Remember those sedum leftover bits??
They survived!!
I kept the soil rather damp until I saw that the tiny bits were not quite so tiny and that they were looking a bit perky instead of merely lying atop the soil. Now, they are growing as vigorously as the sections I cut from the original plat and put into the other pots. Yes, I got a 15th pot from that $13.97 purchase! [I rotate the pots every other day since the sedum grows toward the sun, so to compare the photos, reverse this one in your head.]
Remember the pink dresser??
Marie sent me photos of the dresser in its new home...
...with its new knobs!!
Not too shabby, eh? Anything is better than pink when it comes to a dresser for a seminary couple's master bedroom. Even though the project was a bit wearying, I was grateful for the opportunity to be useful for a spate of time.
And the floor?
This bit is the bane of my existence. Most of the really bad spots will be covered by the metal threshold that was here, but this section still needs to dry so that I can seal it. [Don't look at the groves I accidentally sanded into the step below.] I sure do hope the copious amounts of dry heat forecasted for tomorrow will help. [Yes, I still think the wood, even in its worn state with bits of paint here and there, is still beautiful.]
The further thoughts I had about Psalm 51 had to do with verse 10: Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. (NASB 1977):
- For one, the Book of Common Prayer changed this verse, too. It reads "make me a clean heart." I know that the words create and make are virtually synonymous, but I prefer the use of create because it calls to mind that God is the Creator. Plus, the change in translation removes the intimacy of the work of God in the believer's life in the plea that is this verse by removing the word in. Just make me as to opposed to make in me.
- For another, NIV translates the word clean as pure. I do not like that change at all, for it takes away the imagery of how something is usually cleansed ... washing with water. To me, this calls to mind the washing away of sin that takes place in the waters of Holy Baptism.
- Third, in the notes for the NASB 1977, an alternate translation for the word in as for. Create for me a clean heart. To me, that word for is the heart and soul of the Gospel, really, as all that Christ does for God's creation.
- Fourth, the KJ and the Book of Common Prayer translate steadfast as right. Whilst the word right connects to just, as in being justified, I prefer steadfast, for it called to mind the continuing battle that is faith ... the battle of the two Adams—the battle of the new creation against the flesh, the world, and the devil—that is ongoing. To me, to remain steadfast, to remain resolute and unwavering, is not something that happens just once, but rather is a pattern of living, an approach to that which is before a person. So, the plea is ask God for help remaining firm against the onslaught of sin in the midst of a prayer about the forgiveness of Christ.
Becky and I were talking on the phone and rambled around to the Jesus Prayer. I was still thinking about Psalm 51, but didn't tell her about that. However, she asked me when I thought the Jesus Prayer crept into the church. I cannot remember when in the conversation we had the question came, but the heart of the conversation was about how I think there is little actual doctrine taught in the mainline evangelical church. Folk don't have access to doctrine, the way that the Lutheran Confessions are available now. But catechesis does not really happen. By that I mean there is no systematic teaching of any form of doctrine, such as the Westminster Catechism, for example.
Thirty-one years in many denominational (and non-denominational) churches and doctrine never really came up. For the first decade or so, the emphasis was so much on the Word of God, but in a way that called for the believer to figure out what the Word of God meant for her, for him. A terrible burden, really. Then, as the desire to have a specific guide for living, a way to really know that you were being a good Christian drove biblical education, all those books began to take the place of the Word of God. I actually stopped going to church regularly for several years—I was attending that strange Lutheran Bible Study—because I couldn't find a church where the Word of God was actually taught. I was so very weary of things like The Purpose Driven Life and The Prayer of Jabez and whatever funny story framed the sermon of the week. I didn't want to laugh and I didn't want to hear what I needed to do. I had failed at doing for too long.
Anyway, I posited rather correctly, as it turns out, when what I had thought was the Jesus Prayer crept into the mainline evangelical church. Only, Googling showed me that, once again, the words are really not the same. What I think of as the Jesus Prayer is actually really the Sinner's Prayer. The latter is where you invite Jesus into your heart and all that other balderdash. The Jesus Prayer is a prayer that appears to have originated in the Eastern Orthodox Church, though I've heard Lutheran pastors extol its use: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
I really, really, really like what I found in Wikipedia about this. I strip away everything else about the beliefs and practices and philosophies of prayer in the article that pertains to the Eastern Orthodox Church and focus on this remaining, rather fascinating bit:
Thus, Theophan the Recluse, a 19th-century Russian spiritual writer, talks about three stages:
- The oral prayer (the prayer of the lips) is a simple recitation, still external to the practitioner.
- The focused prayer, when "the mind is focused upon the words" of the prayer, "speaking them as if they were our own."
- The prayer of the heart itself, when the prayer is no longer something we do but who we are.
Once this is achieved the Jesus Prayer is said to become "self-active" (αυτενεργούμενη). It is repeated automatically and unconsciously by the mind, having a Tetris Effect, like a (beneficial) Earworm. Body, through the uttering of the prayer, mind, through the mental repetition of the prayer, are thus unified with "the heart" (spirit) and the prayer becomes constant, ceaselessly "playing" in the background of the mind, like a background music, without hindering the normal everyday activities of the person.
I chuckled deeply at seeing prayer compared to an earworm. You know, those songs you cannot get out of your mind when you hear someone sing or hum a bit. But I also marveled at the idea of the Jesus Prayer becoming self-active in the believer. I guess because I ask: Is not the prayer created from the heart of the Word of God to the Living Word of God, by whom and through whom all things which have come into being came into being (John 1)?
Of course, really those three "stages" of prayer are really just teaching Matthew 6 and Luke 12 where we are taught that where our treasure is, there our hearts will also be. What we treasure is that what we guard or hold dear, which is how, in Hebrew, I believe, keeping the Word of God is translated. Keeping is treasuring, guarding, holding dear ... not doing the Word of God. I think that bit of Hebrew is my most favoritest part.
Of course, being so terrified and torn apart by the questions of what faith is ... what it means to believe and to trust, to repent, forgiveness ... thinking too much on this leads me to wonder what it is that I treasure, where my heart lies??
What shames me is that, right now, I am not sure if I could choose between Amos and my beloved NASB 1977 were that proverbial fire to take place in my home and I could only save one thing. The truth is, I would be lost right now, if I did not have this fluffy white catgoatratbastardpuppydog, who daily battles (oft losing to) his own host of fears, but who pours upon me such affection as my heart could want and is with me no matter how ill or how terrified or how insensible I am being.
I would like to say that saving Amos would be an okay choice because I still have bits and pieces of the Living Word in my mind. But ... I have lost so much. Surely there will be a time when none remains.
So, I flee from actually thinking about the thoughts that flit through my mind. But I am glad that Becky and I talked and that I learned the difference between what this ex-evangelical knew of as The Jesus Prayer and what is the real Jesus Prayer. Plus, I also was rather heartened by the entry in Wikipedia about the Sinner's Prayer, especially the dire warning a Southern Baptist pastor (really it should read preacher) gives:
"I'm convinced that many people in our churches are simply missing the life of Christ, and a lot of it has to do with what we've sold them as the gospel, i.e. pray this prayer, accept Jesus into your heart, invite Christ into your life. Should it not concern us that there is no such superstitious prayer in the New Testament? Should it not concern us that the Bible never uses the phrase, 'accept Jesus into your heart' or 'invite Christ into your life'? It's not the gospel we see being preached, it's modern evangelism built on sinking sand. And it runs the risk of disillusioning millions of souls."
Yes!
And Amen!!
Words really do matter to me. I am glad I learned that I was using the wrong words to name that horrid prayer and encountered the delightful thoughts about praying Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner often so as to become an earworm that invades our being ... as Acts 17:28 teaches that in Him we live and move and have our very being.
Of course, I also wonder ... would/could/do I pray those words in faith? Or would they only be the same desperate plea I made hundreds of times in praying the Sinner's Prayer because I wanted to know if I were really saved?
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