whatever you do.

During the next few weeks I am going to engage the art of journaling. Although I do keep this blog updated on a generally frequent basis, I don’t feel that I have made use of its potential in a way that has really been able to transform and impact my life and relationships. As my vehicle in this exercise I am going to be reading and journaling through Don Postema’s devotional journal, Space for God. As I read and pray through Don’s book I will interact with various themes and images that I come across. I will do my best to articulate prayers, pictures, stories and thoughts that are stirred up through my practice.

To be completely transparent, I am doing this in part to get a grade for a class. As part of my grade in Spiritual Formation I am to engage with Don’s book through a journal to be handed in at the end of the semester. I decided to do my journaling in this more public space both to encourage myself to be consistent with my journals, and to maybe share with you all some truth and beauty along the way. I hope that this is as invigorating for you as it for me.

“What else can make us one but prayer? What else can unite us but a common recognition that all that is, is a divine gift calling forth from us words and actions of thanks? What else can gather us but a spirituality of gratitude that sets us free from our many divisions and allows us to celebrate together the presence of the living Christ among us? Don has brought together John Calvin and Thomas Merton; Dutch and Japanese drawings; Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox reflections. What unites them? Gratitude, the deep awareness of the giftedness of life. The prayer of thanks is indeed the place where we all can meet – not looking at each other and finding fault with each other but looking together at him who forgives us our faults over and again.”

– Henri J. M. Nouwen (from the preface to Space for God)

Tags: journaling, spirituality, don postema, discipline

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 20th, 2008 at 5:53 pm and is filed under Reading, Spirituality, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.