wondering. how were you taught to enact your christian life when you were young? your piety, as the puritans would have said. what were your early notions of devotional practice, reading the bible, prayer, etc?
did you do daily devotions with devotional books? randomly open the text to receive a special word from the lord?
little prayer methods, like ACTS (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication)? other ways of prayer?
what do you do now? the same things? different things? what do you make of the language of devotion? "daily devo," "time with the lord," "quiet time," etc.
is it important to change that vocabulary? change those practices? keep them the same? re-name them?
I pondered your post all day. I was taught a variety of things, devotional books, through-the-bible-in-one-year reading programs, this and that acronym. "Quiet time" in itself was good, even if all I really took away was a sense of self-satisfaction, something I could drop into conversation to improve my external appearance to others. I think the most problematic aspect of it that remains for me is the lingo and its function in our speech. The idea that we need a lingo, a slang to refer to private practices of devotion seems to indicate that it is something we need to talk about. But why do we need to talk about it at all if we're in our closets where we're supposed to be?
ReplyDeleteFor me it's like vocal exercises, really necessary for the improvement of artistic expression, but likely to change with one's awareness of technical issues that need work. A good voice teacher will not prescribe a set regimen of exercises, but will weekly refocus the student's awareness of what she should be paying attention to. With respect to the personal practice of piety, how and to what I should be paying attention was taught badly to me...
me too. taught badly, but with good intentions by my parents, i think. they were first-generation evangelicals, who are just now ever-so-slightly recovering following the split of their megachurch.
ReplyDeleteanyway, our family 'devotions' (for lack of better word) were sporadic at best, and when i was a teenager and must've appeared in need of them, they were demanded of me. i had to spend time in my room, reading my Bible and praying (using the 'ACTS' method, haha), before i could call my boyfriend. ugh. as if this would prepare my heart? it's laughable now. it was misery then. completely performace-based. i do think, though, that my parents, as gross as it was, were trying to do the best they knew how. thankfully, as we've all grown, a daily 'quiet time' has become their own private habit, and has recently become something i've aspired to do for the right reasons...not because i need to show my kids i do it, but because i desperately need to focus my day where it should be. when i don't, i notice a slow spiral into myself. but if nobody knew i ever did, it would be fine by me. post-college, i don't desire anybody to know my spiritual business. :)
the christianese kills me. i can't stand it. i can't stand the new, post-modern (or post-post-modern?) catchphrases we use to mask what we really mean. blech. all we want - all anybody wants, believer/Christ-follower/Christian or not, is authenticity. truth. love.
since you ask, here is my current practice: i try to read My Utmost for His Highest daily (because i like it, because it's a good length for me), to pray then and as it strikes me through the day, and to read a verse or two of scripture.
for our kids, we try to read a short passage straight from the Bible a few times a week (this will be daily during the school year - i'm just starting this habit) and we pray with them every night at bedtime.
i think keeping it simple is key for me to keeping it real.
"spiral into myself" -- I like that phrase.
ReplyDeleteDaily devotions, even though I do them, are a bit of a painful/frustrating thing to discuss. Growing up my mother used them as a bit of a weapon--a tool of "conviction." Bad attitudes, whining, and back-talk were met with, "Did you have your quiet time today?" in a sometimes accusatory tone. I think this illustrated how difficult parenting can be ... how do you instill a desire in your kids to spend time in prayer/scripture but not use it to punish them or control a situation? But the question of whether I'd had my quiet time really made me want to ask it right back when my mom was angry, impatient, etc.