Reflections on the topic

I promised a couple days ago that I would do a little more reflecting on the topic of my sabbatical.  So let’s dive in.

The topic breaks down into three basic pieces for me:

Personal Piety
Episcopal Context
21st Century

So each one:

Personal Piety – I actually fiddled with the words for this part quite a bit.  Prayer Life, Personal faith Life/Journey/Walk/Practice, several others.  I chose what I thought was a fairly neutral version (the early emails show me that I was wrong!  How cool!).  I want to look at what people do away from any corporate/communal/ bunches of people worship environment.  So that eliminates any of the personal things you may do during those worships as well (if you cross yourself and when you do, sitting, standing, kneeling, hands in the air, etc).  I really want to look at how we carry our faith with us into the rest of the week.  What is done intentionally to carry forward a connection with God?  As I’ve mentioned before I think this is something that is largely not discussed in The Episcopal Church (TEC).  Do you pray, do you sing, do you dance?  Do you read, do you meditate?

Episcopal Church – I choose to look at the context where I find myself, where I do my work and ministry and that I know best.  I was baptized into this denomination exactly 28 days after I was born.  The results of this study will probably be usable across many denominational lines (and I hope folks from many backgrounds will be interested and follow along).  But this MY sabbatical and it needs to be relatable to me.  Plus I think my tradition could use some help along this line.  Have I mentioned that before?

21st Century – So here we sit, in a whole new century with some amazing new possibilities at our finger tips.  What does that have to offer us to help in this quest?  At the same time what already exists that still has currency in this new age?  I have a deep respect for history and tradition.  The fact that something has been around for a long time doesn’t mean that it’s no longer useful.  It also doesn’t mean that it automatically still has any value.  I will be looking both forward and back and especially at how we might be able to bring past and future together.  I hope to play around with ideas like Twitter, flash animation, video right alongside rosaries, bible study, and prayer.

To begin I’m doing some reading on the history of where our practices begin.  At the moment I’m looking at some history of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon spirituality because they have an inevitable effect on the Christianity that is expressed in Anglicanism.  I’ve already discovered several things that ring through quite strongly and some things that are wonderful new concepts and creations from our earliest days.

I’ve been posting a lot so far and that’s not likely to continue.  Or maybe it is.  Only time will tell.  You’ll get three primary types of posts – Reflections, Responses and Reports (told you about the alliteration.  I just spent a good two minutes working out what that third R should be)

Reflections (like this one) are just the thought process I’m going through as I look and think and pray about things.  I’m planning on doing some of them via video.  It’s an interesting experiment that may or may not add anything but I want to try.  Plus a do a lot of my thinking out loud in real life anyway.  So you get to watch.

Responses – I’m expecting that the time will come when I’ll have something “concrete” to off up for your inspection and comment.  It will offer up whatever is needed for you to “experience” what I’ve done (photos, video, links to animations, audio files, whatever).  Comments are always welcome.

Reports – This is the catchall category.  It will cover the more personal responses I have to what’s going on, generic thoughts about the sabbatical process as a whole, whatever else I think needs to be included for the purpose of my project.  These will likely be the most personal, least intellectual, and often come from the sometimes strange twists of my personality.  They may amuse you, they might interest you and there’s just a possibility that they might have something important to say.  We’ll see.

So that’s where we stand at the moment.  If you would like to comment you can use the comment feature here or if you’d prefer to do it “off stage” (I’m choosing to do this in plain view, I don’t expect everyone else to do the same) you can use the email I’ve established for the project : personalpiety @ gmail.com.  Just eliminate the spaces.  The responses on the email may be quoted but your identity will be protected unless you tell me otherwise.  I’ve already got some great responses that I’ll be reflecting on over the next couple weeks.

Peace!