Mission, Spirituality, & Lifestyle

Aims for this session

1 To reflect on the embodiment of spirituality

2 To share stories of everyday spirituality
Prayer

Study

Service
Community
“Today‟s people are
more afraid of living
than they are of dying”
Who wants to live forever?
Who wants …..?
Forever is

Our today
No time for us
No place for us

No chance for us
All decided for us

Forever is our today Forever is our today

What we have is all there is

Pain – why would you want to live forever?

“Today‟s people are more afraid of

living than they are of dying”
Only one chance at life

No way out, no freedom, no choice

Consumerism – pressures to conform
• Creating poverty
• Selfishness of older people

Identity – who am I, where do I fit in?

• What does it mean to be me?
• Food – worry over junk food; anorexia

Relationships – what, if anything, do they mean?

• No role models of older people
• Don’t know any older people, how to speak to them

Religion part of the problem

War – violence Dreaming of something better

 In cash-rich and time-poor 24/7 lifestyles

… how can we help people to find time for the spiritual?

“It‟s not healthy to live life as a succession of
isolated little cool moments. „Either our lives
become stories, or there‟s just no way to get
through them.‟ … We know that is why the three
of us left our lives behind us and came to the
desert – to tell stories and to make our own lives
worthwhile tales in the process.”
Douglas Coupland, Generation X (New York: St Martins Press 1991), 8
 Praxis … and reflection

‘We live life forwards and reflect on it

…. backwards’
Søren Kierkegaard (Danish philosopher/theologian1813-1855)
‘Spirituality’ once meant ‘religion’ …
Rituals
are
no longer
monopolised
by formal religion
Rituals are still at the heart of life …
We look
for the spiritual
everywhere
Some catalysts along the way …

Herald of Free Enterprise, 1983

Hillsborough 1987
Dunblane 1996
Diana, 1997
In the face of personal tragedy

the
“a case can be made that the art world offers a more
open environment for expressing pain and suffering than
does the church. This may explain postmodern culture‟s
embrace of the arts and rejection of organized religions.
… When the system no longer works, artists step into
the gap as critics, as questioners, and as theologians …
We have plenty of experience talking about the message.
What we need is a theology rooted in the medium.”

Craig Detweiler & Barry Taylor, A Matrix of Meanings (Grand Rapids: Baker 2003), 283, 168, 218
 „Making people feel so much they
can‟t help thinking …‟
(Murray Watts, movie maker)

‘… the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The

future belongs to … creators and empathizers, pattern
recognizers, and meaning makers … artists, …
storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture
thinkers’
Daniel H Pink, A Whole New Mind (New York: Riverhead Books 2006), 1.
 First times

Transitions

Seasons and holidays

 Beginnings
and endings

From everyday

to special occasions
Cleansing
Reclaiming

the

Tradition
Getting Ready
Wearing all
kinds of
outfits …
 Going & Coming

A contemporary mezuzah?
Walking

Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail

 Focus

Achievement Goals
Working with nature…

…and stages of life

Dreaming Vision Imagination Meditation

‘Just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without

works is also dead.’
James 2:26
Being intentional
The power of the dream …..
„Without vision …

… people are perishing‟

Proverbs 29:18