signposts

I was recently reading an article about the theology of youth ministry and I happened upon an interesting question, illustrated here in youth ministry but applicable in the context of contemplation which has recently consumed my thinking. Kenda Dean writes,

"Do young people experience God as synonymous with particular people (like their small group) or a particular practice of ministry (like singing with a praise band) or a particular context (like camp)? Or have we helped them develop a repertoire of faith practices supple enough to take Christianity beyond any single faith experience?" (Getting out of God's Way, YouthWorker Journal, Jan/Feb 2005)

I've slowly been coming to realize our facination with destination has betrayed our possibilities for an intimate, ongoing relationship with God. We have come to live our lives at destinations like church, camp, or youth group, and ignore the journey, which in fact consumes the majority of our lives. I fear my failure to "practice the presence of God," as Brother Lawrence would say, has left me starving for the next experience and missing the joy, the beauty, the adventure of the journey. It's the heart of the contemplative, those disciplines or faith practices as Dean calls them, that brings the experience of God through the Spirit into our daily journey. So rather than relying on a 30-minute devotional time to last the whole day, the whole of our journey is filled with the joy of experiencing God. Idealistic, perhaps, but then what good is a vision that's not.