A few weeks ago, after a very poor sleep, I got up one morning with unhappy thoughts racing through my head. I got ready for work with my usual array of podcasts, though I wasn’t really able to hear any of them. Finally, as I was walking down the hill which forms the first part … Continue reading Silence
Last week, I wrote about the problems we have in our culture talking about sin. I ended the post saying that I think a helpful way forward in developing our ability to talk about it is to reclaim the biblical metaphors that underlie unhelpful translations like ‘sin’ and ‘wickedness’. As I was contemplating this, I … Continue reading Living and Effective
This week was the first full week of Lent, and so I wanted the practice for this week to be a specifically Lenten practice. And, since I first encountered it twelve years ago, no practice has jumped out at me as being ‘more’ Lenten, than the Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian. The famed … Continue reading Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian
One of the books that has had a disproportionate impact on me has been Ben Okri’s delightful myth Astonishing the Gods, which tells the story of a young man’s mystical journey through a enchanted island city. One of the book’s themes is learning what you already know, the idea that we keep on having to … Continue reading Learning and Learning Again
It’s been a few weeks now since I looked a practice rooted in scripture reading, so I decided this week to look at one of the other traditions commonly known as lectio divina, or sacred reading. Whereas a few weeks ago I explored devotional reading focused on different ways scripture can speak to us, this … Continue reading Lectio Divina (Gospel Contemplation)
Matthew Root 