Language Is A Flash Of The Human Spirit

"When each of you were born there where 6000 languages spoken on the planet. A language is not just a body of vocabulary or a set of grammatical rules. A language is a flash of the human spirit. It's a vehicle through which the soul of each particular culture comes into the material world.

Every language is an old growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, and ecosystem of spiritual possibilities... today... fully half are no longer whispered into the ears of children, they're no longer being taught to babies." 

(Wade Davis: Dreams From Endangered Cultures. TED Talk)Rob Baker

A Museum Of Memories In My Soul

"The most important question is not, do I remember my memory accurately? .... The most important thing.... is to ask these questions:

Why have I chronicle these particular memories?
Why have I remembered them the way I have remembered?
How do they help me live and believe as I do?

This is the process of narrative spiritual formation. I have built a museum of memories in my soul."

(Tony Kriz. Aloof)

Human Story

"Storytelling is an important spiritual practice. It may even be essential to the way we humans have been designed.

You see, our stories are precious things. They are the foundation of our beliefs. They are the fuel of our hope. My soul has forgotten most of my stories. They have long ago drifted away into the fog. However, there are a precious few that my soul vigorously holds on to."

(Tony Kriz. Aloof)

How Light Gets In......

"We are all broken. That's how the light gets in." - Hemingway

When Our New Thing Becomes The Old Thing

"As institutions age they tend to harden into intransigent systems and displace the simplicity of life in Christ for their own needs. Our two-thousand-year-old experiment proves that whenever we convey the life of the Spirit to an institutional arrangement, the institution wins—not always quickly, but eventually.

While I’m grateful for the good they have accomplished they don’t seem to be able to sustain a community of love nor display an accurate reflection of God’s character.

How many congregations, mission groups, and Bible studies began as a small group of people in a home burned out on the rigidity of their previous group, hopeful for a better reflection of his life and love? Soon they grow into the very organization they had fled with the hope that this time all will go well because they have better people in charge. What they don’t realize is that organizational needs shape its leaders, not the other way around. Many start out well intentioned, hoping to reform the institution and bring it back in line with the priorities of Jesus. That effort is usually short-lived as the needs of the institution to protect the influence and resources of the group require greater control in the hands of fewer people. The simplicity of loving one another will eventually get swallowed up in the process no matter how hard we try to resist. In the end, our institutions end up just like everyone else’s."

( Finding Church. Wayne Jacobsen )

Wouldn't One Religion Be Different?

"During my first trip to Israel, I was a little put off by some of the people on our pastor’s tour who were trying to convert our Jewish guide, Abraham. They kept making snide asides to him as to why he wouldn’t accept Jesus as the Messiah. On the last day we stood by the bus as we were waiting for others to bring their bags from the hotel. I asked him if he had been offended by some of the things said to him on this trip. He passed it off with a wave. “Not at all,”he answered. “I’ve been doing this for twenty years. Everyone tries to convert me to their religion—Catholics, Pentecostals, Baptists, Reformed Jews, Orthodox Jews, Mormons, Muslims—everyone.”Then he looked up at me with a smile. “Would you like to know why none of them convince me?”“I would!”I replied. “Come with me,”he said as he led me around the front of the bus and onto the edge of the road. “Do you see that building down there with the Star of David on it?”“Yes.”“That’s ours.”“Do you see that steeple with the cross on it across the way?”I nodded. “That’s yours.”And then he pointed me toward the dome of a mosque on a hillside not far away. I nodded. “That’s theirs.”I smiled trying to imagine what he’d say next. “Take off the Star of David, the cross, and the dome, and underneath aren’t they really all the same thing? You would think if one of us were serving the Living God, it would look different.”He was right. Christianity doesn’t look any different from the outside."
(Finding Church. Wayne Jacobsen )