Day 12 and What shape is your spirituality?

Have you listened to others pray? Have you noted how they refer to God? Do you listen to yourself? Often this says a lot about someone's theology of who God is. Very early in theological studies I was exposed to Trinitarian theology, it's implications in ethics, theological anthropology and theology. In fact it impinges in all areas of doctrine. Yet many people have a very narrow vision and often than not, it isn't trinitarian because at least one of the persons is missing.

I bit the bullet yesterday and worked hard to clear a line of boxes in the bedroom. I emptied 4 of them and sorted or disposed of contents. There were phone bills from 2002 onwards and all manner of bits and pieces. I am trying to experience God in the cleaning and tidying but it is a struggle. However the exercise of will is an important lesson and I am trying not the shirk the need to focus and not to run away. (taking a lesson from John Cassian.) However I have been thinking and realizing that I don't see God as a critical task master/parent but more as strengthener or encourager. God is less and less distant and more an accepted norm of every day life.

Candeo recently blogged about failure and its importance. I wonder whether we need both the little failures and the acknowledgment of little successes to remove fear of failure. In Christian classical spirituality these elements are known as desolations and consolations. In the times when we feel failures and feel God is far away we need the memory of God being close and active to carry us through. These days I have had my good moments and bad moments and I still moving forwards slowly. However most of all I need the encouragement of others to keep going, to keep moving forwards. Trinity is essentially a mysterious relationship full of paradoxes which we need to hold together and yet also this relationship is perhaps what it is to be humans together and in the image of God.

God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness... Genesis 1:26