Reflections on the Beatitudes

This post is my reflection on the last story that I have been Internalizing - Making it My Own Story. I have told this story (or parts of it) in two different settings - one at a committee meeting where I used this story as a devotional/inspiration to begin our meeting and the other during our last worship service as the text for which our Senior Pastor launched his sermon series on the Streams of Christian Spirituality.

I have based my thoughts on a couple of questions that I have ask my fellow Kortright Storytellers to reflect on for their own stories as well.

Q: In the Beatutitudes what is it that I have found myself spending the most time on?

Q: What part of the story is most meaning for me and how does that change my attitude toward others and the world around me?

I've found myself spending most of my time on trying to understand the connection between the blessed are those who part and the for they will be part.

What has struck me the most is the more I think on these connections, the more I think of how merciful I am (vs. 7) - the merciful will be shown mercy, how much I hunger and thirst for righteousness (vs. 6), or how much of a peacemaker (vs. 9) I am in the world I live in. Do I really hunger and thirst for righteousness, seek to show mercy, or strive to be a peacemaker in my world. Thing is . . . I feel as though I'm really nowhere near where I'd like be. I struggle with "hungering and thirsting for righteousness" - I mean really! do I really want to be filled . . . with righteousness? My automatic answer is yes! I do! But, what does that mean for me, here and now? What does that require of me?

The most meaningful part of this story for me is the part that starts with You are the salt of the earth . . . I think the reason this is so meaningful for me is that it provides for me an image that I can grasp to apply to my life - I can be salt and a light to others around me. I can see how what I do helps others, how for example when others say, "you once said _____, and that helped me." I often don't remember my saying exactly those things to people but I suppose I did and that has made a difference.

This makes me think . . . what comes out of my mouth/my actions have a real impact on others. My attitude is critical to all this considering that non-verbal communication makes up for a majority of our actual communication with others (I think the statistic is 90%).

So, what are your thoughts? I invite you to comment with more insight, more questions, agreement, disagreement, whatever!

Internalizing

Over the past few weeks our Church Storytellers group (of which I am a part) has been talking about Internalizing the stories that we tell as part of the process of our learning the stories and being able to tell them well. Internalizing is the point of entry for this discussion so, feel free to comment on my reflection and dare to be brutally honest!

We focus primarily on stories and texts from the Bible and try to use them whenever we might have opportunites. We have tried to make opportunities for the Storytellers to "tell their stories" during our worship services and informal gatherings. To this point in time most of our "telling stories" has been learning and telling them as we feel comfortable being able to re-tell the story.

But, in studying the word Internalize I have found that I need to do more than just be able to re-tell a story. Here are my megar reflections on making a story my own - which is what I believe Storytelling is all about.

Definitions of Internalize:
1. To make internal, personal, or subjective
2. To take in and make an integral part of one's attitudes or beliefs

I don't consider myself that great a storyteller in general because I have somehow thought along the way that my stories are not worth telling to others. I am learning more and more that my stories are worth telling because they speak of God's working in my life and that is so much a part of what history is all about.

So, the question I have is this,
Q: if I am to make a particular story part of my attitude or belief what things in the story that I am about to internalize or about myself do I need to wrestle with in order for it to become my story?

Q: 3 basic thoughts I've come up with:

• What is the truth of the story that sticks out to me the most, and why?
• How would I tell the story in 3 different situations/settings?
• If I were to ask the most critical person I know to help me internalize this story, what would they say and why?
  

Over the next several months I hope to unpack this for my own stories, the ones I'm interanlizing and making my story. Please join me on this adventure.

My next posting will be an attempt to look at one of the stories I am working in light of these questions and thoughts and wrestle a bit more on how it can be more my story. I look forward to your comments.

Welcome

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for visiting my blog on Spiritual Formation.

All the information and interaction on this blog will be used in reflecting on my own spiritual formation which will in turn affect others. I am taking a Master's Course with regards to spiritual formation and will be using my reflections and the interaction posted on this blog as part of my course work.

For the most part this blog is my reflection journal on
Worship and Spiritual Formation.
I would appreciate you coming to visit frequently. Thanks.