Hi folks, I hope that you have had a good week. It was great to be back in the Crescent Club last Sunday, it felt like coming home!! We are once again back in the Crescent Club meeting at 7.30.
Just another reminder that we want to ensure that we keep people safe, so we ask that when walking around the club you wear a mask. Please also be mindful of others personal space either while sitting down or walking about. There are a number of hand sanitisers around the club so please use them. If there are large numbers we will split into small groups around the club.
As we continue to think about a ‘Liturgy for the Ordinary’ this week we are pondering on ‘waking’.
The first thing to say is that we all do it! Some of us are better at it than others, I’m much more of a slow gentle riser, although if I have something to get up for I can move quickly!
What I find interesting about waking is that there is a now and not yet phase that you might go through, the remnants of dreams drift into your mind and then fall away.
You begin to experience your surroundings, hearing the radio or the alarm, light gently filters through as you move from sleep to waking, your consciousness kicks in, remembering, recognising the thoughts and emotions as you drifted into sleep.
As you wake you become more aware of your body, start thinking about the day ahead and all that’s around the corner.
I wonder if there is a spiritual moment in waking up? That kind of YES! I’m alive and thankful! I wonder what acknowledgment our inner being does in that moment of waking?
I’m trying to think what is the first thing I do when I have decided that I am awake, it’s not easy, there are practical actions, like the loo, and making a cup of tea! I don’t ‘do’ anything else I don’t think.
According to Lutheran theologian Martin Marty, Lutherans are taught to begin each day, first thing, by making the sign of the cross as a token of their baptism – I find that interesting.
We are marked from our first waking moment by our own identity that is given to us by grace: an identity that is deeper and more real than any other identity we will have that day. It is our person–hood, humanness, personality, and it kind of reboots each day.
We rise like each person throughout the world although maybe as a person of spirituality you may rise slightly differently- or not?
Maybe in that waking process there is a moment when we can begin to acknowledge our humanness and our spirituality.
As a person of faith and spiritually we rise with a wonder and knowledge of grace, of being loved no matter what… Or do we?
And so this morning I woke on an ordinary day, a morning in mid-September. I do not know what lies ahead, but I wake in a bed I know, a house I live in, a routine, a particular life. The psalmist declares, “This is the day that the Lord has made.”
So some questions
Describe how you wake?
How do your dreams affect your waking?
I talked about a ‘now and not yet’ moment of waking – what do you think that is?
In what ways (if any) do you recognise your own spirituality in waking? And if you don’t, do you think it matters?
How do you feel about each day being a re-boot?
What do you think of these words from the Psalm “This is the day that the Lord has made.” could they change your perspective about waking?
Peace, Rob
Rob Wylie is the founder of BeachcomberFX and guides its leadership team. He has worked in the North East for over 20 years and has vast experience from various roles he has held. He has a passion for Fresh Expressions of Church and Pioneer Ministry as well as beer, beaches and Miniature Schnauzers.