So I am not as good of a blogger as some of my friends are. But I am finally writing again. The reality is that I have been extremely busy over the last few weeks. I will be starting a new job in just a few weeks, but I will also still be living at Richmond Hill, at least for awhile.
Which has gotten me thinking about a lot of things. If I do eventually move out of Richmond Hill, how will I continue to live according to a healthy rhythm? You see, while I am here at Richmond Hill, I stop what I am doing 3 times a day so that I can pray. All of my meals follow these prayer times, and many of these meals are eaten alongside my community. This rhythm is life. It sort of reminds me of Ecclesiastes 3; you know, there is a time for everything under the sun. In creating a rhythm, I have found healthy ways to maintain my relationship with God, as well as relationships with everyone who I am living with, and those who I am in ministry with. It gives me a safe way to say no to certain things, and it forces me to keep everything in perspective. After all, there really are very few things that you can’t stop for 15 minutes to join your colleagues in prayer, and I have yet to experience any of those things since I moved into Richmond Hill, a year and a half ago. (If you want to know intense pressure to finish something you have started, stop in the middle of something that is important to the community you live with, especially when it involves the only kitchen in the whole building.)
So I spent my holidays in Colorado Springs, and there I spent 9 days living without the rhythm that I had established here on the hill. And I decided to check out my friend Doug’s website, findingrhythms.com. What I realized is that I am really impressed with what it is all about. I am not positive where he got all of the material he uses from (yeah, one of the prayers is from Richmond Hill, and that lends itself to familiarity, as well as a little sense of pride), but this is good stuff. If you are reading this, and you like to surf the web, and you have been looking for a way to be better about developing a rhythm, or doing daily devotions, or whatever it is you call intentionally spending time with God, you should visit this website. There is even a link at the top of the page that you can sign up for daily e-mail reminders. I signed up for them, and all they are is a link to the website. If you are like me, you spend part of your day mindlessly surfing the web anyway, going to various websites which have no real significance on your daily lives (my favorites are msnbc, espn, and facebook). It was easy for me to find time while in Colorado to read these prayers, passages of scriptures, and questions which have been put together in an easy to follow format.
So I realize some of you are thinking, I am not able to focus 100% on those devotions every day. In fact, you may even say to yourself that you have a hard time focusing on devotions once a year. Let me give you a word of encouragement. I pray three times a day, or rather I attend prayers 3 times a day. My pastoral director put it best when he said that our hope is that we are fully present at least one moment during each prayer time. Perhaps it sounds crazy, or even a little hypocritical, but what I have found is that over the past 18 months that it is simply my presence at these prayer times, my intentionality, that is so formational. I have been changed (in a good way) by living according to this rhythm. There is a mystery to it, especially to us Americans who are raised to believe we have to earn everything we have and are. I mean, I want to tell everyone how I was able to change. Heck, if I could make it a book and give it a certain number of steps, like 10 steps to becomming a better you by living a daily rhythm, I think I could make millions, maybe even more. Unfortunately I don’t know the steps, I can’t get a copyright. I just know it works. Again, I don’t know how, and it doesn’t matter what your ability is. I try to explain it like this: We live in a culture of consumerism. Simply by watching commercials, seeing billboards, ads in magazines, we are formed into wanting more stuff. What if this rhythm thing works the same way. What if just by spending time reading about God, and hearing prayers about God and who He wants us to be, we wanted to be with God more, and started acting more like the people God wants us to be.
On an entirely different note, I am planning a retreat with a friend of mine, Jeanine Guidry. We are working on a retreat focusing on worship, giving people opportunities to be creative in their worship, and creating a space where it is comfortable to do so. If you are free the last weekend of January (the 30th through the 1st of February), please consider being a part of this retreat. Visit richmondhillva.org for more info. If you haven’t got enough money for the registration, fill it out anyway, because we offer scholarships. I really feel like this is going to be an awesome retreat! Plus you get to experience our rhythm!
