Our beloved brother Gideon Tsang joined us once again, asking the question of what it means to be rooted. As Christ remains (roots) in us, we must ask: Where are our lives rooted? With whom are we rooted? What resistance do we feel towards planting ourselves fully where God has placed us? May God speak to you uniquely through this invitation to stillness, contemplation, and participation.
Gideon serves the community of Vox Veniae in Austin, TX
Text
John 15: 4-8
“When we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.”
-Henri Nouwen
“Aren't you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don't you often hope: 'May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.' But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy, but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burn-out. This is the way to spiritual death.”
-Henri Nouwen
“If we become addicted to the external, our interiority will haunt us. We will become hungry with a hunger no image, person, or deed can still. To be wholesome, we must remain truthful to our vulnerable complexity. In order to keep our balance, we need to hold the interior and exterior, visible and invisible, known and unknown, temporal and eternal, ancient and new, together. No one else can undertake this task for you. You are the one and only threshold of an inner world. This wholesomeness is holiness. To be holy is to be natural, to befriend the worlds that come to balance in you.”
-John O’Donohue
“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves… A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal God took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail…. When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from God and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the God. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.”
-Herman Hesse
“The answer to a good question is more and better questions”
-Kevin Kelly
Spiritual Practices
Gideon asked us to consider if our exterior life in service to our interior life, or is your interior life in service to our exterior; suggesting that we first reflect:
What disappoints you about your exterior life?
Are you willing to embrace that disappointment this week?
Will you receive the invitation to Christ rooted IN you, even in that disappointment?
How will you stake your claim in Ecclesia’s collective soil?
Root in the life of the church. Find a way to get involved.
Root in community. Consider joining/starting a small group.
Root with your heart. Invest with your time, energy, and resources.
Worship Set
I Shall Not Be Shaken
Let Our Faith Be Not Alone
How Deep The Father’s Love For Us
I Surrender All
See The Love
House Of God Forever