4Ü #233
The danger of method
7 April 2006
- WASSUP - Cross under fire
- INSIGHT OUT - When not to speak
- OUTSIGHT IN - The danger of method
- SEE YA SUNDAY - A life forever changed: A changed circumstance
- LAST WORD - The beginnings of faith
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WASSUP - Cross under fire
A cross made of concrete and glass
Strong yet fragile
Becomes the victim of a mindless sniper
Anger
Ignorance
Violence
Vented on an object of grace
Yet the one whose name is upon the cross
Cried .
"Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing"
To see a picture of the St Columba cross go to www.stcolumba.org.nz
INSIGHT OUT - When not to speak
But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.
Mark 14:61
There is a time to speak and a time to be silent,
wisdom knows the difference.
He said it best by saying nothing at all.
Easter is a time when words should be few
and when they are spoken, they should be felt not just heard.
Listen for the sounds of
silver as it falls to the ground
anger in a vengeful crowd
the crack of a whip
silence
wood and nail
a mother's cry
"It is finished"
OUTSIGHT IN - The danger of method
Everything is in flux, and was meant to be. Life flows. We may live at the same number of the street, but it is never the same man who lives there. It could almost be written down as a formula that when a man begins to think that he at last has found his method; he had better begin a most searching examination of himself to see whether some part of his brain has not gone to sleep.
Henry Ford
Have you noticed your tendency to confine things to a method?
You search for a way of understanding that can then be repeated again and again. Not all bad, but such a way can prevent you from really learning. Because all you have learnt is a method.
The word method comes from two words "meta" (after) and "hodos" (a way of travelling). A method is a way of travelling after. Interesting that we know stuff after that fact and then we enshrine it in stone, and forever after it becomes our method.
The danger of this is that we become closed to learning the new, that which lies before us.
Has you brain gone to sleep?
SEE YA SUNDAY - A life forever changed: A changed circumstance
While change is happening all around you it seems that the things you so desperately want to change are impossible: to loose weight, to change an attitude or habit or to change the grief or sorrow of our hearts condition. Can I really change and be changed? Is there any hope for the kind of change that I really want to see happen in my life?
These are the kind of questions that we'll be exploring over the next weeks.
This Sunday morning - A life forever changed: A changed circumstance 8.30am & 10.30am
Bread & Wine - 9.45am - Weekly Communion
Starting Term 2 - Sunday 30 April 2006
The St Columba Institute of Life and Faith
The Institute of Life and Faith will operate during the school terms offering a wide variety of courses and seminars.
Easter @ St Columba
Easter week - a series of short reflective services on Easter themes (7.30pm in the Chapel)
- Monday, 10 April Love is unexpected
- Tuesday, 11 April Love is undeserved
- Wednesday, 12 April Love is given
- Thursday, 13 April Love is received
- Good Friday, 9.30am The Pain of the Cross
Easter Sunday
- Sunrise Service
- 8.30am All things are new
- 10.30am All things are new
Thanks for this time to chat.
Andrew
St Columba
Where Life and Faith Meet
andrew.norton@stcolumba.org.nz
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LAST WORD - The beginnings of Faith
I want to write about faith
about the way the moon rises
over cold snow night after nightFaithful even as it fades from fullness
slowly becoming that last curving and impossible
sliver of light before the final darkness
but I have no faith myself
I refuse to give it the smallest entryLet this then, my small poem,
like a new moon, slender and barely open,
be the first prayer that opens me to faithDavid Whyte