Our Seventh Reading: The Habit of Simplicity

This summer we're reading through selected excerpts from Spiritual Classics, an anthology of writings about the habits faithful Christians have practiced for centuries.

The Habit Of Simplicity

• page 111, A.W. Tozer excerpts from The Pursuit of God (ca 1925 AD)
• page 134, Clare of Assisi "Letters to Blessed Agnes of Prague" (ca 1225 AD)

Glen sez: Hands down my favorite line has to be "you also know that one who is clothed cannot fight with one who is naked." I like Clare of Assisi's style. Tozer is convicting as always. Both readings this week take a whack at the dominant idol of American culture - stuff.

Our Sixth Reading: The Habit of Meditation

This summer we're reading through selected excerpts from Spiritual Classics, an anthology of writings about the habits faithful Christians have practiced for centuries.

The Habit Of Meditation

• page 5, Thomas More "A Godly Meditation" (ca 1500 AD)
• page 22, Marguerite Porete "The Soul's Seven Stages" (ca 1300 AD)

Glen sez: Assuming that you're not totally consumed with the last Harry Potter book, you'll notice that this is the first week we've had two really old readings - usually it's one older one and a relatively recent one. The More piece, in particular, is a bon mot bonanza. The Porete one sounds stranger to our ears, but it represents a very common way of describing the path to Christian maturity back in the day - breaking spiritual progress up into a mystical number of stages (often 7).

Two readings that we didn't actually assign (by Merton and Hugget) are much more practical when it comes to describing the discipline of meditation. I commend them to you.

Questions:

1. Favorite quote from the last two weeks?
2. Do you think Porete's essay is mostly accurate or mostly off?

Our Fifth Reading: The Habit of Fasting

This summer we're reading through selected excerpts from Spiritual Classics, an anthology of writings about the habits faithful Christians have practiced for centuries.

The Habit of Fasting

1. page 57: "A Fasting On Criticalness" by Catherine Marshall
2. page 73: excerpts from A Serious Call To A Devout And Holy Life by William Law

Glen sez: Although Law's essay easily demolished something I once believed for many years, I found Marshall's essay on criticalness to be boring, poorly written, and completely irrelevant....

Questions:
No questions this week. Take a break.

Our Fourth Reading: The Habit of Confession

This summer we're reading through selected excerpts from Spiritual Classics, an anthology of writings about the habits faithful Christians have practiced for centuries.

The Habit of Confession

• page 240: Leo Tolstoy (ca 1850 AD) "Why Do Men Stupefy Themselves?"
• page 337: John Wesley (ca 1750 AD) "The Firstfruits of the Spirit"

Glen sez: Both of these writings are about being aware of our sinfulness and not so much about the habit of confession per se. Confession is implicit in the concepts of self-awareness and authenticity - once we know who we are we allow those who are close to us to see us in the same way. Confession to other humans (and not merely to God) is a key Biblical concept: "...confess your sins to one another..." James 5:16.

Questions (answer in the comments)

1. Wesley divides sins up into "sins of infirmity", "sins of surprise", and "sins of disobedience." What other categorizations of sin have you seen? Have any been helpful to you?
2. Best quote?
   

Our Third Reading: The Habit of Prayer

This summer we're reading through selected excerpts from Spiritual Classics, an anthology of writings about the habits faithful Christians have practiced for centuries.

The Habit of Prayer
o page 37: Agnes Sanford: "Experiments in Prayer" (ca 1950 AD)
o page 43: Author of The Cloud of Unknowing: "Starting to Pray" and "How and Why Short Prayer Pierces Heaven" (ca 1350 AD)

Glen sez: I really like the practicality of Sanford, but the reading I'm most excited about this week is from The Cloud of Unknowing. It's a missive from another era and is just different enough from our expectations to really stimulate reflection.

Questions (answer in the comments)

1. What's the best quote from the readings?
2. What do you do when you get distracted during prayer?
3. What's the most helpful book/article/sermon/Bible study about prayer? Link to it if it's online.