Are you a human do-ing, or a human be-ing?
We all have lots of things to do in the course of a day, but do you ever take time to just be?
Do you “do” prayer, or “be” prayer? What’s the difference? Is there a difference? Would it make a difference?
Are you a human do-ing, or a human be-ing?
We all have lots of things to do in the course of a day, but do you ever take time to just be?
Do you “do” prayer, or “be” prayer? What’s the difference? Is there a difference? Would it make a difference?
The full soul loathes the honeycomb, but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.
— Proverbs 27:7 (via listening after dark)
There is this one scene from the movie The Passion of the Christ that still comes to my mind just about everyday. It was the scene where Jesus washes his hands. There is a closeup of his hands as someone holds up a small wooden bowl. He dips his hands into the water, lifts his hands out, and then flicks them once. The water droplets scatter in slow motion. It is a scene of purification. (I wish I could have found an image of this scene on the Internet.)
Blessed are the pure of heart, for they will see God.
I am not one who tends to be compulsive-obsessive (at least not about too many things), but during the past couple weeks, I have started to recite the following prayer when I wash my hands:
Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me. Please purify my heart so that I may see You, so that I may see You in others, and others may see You in me. Amen.
I have this habit of occasionally teasing my kids, particularly my two older daughters, of not being graceful. (Sometimes in the appropriate moment, some of my students get it too.) When one of them trips or drops something or does something really klutzy, I will say with a smile something along the lines of: “Good thing we didn’t name you Grace,” or “Your a picture of grace,” or “I didn’t know your middle name was Grace?”
Well, my two daughters reminded me today of a story about child #2 when she was in fourth grade. One of her spelling words for a particular week was “graceful.” She spelled the word correctly, but misused it in a sentence—“Dad was graceful when he fell down.”
So much for irony…
I am not usually in sync with the rest of the world. For example, New Year’s resolutions. I never make them, at least not on New Year’s Day. They pop up at odd times during the year. The same is true for holiday seasons. When the culture seems to be gearing up for a holiday, usually through store decorations and TV shows, I’m not. Oh, I’m usually in the holiday mood when the actual holiday occurs, but only a couple days before hand. (I don’t want to peak too early in my enthusiasm, especially for Christmas.)
Case in point. I have always wanted to read the whole Bible. I am woefully ignorant in many areas, particularly in the Old Testament. There is the One Year Bible based on the New Living Translation (or a Catholic version), but it starts on January 1st. I want to start now! (Actually, I wanted to start back in May.) Besides, I am not particularly fond of the New Living Translation.
A week or so ago, I found a schedule on the Internet to read the whole Bible within a year based on the liturgical calendar. That means the schedule officially starts with Advent on December 1st and is suppose to be loosely correlated with the liturgical seasons throughout the year. It consists of a first reading from either the Old or New Testament, a Psalm or Proverb reading, and a Gospel reading. The first reading goes sequentially through a whole book from the Old or New Testament, but shuffles the order of the books around in order to tie them with the liturgical season. The Psalms and Proverbs are spread throughout the year, usually one Psalm a day, and then a few Proverbs each day. Each of the four Gospels are read in order twice within the year. And, you get to pick your own translation. The schedule is based on 73 books of the Bible. (For some denominations that means the Old and New Testaments plus the Apocrypha.)
The best part of the schedule is that you can really begin at any date you want. If you like this schedule, I recommend that you pick a date to start based on when the first reading starts a new book. That way you will not disrupt the continuity of that story. The Psalms or Proverbs can be started anywhere without loss of continuity. The Gospels can probably be started anywhere too without too much loss of continuity since most people are familiar with much of them.
One more thing. The readings appear to be short enough that if you miss a day or three, you could catch up with only a little extra added time. The trick though, is discipline, and getting started too. I think this schedule will help.
I have posted a copy of the one-year Bible reading schedule. I also formated the schedule for printing in a PDF file and a Microsoft Word document.
Always wanted to read the whole Bible? Maybe this is the time to start.