Our final summer reading

The first of our last set of summer readings is from Amy Carmichael and is on page 360 of our book. Prompted by events in 1901, it has immense relevance today. If you're gripped by what you read, talk to Esther or Christina. They have connections to a ministry that addresses similar problems in our own generation.

The other is online and is by a historian named James Edwin Orr. It's called "Why Campus Revivals Spark Missionary Advance." It's a tremendous faith-builder and a reminder of what God can accomplish on our campus this year.

Please read it even if you haven't been doing the readings with us this summer - it's really good!

Our Lucky Thirteenth Reading: Service

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 Service

• page 199, Hadewijch of Antwerp, Collected Letters
• page 217, Karl Rahner, Encounters With Silence

Glen sez: favorite lines "There were many pious women in the thirteenth century named Hadewijch" (199). Heh. "Let people take you for a fool; there is much truth in that." (200).

But enough of Hadewijch - on to Rahner. I really like the Rahner reading. He likes the fifty cent words a little too much, but I resonate with what he says. "It's not the affairs of this world that make my days dull and insignificant; I myself have dug the rut. Through my own attitude I can transform the holiest events into the grey tedium of dull routine. My days don't make me dull, it's the other way around" (219) and then this bolt of insight "if it's true that I can lose You in everything, it must also be true that I can find You in everything" (220). Good stuff.

We're almost done - one more week of reading, then our back to school retreat, and then IT STARTS!

Our Twelfth Reading: A Miscellany Of Thoughts

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

Miscellaneous Thoughts

• page 346, Hannah More, On Comparatively Small Faults And Virtues (ca 1800 AD)
  
• page 10, Joyce Hugget, Learning The Language Of Prayer (she's still alive)

Glen sez: Hannah More rocked it in this essay. We often settle for a gospel of "good enough." We stop worrying about the small stuff because we've learned to live with our sins and have decided that they're just part of this mortal existence. We've forgotten the call of Christ to "be perfect." Oh - and my favorite line, "Life itself, though sufficiently unhappy, cannot devise misfortunes as often as the irritable person can supply impatience." The Joyce Hugget piece didn't rise quite to the level of More's insight, but it was refreshingly clear. Many of our recent readings have been kind of hand-wavy and overly metaphorical. All in all, this week gave us one of the better sets of readings.