Marginal Christianity

  http://derekzrishmawy.com/2014/04/03/catching-sleep-catching-the-spirit-or-a-note-on-the-phenomenology-of-the-spiritual-disciplines/ I’ve found a number of dangers when it comes to introducing my students to the spiritual disciplines , or the regular rhythms of the Christian life like prayer, Scripture-reading, and commitment to regular corporate worship. Aside from giving them the false impression that I’m good at them, the chief difficulty I find is explaining their importance while avoiding a sort of magical ex opere operato idea that encourages discouragement when nothing  happens as you first attempt to adopt them in your own life. To do this I’ve sort described them as ways of putting yourself in a position to communicate (commune) with God. In the same way that it’s silly to expect hear from your friend if you’ve got your phone turned off, it’s silly to expect to hear from God if you never actually open your Bible, try to pray, or go to church with regu...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-colier/being-present_b_4717049.html                  By now, most of us know that now -- here -- is where we're supposed to be. We get it that we are not living our life fully if we are always lost in thought, tumbling through a story about the past or future. But how do we do this thing called being present? How do we actually bring ourselves into a state of here-ness, deposit ourselves into this moment, so that we can truly be in our own life? What follows is a list of practices, tools, for being here. The fact is, we can't really ever be anywhere but where we are, but our attention, our mind, can indeed travel elsewhere. The tools that follow are designed to sync up your attention with your body, so that the two are in the same place, like a floating photograph that moves into its frame. The practices I offer can be used for as little or ...