We're doing an Advent workshop deal for the middle and high schoolers in our Christian Formation here at St. James next Sunday. I wrote an introduction to this video that we're going to watch in conjunction with the workshop. The video will be linked below the reflection.
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We are here to be silent. Why silence? I thought we were here to do some sort of Advent-y prayer. Yes. We are. Silence can be a type of prayer. Meditation is prayer. We’ll be doing some of both. But it’s important to have a purpose when we are silence, when we meditate. The purpose is Advent. It’s a confusing word that we hear this time of year and sometimes push it aside, knowing that it means the time before Christmas. But Advent is a time of preparation—preparation for God entering into our lives, both in Bethlehem 2000 years ago and this very day, here and now. “The message of Advent is that God has not abandoned you. God is with you.” And so in preparation for Jesus entrance into the world, the Church gives Advent as time to prepare.
This seems crazy, but one way of preparation is silence, purposeful silence. Think about it. When we’re about to tell someone something important, we often take a pause before speaking. Silence. When we’re faced with a big decision in our lives, we take a moment—or many moments—to reflect before deciding. Silence. When we’re studying for that big test, we gather our notes, homework, and quizzes, and get busy studying. Hopefully, in silence. Silence removes the distractions, removes the noise, removes the busyness of our daily lives. Silence gives us time to think, time to prepare, time to be. Silence.
And so, I invite you to take this time out of your busy schedule to enter into silence. Well, it’s a guided meditation on silence, so there will be some talking. I invite you to think about what he has to say, think about how this applies to your life. There is paper and a pencil for you to write down anything that comes into your head. Afterward, we will discuss. Until then—silence.
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And here's the video. Yes, we bought it. We're not going to show this version of it with the translation on the bottom, though that would be awesome.
Thoughts?
01 December 2008
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7 comments:
not gonna lie - i love your reflections! keep 'em coming!
and i'm pretty much obsessed with silence, so i loved this. and the video is great -- i've seen a few other rob bell videos (the flame one and some others). big fan.
well done, sir! and i'm going to email you an activity i got from marquette about prayer in a busy world. it may or may not be helpful.
see you in less than 2 weeks!!!
I love it, Isaac!
I don't know how I've missed him, but I'd never seen Rob Bell before. He seems like a very interesting Evangelical. I also like reading all the frothy anger from more conservative Evangelicals in the comments on his YouTube videos- hilarious!
Also, now we all know why you're so calm.
i love the nooma videos. my favorite is dust--- have you seen that one?
That's funny you have that video. I just asked my mentor and priest last week if we could invest in the entire Nooma series. I love Rob Bell as well. I think his catechesis is swell, yet, will I get the videos? Only time will tell.
I haven't seen any of the other nooma videos but this one. I ordered it last Friday and it still hasn't come...
turns out I saw one of these as a junior in high school! It was Rain. I didn't think I had seen these before but now I've seen two!
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