Sunday, January 23, 2011

Right On!

Below I'm going to paste a page of David Brazzeal's blog entitled "following". David and Sanan are the founders of our church community out here, Curieux, and now live in Paris. I found the following quite inspiring in its simple, balanced, straightforward reasoning.

I consider myself a follower of Jesus...
I follow him in a variety of ways…

I follow Jesus in his simplicity…

He lived a very simple life…didn’t own much, treaded gently on the earth…me, I’m trying to learn how to do that.

I follow Jesus in his creativity…

He was a creative story teller…he spoke in riddles and enigmas…He left people with something to ponder…He was practically a performance artist, knowing that walking into a room and washing feet was more powerful than a lecture on humility.

I follow Jesus in his compassion for the poor…the marginalized…the oppressed….

He seemed to prefer “hanging out” with this group much more than the rich or the spiritual leaders of the day. You can’t read the stories of Jesus w/out this jumping off the page. This is not natural for me (being a middle-class, middle-age, white, male) but I’m learning to follow him in this… by contributing to and volunteering with organizations that help the poor…by treating them like fellow human beings when I see them and by caring extra money to give to them. .

I follow Jesus as spiritual mystic…

Jesus spent long hours alone staying connected to his Father…he frequented gardens and hilltops to find a bit of solitude…So I’m learning to pull away from the distraction and make time to reconnect with him…to meditate…to give thanks…to contemplate…to intercede…to lament…to rejoice…to be silent.

I follow Jesus as someone who enjoyed life…

He had deep friendships…loved to journey together with them and talk on the road…he went to lots of parties…loved and cared deeply for people…So I am learning to be a companion to my friends on the journey…to enjoy long conversations at parties and to love and care for people.

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