Flesh and Spirit, mortification of the body are at the heart of the discipline we traditionally undertake during Lent. So, to approach this as the Small Catechism does, what does this mean?
In more than one Sunday Adult Forum about Lutheranism, Pastor Michelle brought to our reading a Latin term in Baptized, We Live: Lutheranism as a Way of Life by Daniel Erlander:
"Incurvatus in se" (Turned/curved inward on oneself) as a phrase describing a life lived "inward" for self rather than "outward" for God and others. Martin Luther understood the phrase this way:
Our nature, by the corruption of the first sin, [being] so deeply curved in on itself that it not only bends the best gifts of God towards itself and enjoys them (as is plain in the works-righteous and hypocrites), or rather even uses God himself in order to attain these gifts, but it also fails to realize that it so wickedly, curvedly, and viciously seeks all things, even God, for its own sake.
This has become central so far on my Lenten journey this year, I had never encountered it before.
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March 27, 2017 - An Easter Remembrance of March 27, 2016 - Inner and Outer Encounters with God
Last Monday I followed up on an idea to read blog entries about worship last year to see if there were any entries that had significance or even relevance to what I posted about last Sunday. I found a year ago today was the 2016 Easter service.Last year Pastor Michelle gave a memorable quote at the end of her Easter sermon about Jesus Christ risen - "Understanding, reason and faith collided and merged together for me at that moment." - Saint Teresa of Ávila
I wrote about the fragmentation of my spiritual activities and knowledge into convenient cubby-holes (St. Teresa being contained in the cubby-holes of Art, Bernini, Catholic Saint, and the Spanish Inquisition which did not connect to my Lutheran or Easter cubby-holes until I heard that quote).
My thoughts last year were on cubby holes. Now they center around intersectionality with the past cubby hole writing expanding those thoughts.
One observation from last year:
Something flying in the face of normal rational world is disconcerting. Lutherans are suspicious of leaving our minds / reason at the door when it comes to religion. Yet Christ is Risen is God's deepest revelation of God to us and that, in turn, is hard to reconcile with life's reality. As Pastor Michelle said as she concluded her sermon "Resurrection is a gift from God received by faith".
Last Sunday my thoughts were on confirmation bias and drawing the same conclusions.
Thoughts about art from last year:Pastor Michelle's "gift" of the St. Teresa quote brought everything to a full circle. Art, together with religious revelation. Without faith, Christ has no body now on earth but ours. In my mind's eye ( I will make it easier for you by inserting an image to the right), I see St. Teresa's body captured in a miraculous sculpture with an angel. They are both depicted as levitating above the ground so they are without bodies on earth in more ways than one and yet are portrayed in a sensuous encounter.
I mentioned poetry and music as other ways to encounter God and I will now add I have encountered God in other forms of art and in science as well.
I still accept God's presence and attributes are not truly recognized through direct sensual evidence, even in our own hearts. However the language to describe the richness of our inner lives is paltry and tends to mislead when filtered through that poor vocabulary. How can I answer any question about God without engaging in the enduring conversation that has spanned mankind's existence?
To move off this others have said their encounter with God is in nature. Personally I have yet to experience God in a landscape more than what looking to what mountains, sky, clouds and sun can symbolize. Perhaps this again is a definitional question but I believe I don't think about God because I am too overwhelmed taking the beauty in to find myself gob(d)smaked. Or perhaps you believe that apprehension of beauty is reflecting on God.
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