Faith Venture

I love travel–well, mostly. It breaks my habits. Sometimes I get confused. I got up a little late today and just took a walk down Des Plaines River Road (O’Hare area of Chicago) to both get some exercise and to meditate. Trouble was, I was meditating on the sequel to this post–only I hadn’t posted it yet.

Mr. Johnson was the Superintendent of Schools in my hometown. He also taught some math classes. When he taught plane geometry, he told us that what he was really teaching was how to think. And he did–in my case, at least.

What we learned was how to prove theorems. It was an exercise in logical thinking. That concept is so deeply ingrained in me, that I cannot proceed without it.

So, a few weeks ago I was leading a class in the study of Romans. I introduced the concept of the logical development of Paul’s thought as he leads us in an exercise of spiritual formation. But as soon as I started the logical progression, someone wanted to jump ahead and latch on to the one thing that speaks to him from the letter. And the way he expressed it sounded almost vindictive. You know how some people sound accusatory even if they say they don’t mean to be? It’s one of those “I’ve got it, you don’t” sort of statements.

But I wondered a couple of things. First, can we have the patience to slow down and go through the logic of Biblical writers rather than grab a thought and cling to it without context? Then, can we be open to the leading of the Spirit as It guides us toward further spiritual formation?

This entry was posted on March 14, 2012 at 11:04 am and is filed under Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.