Posted on May 15, 2012 by Christine Sine at Godspace
Does Your faith have practical impact?
Today’s post comes from Brittian Bullock and was first posted on his blog.
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A skydiver drifted over a hundred miles off course and landed in a dense forest. Strung up in the tree, tangled, and terrified that the night was fast approaching he began to yell out for help. After a few minutes, a man out for a walk chanced upon the skydiver. “Hello! I need help!” called the man in the tree. “Yes, I can see that. You’re stuck in a tree, with no way out, surrounded by a forest, and it’s getting quite dark.” The other man replied. “Of all my luck,” said the skydiver to him, “I get stuck with a clergymen as a rescuer.” Hearing this the passer by wondered aloud how the distressed man had known his occupation as a religious teacher. “Well—I just assumed you must be a clergy, as what you’ve said is equally true, and absolutely useless in helping me”
I’ve told this story to many of my friends who are professional clergy. They usually get a kick out of it—in part because they accept it a generalized truism. So much of the faith discourse, while perhaps good and even spot on, is often devoid of practical impact. It’s not only Christianity, or religion, that gets targeted by this critique—most academic or philosophic movements struggle to have real grounded applications. This is no more relevant than when it comes to the topic of being changed—of being transformed.
Many of us hope for change to happen—we know that what we’re doing simply isn’t working; we understand that something is broken and cannot continue. We wish for more meaningful or mended relationships with those around us. We struggle to live an active life, reconnected with our environment. We hope to be authentic, to represent ourselves as we are—not falsely. And we long to unite with a sense of greater meaning, a Higher Power, God, or faith. Yet in spite of these desires most such intentions fall the to the wayside, swept away under the tide of the urgent and immediate. It’s not for lack of yearning—it is the absence of grounded pragmatics. What is needed, desperately, is a technology of transformation.
Below, I’m going to be laying out practical steps towards that end. Change. Some will address seemingly mundane realties; others take on the man behind the curtain. Some may be instantly relevant to you, others you might need to stuff in your back pocket for another time. But, if you long to sense something “more” being birthed in your life—stay tuned.
To read the actual 10 Steps, please go to Christine's blog, Godspace, to read them there. You won't be disappointed but you will have a few "Ah Hah!" moments. Catherine
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