Apologies for the sporadic blogging, June is a mad month for work. It seems that everyone is trying to cram stuff in before the summer. I hate it when I get too busy especially if it means being late.
Yesterday I met an interesting guy from New Zealand a church leader looking at emerging church and stuff as part of a sabbatical. I am finding more and more leaders open to new stuff which is SO encouraging. Less people shouting heretic and more people open change has to be a good thing in my mind. On another matter, one reason for my busyness is that I am sorting a fund raising event for FYT- The Virtual Cycle Ride. I don’t want to spoil the surprise but it will something that everyone can join in, whether your 8 or 80.
FYT have some great projects in the offing, which is great but I must remind myself of the need for balance. So for all you other activists out there, with a mad June or July approaching, here is a word of warning from Henry Thoreau.
“when our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper or been told by a neighbour; and for the most part the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has seen the newspaper or been out to tea and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters proud of his extensive correspondence has not heard from himself in a long while.”
i have the opposite problem – i hear from myself far far too much! I just go on and on and on (me talking to me in my head)… sometimes I wish I’d just shut up and make my mind go blank, or fill it with pretty images of butterflies or the like, but no – I just can’t help saying: But what if…? I wonder when…? Perhaps, if I’d… and so on. Is there a place where we can send our brains (or the bit of them that enable us to talk to ourselves) on holiday?!
Interested in the title of your post- ‘Hearing from my inner self’. From reading the quote, it sounds quite like what some people would call ‘hearing from God’.
My question: Is there a difference between hearing from our deep inward self and hearing from God? If so what is the difference?
I know asking questions like this gets me branded heretic and pluralist… but go on, shoot me down, it’ll help me get my head around some big concepts of listening to self and/or/versus listening to God I’m working on at the moment.
I think you raise a great issue. for what its worth my take is I think the two are linked and this is something to do with the indwelling of Christ and us being made in Gods image, plus a few other thoughts that I want to think about some more. BUT I can usually tell/feel what is God or not (and we need community and accountability). The other thing is about taking some responsiblity for ourselves, and that for me is often when I think I hear from my inner self. But I need to think more on your question.
Yes, us being made in God’s image, but more than that, our very humanity being caused by the creative, spirit filled ruach breath of God being breated into us day in day out. Maybe that’s a lot to do with what it is to be human. Interesting too is the way the NYA spirituality consultation linked spiritual development with humanisation.
Is it fair to say that “To know God is to know humanity, both in terms of knowledge of others and of ourself”?
More to think about.