Tuesday, June 16, 2009

swappping theology books for kids games

So I met with my spiritual director today. We meet monthly and I am so grateful for the way this helps me focus on what God is doing in my life. Generally the two of us muddle around for a while and them boom: he asks a great question that opens up some excellent insights.

During the month I have been reflecting on the spirituality of winter. While running, I have been struck by the beauty of bare branches, which has caused me to be grateful for the gift of clarity, those moments of being truly seen and truly known. A dimension of my leadership role is to clarify, to help my community see itself truly. Equally, I crave that for myself, the ability to see myself truly and to grow out of that honesty.

Then the boom question: since leaves help feed a tree, and since winter is about losing what feeds you, I wonder what you should be losing that feeds you?

Which really got me thinking – about what does feed me, and what it might mean to lose that for a season. We talked about how this could include perhaps a change of diet, or some form of fasting.

The upshot: for winter, I’m going to read less theology books and spend more time playing games with my kids.

I discussed this with them tonight over dinner. At first they were concerned, because they thought that I got my sermons from my theology books. But when I pointed out that I can also get sermons from interacting with my kids (and often do), they decided they REALLY liked my spiritual director. Rummy-O Tin and Sequence Game, for the winter, here we come!

Posted by steve at 07:23 PM

2 Comments

  1. Brilliant idea. It’s summer not winter here and we’re meditating Calvin the workaholic but it seems like time to do a bit less in order to understand a bit more.
    thanks

    Comment by jane — June 17, 2009 @ 8:46 am

  2. Double thumbs up for games!! Making up games with Sam is the best – especially when no one else knows what we mean by “the Blocks Game”. Gold. All the best for the change in diet Steve.

    Comment by Adrian — June 18, 2009 @ 8:40 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.