Traveling between Kingdoms
- At November 12, 2016
- By Morgan Reid
- In Ministry, Motherhood, Ordinary Radical
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The life I want is cushy.
Creature comforts;
Children who love their life.
A hubby who is well satisfied.
For myself to be thriving.
For others, I’d be there helping and alleviating their hurt, but it wouldn’t get me emotionally.
I’d do things requiring effort, knowledge, and stretching – but it’d be a pretty picture: not overwhelming, went smoothly overall, and why yes, quite literally there’d be a nice picture taken so I could document the moment and keep it close.
I think all that would be my mission statement.
But what sucks is that my life’s desire is completely unmatched to reality.
Limping Despair
- At October 30, 2015
- By Morgan Reid
- In Ordinary Radical
- 0
So often, I feel selfish – even wrong – for getting to be a Christian in America. I don’t have to cling to Jesus the way those dire or horrific situations have to. Surrounded by earthly comforts and distractions, I have “plenty” in my hands, filling my thoughts. Except when it comes to my emotions – how I feel about myself and how I feel others feel towards me.
Jesus is about getting to the heart of the matter. He asked the rich man to lay down his riches, the son to forgo burying his father, Martha to laid down her desire for control and work, and simply rest. Without comparing my problems with the awful plight of the suffering, my emotional attachments to myself and other people are enslaving. He’s gently prying away at that root in my heart.
Rediscovering Jesus :: Part 3 – What I love about Anglicanism
Two things before I get into this post:
- I’m still at an elementary level in my learning and have only been to one church and completed one catechism, so I’m asking for grace. Please correct me if you notice something “off” but for the most part, read this as what resonates with *me* not necessarily an exhaustive, well-explained guide.
- My heart yearns for the people of my generation to rediscover 1st century Jesus in the 21st century and His unfailing Good News. Anglicanism is how I feel lead to continue in that — but it is in NO way the only way to do that! For me passion and excitement translate into a *lot* of talking and sharing. I have a lot of joy in my heart concerning this new Way, but as Thomas McKenzie points out in The Anglican Way (such a good book, all the quotes in this post are from it, unless otherwise mentioned):
“It’s best to put wine into the right kind of cup, but the cup isn’t the most important thing. The wine is what matters. The Anglican Way is a cup. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the wine. The Anglican Way is a good cup into which to pour this most magnificent of wines, but it isn’t nearly as important as the wine itself. It isn’t the only kind of glass you could use, but it is a good one, and one that does a nice job of allowing the wine to be experienced as it was meant to be.”
So what I love:
{http://www.anglicancommunion.org/}
Liturgy :: I feel like I won’t be able to come up with a way to express this properly, so I’ll say this: beautiful language, saturated in Scripture, time-honored, prayed among christians all over the world. It’s rhythmic in that there’s prayers for morning, noon, evening, and before bed – which can help to reorient me back to God throughout the day and weave Him into our home.
Beauty :: Anglicans embrace how beauty can act as a “window into heaven” that points our souls back to God. An incredible painting, a good cup of coffee, a fall afternoon. It really resonated with me in a One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp way and has helped me to embrace what makes me feel alive, instead of putting it down as impractical and expensive.
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Rediscovering Jesus :: Part 2 – Finding Anglicanism
- At September 10, 2015
- By Morgan Reid
- In Changes, Ordinary Radical, Reflections
- 0
In Part 1, I wrote about how Nathan and I had come to love Jesus and hate what the American Church had become.
I ended by sharing that God used the Liturgy to guide Nathan and I into a new Way:
It was a couple months after we moved into our new house: money was tight, I was still getting used to our 3rd move in 18 months, we were experiencing record rains, the city of Austin actually flooded, and boxes and scorpions abounded.
Scrolling through facebook I saw an eye-catching photo for an event at a church about the Liturgy. My interest was sparked because Nathan and I had purchased The Book of Common Prayer in January to create rhythms and weave God into our home. We loved its beautiful language and knowing that Christians all over the world were saying nearly the same prayers – it seemed like it would be a great fit. May came and we still didn’t fully know about all of its history or how to fully use it to enrich our spiritual lives.
Rediscovering Jesus :: Part 1 – “Well, we love Jesus, we’re just sick of ‘christianity’.”
By the spring of 2011, Nathan and I had become completely disillusioned with “church.” We were tired of “ok-yeah-we-already-know” sermons and being a part of churches that looked nothing like Jesus or the movement of His early followers.
