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My Year In Review 2008

December 29, 2008

Posted in: spiritual practices, the gathering

We just provided our evening of contemplative reflection on our past year.  Each station was designed to introduce a spiritual practice and a creative reflection upon your life and our life in community and world.  Below is a brief summarization of each station and a place for you to blog about each one individually.  take a moment and share with the community what you “carried away” from the evening.  If you missed the evening - download the pdf (link is on the right column) and do some of the actions at home.

STATIONS:

* AWARENESS
How have you been awake this year – to perceive and assess emotions, circumstances, and the movements of God?  What colors did you use in the painting?  What did you assess about the entire canvas - the collective colors of the canvas?

* BOUNDARIES
Who is most real, known, and loved by you?  Is your “heart” large and burgeoning outward – or is the room you are making for love small, including those who are like you in race or education or culture or economic status?   Write out some ways in which you saw God push you further in love of neighbor, enemy, and those marginalized.

* COMMUNITY
Who did you pray for?  Who has been a blessing and encouragement to you?  What prayers, for fusion, for fusion children, or for those yet to follow Christ were most powerful to you?  How did it feel to write encouragement to another person?  What was it like to receive encouragement?

* CONFESSION
What is God “killing off” asking you to “leave behind”?   How did you feel writing the ‘word’?  What was it like to wipe the ‘word’ from the sand?   How did you feel to leave the station, essentially, leaving your ‘word’ behind? 

* DEVOTION
Do you see the devotion in Mary’s action of anointing Christ?  How was it worshipful to do the same?  Did you imagine yourself before Christ in gratitude and love? 

* EMBRACE
What does it mean for you to be ‘embraced’ by God? how does your view of communion grow to include this embrace language?

* IMAGINE
What are you imagining for 2009?  What do you see your life with God and community looking like?  What hopes did God affirm in your heart as you listened to the song? 

* ICON
What was it like to try centering prayer?  Are you willing to continue the practice at other times in your life?

* REORIENTATION
The poem, Contrast, (found on the Bridgeway CD - ‘Brand New Mountain Speeches’) was an assault on much of the systems we have grown to believe “go with” the Western Christian way of life.  What systems are you finding your faith in?  Are you willing to leave the mass acceptance of these things and be a very present ‘contrast’ as you follow fully the way of Christ?