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onceuponatime
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chapter 7 - rhythms
Have been thinking about rhythms for a while, and a lot of people are
talking about it. Is it the latest piece of christian jargon on the scene to help us feel better about an unanswerable question (how do you reconcile responsibility with freedom?), or is there gleanable goodness in it?
For me it is to do with the OT>NT shift from outer to inner. From the exclusive physical consecrated space of the temple to the internal spiritual consecrated space within us - the Bible speaks of the law (where?) as a shadow of the fullness that was to come; I like to think of it like a snail shell that points to the identity of the live creature within but does not possess its life. So NT freedom is not about the absence of law, but of its fulfilment - thus our lives now are not an excuse for anarchy (1 Pet 2:16) but an opportunity for God's law to go deeper - to change us from within and rather than to only affect our actions while our spirits remain dead.
Maybe 'rhythms' are the core of laws. So this is not a call to invent new laws - quiet times, church on sundays, Bible time etc etc but to hear and respond to the voice of God: to 'walk' and 'live' 'by the spirit.' Through which we become more mobile, with our tent pegs uprooted in planted in him, rather than simply moved ten metres down the field. Through which we learn to livetune with the spirit - making daily space for listening, reading the Bible, spending time with others, working and resting - but for the life that is there rather than for the justification of the action. And with plenty of room for change, spontaneity and even failure...
Prayer and reflection; community and involvement; work and action; rest
and retreat - are there any more? How do you allow them to underwrite
your days without becoming new laws?
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To date 3 Comment(s)
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(5.10.05 17:23)
There's an intuitive quality about rhythm, something to be responded to, rather than self-constructed.
How about the rhythm of immersion in community and solitude?
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(11.10.05 17:59)
When do rhythms turn from discipline to habit? And how do you tell if you have a habitual rhythm whether it is legalistic or not? Where does apathy and grace fit into disciplined rhtyhms?
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