Suffering | CBC Radio's Tapestry

Tapestry is a show on CBC radio on Sunday afternoons. Rodway pointed out an excellent show last week, which had a professor from Wycliffe speaking about suffering. From Tapestry's website:

The Victorian novelist George Eliot once wrote that “deep unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state.” To modern ears, Eliot’s poetic view of suffering may sound a bit much. But to the Reverend Doctor Ann Jervis , it makes sense. Ann Jervis is an Anglican Priest and professor of New Testament at Wycliff College, and at Trinity College. She is also the author of At the Heart of the Gospel: Suffering in the Earliest Christian Message.

Download the show here (right-click and select Save As...) or get the podcast (CBC Tapestry) or listen to it below:

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The Lord's Prayer | The Voice Translation

This Sunday at TILT, we'll be using the Lord's Prayer as found in a new translation of the Scripture entitled "The Voice". Check it out here. Here's the Lord's Prayer from Matthew 6:

Your prayers, rather, should be simple, like this:
Our Father in heaven,
let Your name remain holy.
Bring about Your kingdom.
Manifest Your will here on earth,
as it is manifest in heaven.
Give us each day that day's bread, no more, no less,
And forgive us our debts,
as we forgive those who owe use something.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
But let Your kingdom be,
and let it be powerful
and glorious forever.
Amen.

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The Desert Fathers | Abba Achilles Story

On Sunday night, we used the stories of the Desert Fathers as part of our intentional time of silence and listening. We have done this once before and you can go to the last time we read them. There is also a document which explains the historical practice of reading these stores in monasteries. Here is the story:

Three old men, one of whom had a bad reputation, came one day to Abba Achilles.
The first old man asked him, "Father, make me a fishing net."
"I will not make you one," Abba replied.
Then the second said, "Of your charity make one, so that we have a souvenir of you in the monastery."
But Abba Achilles said, "I do not have time."
Then the third one, who had the bad reputation, said, "Make me a fishing net, Father."
Abba Achilles answered him at once, "For you, I will make one."

Then the two other old men asked him privately, "Why did you not want to do what we asked you, but you promised to do what he asked?"

Abba Achilles gave them this answer: "I told you I would not make one, and you were not disappointed, since you thought that I had no time. But if I had not made one for him, he would have said, 'The old man has heard about my sin, and that is why he does not want to make me anything,' and so our relationship would have broken down. But now I have cheered his soul, so that he will not be overcome with grief."

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Lenten Reflections | From Spring and Nouwen

Lent has begun! If you are interested in doing some specific reflections through the Lent season, here are two options:
A booklet by Henri Nouwen which is excerpted from his book entitled "Bread for the Journey" (click on the picture to see info about the book). Read the booklet here.



Rick Wukasch has also put together some reflections stemming from the Earthkeeping course. Read the booklet here with attached song lyrics.
The Earthkeeping exercises for week two can be read here.

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Breath Prayer

From Designed Images@TILT

Breath Prayer is a powerful way to integrate truths about God, often straight from the Bible, from our heads to our hearts. It takes our knowledge of God from 'head furniture' to a living faith and reality. We often "know" many things about God and perhaps even 'switch off' when we hear people saying certain things because "we've heard it all before". But those truths don't penetrate into our being, who we are, what we actually believe, and how we go about our everyday existence. The Breath Prayer creates space where we can actually allow God's truth to enter into our everyday reality. Here is our guide to Breath Prayer.
Breath Prayer was made famous by a story from Russian folklore called The Way of the Pilgrim. The Pilgrim's prayer was "Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me a sinner". An interesting read if you ever get a chance. Given its orthodox heritage, check out an Orthodox take on the Jesus Prayer.

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The Prayer of Examen

Tonight we spent time in the prayer of examen, as we have a couple of times before. The practices, meditations and prayers used in TILT's worship gathering will be put on the site so they can be used as a resource throughout the week. We will create a PDF document that can be viewed online, printed, or whatever else you may do with a PDF document. It is our hope that the experience of using them in a corporate worship setting will spur us as a community to implement them as part of our lives throughout the week.
The prayer of examen has been used for centuries (not quite sure of history at this moment). It is a prayer used to allow God to reveal how he has been present in our lives and where we have failed to listen to him, or not received his healing and his forgiveness for sins (as well as confessing them!). Richard Foster has an excellent book on prayer and one chapter devoted to the prayer of examen. One blogger quotes from that chapter here.
Grab the prayer of examen here (or any other hyperlinked 'prayer of examen' for that matter).

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The Catholic Encyclopedia

The Catholic Encyclopedia is the ultimate resource in all things Catholic. Although we may not agree with some of the specific beliefs of our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ, it would be unwise to throw out the entire wealth of Catholic resources, knowledge, writing and spiritual practices as a result. For those of us not from a Catholic background, there is much to learn from this longstanding institution. No matter how you cut it, we ALL stem from a Catholic background seeing as it was the only Christian institution for over a thousand years. The site has a full encyclopedia, the "summa" (summary of Catholic beliefs), as well as an interesting blog. Go to The Catholic Encyclopedia.

NOTE: Internet Explorer (the bane of any web designers' existence) users who have pop-ups activated...The links here open up a new window, which is fine. If you have pop-up blocker activated, press "CTRL" while clicking on the link.

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Lesslie Newbigin

Wilbert Shenk (there's a name!) writes about Newbigin, "Lesslie Newbigin has been one of the decisive influences on the theology of mission in the twentieth century". He challenged the church to get out into the world and engage with culture rather than fearing and shunning it. He "devoted himself to reflecting on the life of faith as it intersected with that of the world". Newbigin died in 1998 after a life of significant writing, most of which can be found on this website. Go to newbigin.net.

NOTE: Internet Explorer (the bane of any web designers' existence) users who have pop-ups activated...The links here open up a new window, which is fine. If you have pop-up blocker activated, press "CTRL" while clicking on the link.

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Renovare

Renovare is founded by Richard J. Foster. As he writes, Renovare "seeks to set forth a practical strategy for spiritual growth that is for all who follow Christ". It sets out to provide resources to foster spiritual growth with hope of renewing the church worldwide. It's fancy slogan may be confusing to some. The churches with little "c" refers to the institutions, bodies, organizations that we would all recognize as churches, whereas the Church capital "C" refers to the body of believers who follow and believe in Jesus Christ. One could say that the Church is the ideal of the church perhaps. Check out Renovare here.

NOTE: Internet Explorer (the bane of any web designers' existence) users who have pop-ups activated...The links here open up a new window, which is fine. If you have pop-up blocker activated, press "CTRL" while clicking on the link.

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Dallas Willard

Dallas Willard is a professor at USC and a well-known author (more about him here. I (Scott) have personally loved The Divine Conspiracy and The Spirit of the Disciplines. His website provides many of the articles he writes as well as other resources. His writing is quite philosophical (no surprise there considering his profession), but very profound and practical all at the same time. Check it out here.

NOTE: Internet Explorer (the bane of any web designers' existence) users who have pop-ups activated...The links here open up a new window, which is fine. If you have pop-up blocker activated, press "CTRL" while clicking on the link.

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The Daily@TILT Links

On the sidebar of this blog will be a bunch of links with the names of various people, organizations, sites, and other resources. These are meant to be tools to help us in our journey of allowing God to transform us. An explanation of each link will be posted so you know exactly what you are getting yourself into! Please comment on those explanations if you find a certain site helpful so that others can benefit.

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