Like The Sacramental Use Of Water And

American Culture Is Probably The Least Christian Culture That We've Ever Had Because It Is So Materialistic And It's So Full Of Lies. The Whole Advertising World Is Just, It's Just Intertwined With Lies, Appealing To The Worst Of The Instincts We Have.

This Kingdom Of God Life Is Not A Matter Of Waking Up Each Morning With A List Of Chores Or An Agenda To Be Tended To, Left On Our Bedside Table By The Holy Spirit For Us While We Slept. We Wake Up Already Immersed In A Large Story Of Creation And Covenant, Of Israel And Jesus, The Story Of Jesus And The Stories That Jesus Told. We Let Ourselves Be Formed By These Formative Stories, And Especially As We Listen To The Stories That Jesus Tells, Get A Feel For The Way He Does It, The Way He Talks, The Way He Treats People, The Jesus Way.

Spirituality Is No Different From What Weve Been Doing For Two Thousand Years Just By Going To Church And Receiving The Sacraments, Being Baptized, Learning To Pray, And Reading Scriptures Rightly. Its Just Ordinary Stuff.

The Latin Words Humus, Soil/earth, And Homo, Human Being, Have A Common Derivation, From Which We Also Get Our Word 'humble.' This Is The Genesis Origin Of Who We Are: Dust - Dust That The Lord God Used To Make Us A Human Being. If We Cultivate A Lively Sense Of Our Origin And Nurture A Sense Of Continuity With It, Who Knows, We May Also Acquire Humility.

To Follow Jesus Implies That We Enter Into A Way Of Life That Is Given Character And Shape And Direction By The One Who Calls Us. To Follow Jesus Means Picking Up Rhythms And Ways Of Doing Things That Are Often Unsaid But Always Derivative From Jesus, Formed By The Influence Of Jesus. To Follow Jesus Means That We Can't Separate What Jesus Is Saying From What Jesus Is Doing And The Way That He Is Doing It. To Follow Jesus Is As Much, Or Maybe Even More, About Feet As It Is About Ears And Eyes" (the Way Of Jesus, Eugene H. Peterson, 22).