Saturday, June 27, 2009

Praying with the Bible 3

Slides-show on the top right hand corner of the page................................./^ A Fire that kindles other Fires... -------------------------------------------- Make an act of faith in the loving presence of the Triune God... Father, Son and the Holy Spirit... Be aware of where you are and what you are feeling just now... joy, sorrow, anxiety, doubt, anger, restlessness,... Look at the above picture... spend a few moments looking at it... Be quiet... Let every negative experience flow away from you... The Triune God is present and active in you here and now... Let us pray the following verses from the Book of Genesis line by line with lots of hope and experience its inner meaning... And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that light was good; And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. (Genesis 1: 3-5) _____________________________ Contact E-Mail: vmalpan@gmail.com Thank you. Do visit again.

Friday, June 26, 2009

ILAH Experience

ILAH - Experience & Community Life (Intimacy, loneliness, alienation and hostility) Community is not so much a place, as it is a way, a journey, a pilgrimageJn 15:1-15; 1Cor 13:4-7; Gal 5:22-23; Ps: 2;,103; 111; 102; 69; 70; 109 The Four Words: a) Intimacy, b) Loneliness, c) Alienation and d) Hostility can summarize our (my) experience of Being Friends in the Lord in Communities… All these experiences are spiritual experiences which are open to me only because I am an embodied spirit… INTIMACY : an inward state of being positively affected by an experience. It may be an interpersonal relationship of being accepted, loved, encouraged, care-fronted, forgiven etc… The relationship can be between God and my own person, between other human persons and my own person… Intimacy seems to me to be a moment of being with another and enjoying it… Solitude = being alone but in a positive way… [I am alone with the ALONE] LONELINESS: being conscious of being alone in an uncomfortable/painful way… loneliness seems like a moment of being separated from others when I would like to be with them. Can we really believe that loneliness is good, even necessary? ALIENATION: State of being separated from the other/s… It may be an active experience (I alienate myself from the other); it may be a passive experience (the other alienates me in some way: I am alienated) HOSTILITY: Experience of enmity, unfriendliness and resistance… Hostility seems like moments of being against others and some way enjoying it, or of experiencing others being against me and not enjoying it( active and passive) I have to recognize that my life has moments of intimacy and moments of loneliness. I have experienced moments of hostility and alienation. Loneliness and intimacy seem like unavoidable moments of life for normal people. Hostility and alienation seem like unproductive human experiences, even though we may experience them often in our lives. The realization that my life has revelatory moments of intimacy and moments of loneliness and moments of alienation and moments of hostility leads me to the discovery of what it means to be human. My experience of finding God concrete is linked with entering fully and vulnerably into such moments of loneliness and intimacy, alienation and hostility. All these experiences can be creative and growth producing provided we take them to the Lord in prayer, surrender them to Him and allow ourselves to be touched and healed by the Lord. AMDG +++++++++++++ vmalpan@gmail.com