Awake to What Is Happening
by Simone
Last year I participated in the second year of Luther’s Contextual Leadership Initiative(CLI)—which is a great way to field test what we are learning as seminarians. One aspect of CLI is monthly cluster meetings with other Luther students and the pastors from our contextual education congregations. In our monthly meetings we explored testimony, generosity, building community, hospitality and worship as ways in which we practice our faith.
The practice of prayer was the focus of one of the monthly cluster meetings. We focused on Luke 1:46-56 and as part of the accompanying reading we considered a quote from Marcina Wiederkehr’s, “The Song of the Seed: The Monastic Way of Tending the Soul.” I have the full quote posted on my desk. Heading into the final weeks of this semester and on the verge of advent these words from Wiederkehr jump off the page:
“When I do not trust…I do not allow myself to be a channel for the divine life. God uses me for a channel anyway, but it would be so much more delightful if I could live awake to what is happening in this divine exchange.”
It is not easy for busy seminarians to remain awake to what is happening. Any delight remaining in the last few weeks of courses could be supplanted by a wanting to just get the semester over. Or the joy and anticipation of advent could give way to obsessing over holiday preparations. UNLESS we can hold on and, as Wiederkehr advises, “trust the God who wants to companion.”
My prayer this day for myself and my peers is that we are awake to what is happening in and around us.
The practice of prayer was the focus of one of the monthly cluster meetings. We focused on Luke 1:46-56 and as part of the accompanying reading we considered a quote from Marcina Wiederkehr’s, “The Song of the Seed: The Monastic Way of Tending the Soul.” I have the full quote posted on my desk. Heading into the final weeks of this semester and on the verge of advent these words from Wiederkehr jump off the page:
“When I do not trust…I do not allow myself to be a channel for the divine life. God uses me for a channel anyway, but it would be so much more delightful if I could live awake to what is happening in this divine exchange.”
It is not easy for busy seminarians to remain awake to what is happening. Any delight remaining in the last few weeks of courses could be supplanted by a wanting to just get the semester over. Or the joy and anticipation of advent could give way to obsessing over holiday preparations. UNLESS we can hold on and, as Wiederkehr advises, “trust the God who wants to companion.”
My prayer this day for myself and my peers is that we are awake to what is happening in and around us.
posted by Simone at 10:17 PM
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