 3: 14-19
‘For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.’
EP: There are five ‘yous’ in this passage. In the Greek they are all plural. They point to community; the trinity; Jesus and His disciples; His spirit with ours; His church. There is power in community. Power in a prayerful, listening community. It is the power of listening love.
talking, teaching points:
notes:
A. We listen to nature; others; our city. Listening -is by its nature about relationship; ____________________________________________________________________________________________
B. _Listening is hearing-hearing is about reflecting; thinking without assumptions or judgements. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
EP: He listens to us as unique individuals; and He listens to us all, in our community,
thoughts:
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Small Group activity: In your group (or by yourself-though try to find a ‘community’ to do this exercise) share one verse you have read (John 17?) that spoke to your heart today. State why/how this verse spoke to you. At the end of your sharing time, praise God thankfully (Step 3 from this morning, the Garland of Praise) in small group community. (12 minutes.)
• your community’s thanksgivings:
• Whole group sharing time:
listening, part 4
Open in a prayerful reading of John 17 in still another translation, Young’s Literal Translation
EQ: How does the Holy Spirit take Jesus’ words and life into our hearts and minds? What is the work of the Spirit?
We keep our unique voice, our unique character when we listen to, by, with and in the Spirit. Yet, as Christians, we become like Christ by listening to the same word, the same heart, the same mind, by the same Spirit that worked with Him. NLT John 17:17 ‘Make them Holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth.’
Essential Question/thoughts:
EQ: What stops our hearts; our minds from listening?
• Hard hearts (Pharaoh; Aaron’s sons-Nabab and Abihu; Ananias and Sapphira;)
• Unreasoning animals, darkness of words & thoughts (Jude)
ET: How are our minds, our hearts taught to listen?
• Soften, listening hearts (Acts 2)
• Transformed minds (Saul/Paul) Romans 7; Romans 12
Romans 12 shows a path to listening,
‘Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.’ NIV
Now, let’s look at Young’s Literal Translation of these verses,
I call upon you, therefore, brethren, through the compassions of God, to present your bodies a sacrifice — living, sanctified, acceptable to God — your intelligent service;
2 and be not conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, for your proving what [is] the will of God — the good, and acceptable, and perfect.
EQ: What is a transformed mind, or in the Greek, a ‘nous? ’nous?’
Here is one scholar’s definition.
Commonly translated as ‘mind’ or ‘intellect’, the Greek word nous is a key term in the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus. What gives nous its special significance there is not primarily its dictionary meaning – other nouns in Greek can also signify the mind – but the value attributed to its activity and to the metaphysical status of things that are
‘noetic’ (intelligible and incorporeal) as distinct from being perceptible and corporeal.
In Plato’s later dialogues, and more systematically in Aristotle and Plotinus, nous is not only the highest activity of the human soul but also the divine and transcendent principle of cosmic order.
In its pre-philosophical usage nous is only one among a number of terms for mind. It is chiefly distinguished from these other words by its tendency to signify ‘intelligent’ activity – realizing, understanding, planning, visualizing – rather than mental processes more generally, including the emotions.(emphasis mine)
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/A075
Romans 12:1-2 uses this Greek word, nous, for mind, in this phrase, ‘be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’
Evening talk/teaching notes:
• The Greeks understood that listening involved both the heart and the mind and the spirit. You listen as a ‘whole’ person.
• You can’t hear if you are not living in a ‘transformed’ moment. By this I mean the quick, present, passing moment. If you are living with assumptions and judgements before or as you listen, you can’t hear in the the moment. You are listening to someone or something else.
Review & vision casting _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It is time to cast a vision. (step 4 in our ‘Simple way to pray’) If you really believed this scripture is true, how would the scripture change your life? Now pray for change; for transformation, the next step. For ‘nous’
Closing: We are now at the dimming, the closing of the day. Now is a time to sit silently with Him and move to private individual confession.
Closing individual activity, confession: On the basis of this scripture, what can you confess to God?
Tags: listening, parts 3 and 4
charles osewalt's blog 
light in August
21 Auglight in August
ideas, light in August
Light more light, who said that,
What is it about light in August? Isn’t there great light in August already? Why is Faulkner praying in his title for August light?
Well, by blog this week is ‘light in August’
Time for a light, fluffy entry. Summer light. Let’s start with a tease and a promise,
essential writing: Fairy tales coming true, they are happening to you… (essential writing is ‘coming’ to you very soon in this blog…By its end)
August for me is a time to do lightness. I, this ‘doing’ may entail many things, or nothing. But it always includes reflecting, lightly, about myself. So here are my reflective do (they all are really one big thought, thoughts linking together) of August 2013, in no certain order
What are my reflective dos?
Ideas, adventures, people and images that have ‘grabbed ‘me
do
Tweets: Charlie: everyday I ask Priscilla to marry me’ my friend Martin sharing his response in the presence of his wife Deborah: ‘every other day I ask my wife to divorce me’ the responses and questions are the same: both Martin and I are telling our ‘espouses’ how much we love them, in our own ways
Photos: me kissing priscilla
Images: Keats writing ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ in the Heath @ Hampstead
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: INTERVIEWER
How do things start? One of the recurring images in The Autumn of the Patriarch is the cows in the palace. Was this one of the original images?
GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ
I’ve got a photography book that I’m going to show you. I’ve said on various occasions that in the genesis of all my books there’s always an image. The first image I had of The Autumn of the Patriarch was a very old man in a very luxurious palace into which cows come and eat the curtains. But that image didn’t concretize until I saw the photograph. In Rome I went into a bookshop where I started looking at photography books, which I like to collect. I saw this photograph, and it was just perfect. I just saw that was how it was going to be. Since I’m not a big intellectual, I can find my antecedents in everyday things, in life, and not in the great masterpieces.
Food & Service: the idea of Crepes,
Fresh Sushi; Minca’s Ramen; & Gauchos in Hampstead’s staff
Words: David Mitchell on ‘medieval topos’ : ‘As the Eyjafjallajokull Volcano was spewing plumes of ash into European airspace in April, shuttering airports and stranding millions, the British novelist David Mitchell, a tall, gracious, high-spirited man of 41, was marching me across a long, flat tidal beach near his home in Ireland’s West Cork. Along the way, he told me a story about the perils of humility. “I had a short and rather valuable lesson,” Mitchell said after a morning on the beach, “one of these warnings that the universe gives you on a platter sometimes. I’d done an event in New Zealand at a very large auditorium, hundreds of people, and I was kind of pleased with it; it had gone well. A woman came up to me afterwards, a medievalist at the university there, and she said, ‘Have you heard of the humility topos?’ I said no. She explained that, in the medieval era, humility was seen as a great virtue. The humility topos was used for these abbots — you can think of a good one in Eco’s ‘Name of the Rose’ — who were actually monsters of arrogance, but were always banging on about how humble they were — ‘Just like our lord Jesus Christ. We serve him in humility’ — when they were the least humble people you can find in history. Some even became pope. And the woman looked at me and said, ‘Watch out for the humility topos.’ And then sort of disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Children’s book: ‘Fables’ by Arnold Lobel-story ‘the Lobster and the Crab’
Restaurants: the Fatty Crab on the Upper West Side (now closed)
Travels: China (haven’t been yet); Venice; any one place that’s Michael and Sarah tell me to go (but only one!)
Friends: can’t choose anyone, miss them all madly even when they are with me in my heart’s mind
Pets: Our Dalmatian, Pepper & walking with her in a white snow blinding New York blizzard and ‘seeing’ why fire-fighters have Dalmatians as their dogs
Encouragements: Tim and Kathy’s birthday card; Alex’s smile & laugh; writing
Unfinished writing work: my movie screenplay ‘Weight Losers.’ Young hip very overweight guy has a lovely girlfriend who has lost a lot of weight and she wants the same for him. She brings ‘Charles’ (or Rick Bann on????) to an all female Weight Losers meeting and….
So now, your Fairy Tale…and you have a choice. Choose one Fairy tale to live in. Reflect on ‘why’ you choose this tale for yourself now, in this time and place. Write your tale of choice and the ‘why’ or reason for your choice in my comment box. I will respond to all ‘Tales’ by 2 September. (If you just want to reflect and not receive a comment, simply state no comment.)
Prompt: You are a character in a traditional Fairy tale. (For example: Snow White) The story narrative cannot change in its ending (Snow White marries the Prince and leaves the 7 Dwarfs) and you will live in that tale 999 years. State what tale you choose and why you choose that tale and that character. How to begin…How about….. Once upon a time, for 999 years…