Praying with our Camera and Social Media

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Anglican and Episcopal News Service recently issued an invitation to us to observe Advent with our smartphones, particularly with our cameras and our social media accounts:

http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2014/11/12/anglicans-invited-to-celebrate-advent-using-your-camera-phones/

I hope you all will consider taking up this invitation and trying on a new way of observing Advent. I have been doing something similar in the month of November on the theme of gratitude and thanksgiving. 

I serve on the Board of The Young Clergy Women Project, and we have been exploring the theme of thanksgiving this month via social media. We have been invited to post a photo each day inspired by a word, e.g. grace, presence, enough, etc. See post here: http://youngclergywomen.org/thanks-giving/

The hashtag for this is #thanksliving14 and you can search for it on Facebook or Twitter. If you would like to see my posts for November, you may view my Twitter feed here.

I have found this to be a remarkable exercise. It is really been a powerful, prayerful experience to have the discipline to think each day about a word related to gratitude. It is helped me pay a bit more attention and to see the world a little differently as I have been on a lookout for an image that captures the day's word. 

If you engage in this activity for Advent, I wish you a prayerful and enriching experience!

The Power of Story

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I spent part of last week at a remarkable training at Sewanee called "Living in the Green." [More information on the program can be found here: http://programcenter.sewanee.edu/programs/living-in-the-green]

While I am still absorbing all I learned and thinking through how it can be asset to the work we are about in raising up leaders here in the Episcopal Church in CT, one of the biggest lessons I carry from it is that of the power of story. Part of our training was to "try on" and experience a particular way of doing discernment and conversation. This involved the use of story prompts and small group sharing. We used a passage from a speech by Howard Thurman (see an excerpt here) about the "sound of the genuine." What struck me most was the profound level of sharing that happened through this story prompt. Within a few minutes, I was deeply connected to two other individuals who I otherwise barely knew. And I also was profoundly aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit, in their stories and in our conversation. 

We often talk about story. We are a people rooted in story - in Scripture, in the stories of our own Anglican tradition, in our own individual stories - and yet I so often find myself operating on the more superficial, informational level. I can be so task or goal oriented that I can forget how essential it is - to the work we are about, as well as to the building up of God's kingdom - to share and to listen to our stories. We are stronger, more deeply connected, wiser and more thoughtful beings for the gift of hearing one another tell our stories and for the gift of being heard. The Holy Spirit is at work through my time at Sewanee and the opportunities I have to engage with those in discernment, formation and in leadership positions. Clearly I need to pay more attention and leave more room for stories.

 

Change your bookmarks!

As a result of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut's branding process and the desire to standardize all our blogs, the url of this blog has changed to http://episcopalct-formation.blogspot.com

Please update your bookmarks so that you don't miss any formation resources. If you are signed up to receive email updates, this shouldn't affect that at all.