Thursday 19 January 2012

Sabbatical Day 4

I am grateful to Philip Ritchie for this prayer:

May you enter trustingly into this sabbath space
May you enter quietly into this sabbath space
May you enter joyfully into this sabbath play
Let your body unfold in this sabbath
Let your mind unwind in this sabbath
Let your spirit expand into this sabbath
May it reveal its secrets to you gently
May it embody its truth in you authentically
May it release new life in you abundantly
So go with gladness into this sabbath
Go with gratitude into this sabbath
And may the God who rests on the sabbath
look at his labours in you
and proclaim, 'It is very good.'

(Nicola Slee in R. Burgess, A Book of Blessings, Wild Goose Publications, 2001)

It is good to be reminded that this is a 'sabbath', full of all the theological richness of that word. I can be looking back at all I have become and am, as God does in his creating.

There is a need to trust when entering a sabbath. It is difficult to realise afresh that all I am is because of what God has willed, even if that willing is for one of partnership in and with me. My very freedom to be and to become are gifts of God's grace.

Study reflection: I am interested to read that our contemporary issues were also at the fore in Parliamentary debates as to the place of missionaries in India under the Charter Act (of the East India Company) of 1813. Wilberforce: "Shall we now, in defence of the common principles of toleration [of Hinduism], lay the religion we profess under such a restraint in any part of our dominions?"

Today my photo project is to work on a macro study of a medal of my father. That is part of my reflecting on who I am. The below is not my final effort but Is perhaps well on the way.

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