http://chriserdman.com awakening the spiritual life Mon, 21 May 2012 12:00:43 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The Shadow of the Reformation :: A Short Series on Why Protestants Have Trouble With Prayer Part Six To understand what happened following the Reformation, consider the difference between a magazine article about a sunset and a sunset itself. Words can quite easily take on a magical quality; they can ... http://chriserdman.com/contemplation-and-meditation/too-much-religion-is-mere-abstraction/ The Shadow of the Reformation :: A Short Series on Why Protestants Have Trouble With Prayer Part Five Protestantism arose as a protest made up of ideas and the words that communicate them. Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses, or ideas, on the castle door at Wittenberg in 1517. As the ... http://chriserdman.com/contemplation-and-meditation/a-protest-of-words-and-ideas/ The Shadow of the Reformation :: A Short Series on Why Protestants Have Trouble With Prayer Part Four All this changed in the sixteenth century with the advent of the Protestant Reformation. The change had been coming for centuries; medieval scholasticism was no stranger to abstract ideas and words, books and debates. ... http://chriserdman.com/contemplation-and-meditation/the-reformation-left-interior-prayer-behind/ The Shadow of the Reformation :: A Short Series on Why Protestants Have Trouble With Prayer Part Three From earliest days, Christians were taught to relinquish their ideas about God in order to embrace (and be embraced) by the one thing mere thoughts can’t give them. This doesn’t mean that Christianity ... http://chriserdman.com/contemplation-and-meditation/the-mind-stands-dumb-before-its-maker/ The Shadow of the Reformation :: A Short Series on Why Protestants Have Trouble With Prayer Part Two The anonymous author of the fourteenth century spiritual classic, The Cloud of Unknowing, and probably an English Christian monk, sums up the mainstream teaching this way: “We can know so many things. Through God’s ... http://chriserdman.com/contemplation-and-meditation/i-must-love-the-one-thing-i-cannot-think/ The anonymous author of the fourteenth century spiritual classic, The Cloud of Unknowing, and probably an English Christian monk, sums up the mainstream teaching this way: “We can know so many things.  Through God’s grace, our minds can explore, understand, and reflect on creation and even on God’s own works, ... http://chriserdman.com/contemplation-and-meditation/spirituality-the-mind-must-learn-its-proper-place/ . . . fully awake to the splendor of God's creation, united with the One whose glory fills the whole earth (Isaiah 6.3): http://chriserdman.com/books-and-resources/prayer-means-plunging-yourself-fully-into-life/ From my journals, Friday, November 23, 2007 I'm reading the Cloud of Unknowing. The medieval teacher urges me to attach (adhere) to God:  "in a manner take hold of our God by devoutly taking hold of his feet." I recall family systems therapist, Edwin Friedman, in his book of therapeutic fables, writing ... http://chriserdman.com/books-and-resources/how-to-let-go-of-what-is-unhealthy-or-unholy/ One way of looking at the spiritual journey is to view it as a journey of six stages. The first three are primarily external; the last three primarily internal–though of course, there are deep interior moves in the first three more external stages, and there are serious engagements with the outer ... http://chriserdman.com/books-and-resources/the-stages-of-spiritual-growth-a-complete-list-and-exposition/ Maundy Thursday is largely forgotten today. It commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus with his followers, and his command that we, his followers, are to love each other. Love is not only tough to give, it's sometimes tougher to receive. At the Last Supper Jesus washed his ... http://chriserdman.com/those-who-show-us-the-way/2990/