Everyday resurrection meals

“Our Sunday worship is important. The bible studies we attend are important. The retreats we make are important. But over a lifetime, the unnoticed and unrecognized presence of the risen Christ at our meals may be more formative of the life in Christ in us.” E. Peterson (Living the Resurrection).

It is important to note that some of the most critical spiritual moments of teaching and spiritual experience happen around meals – the Passover meal, the Emmaus meal, the beach in Galilee. It raises all kinds of questions as to how we go about our Eucharist meal and how we ought to meet more often around the common daily meal in Christian Fellowship. It also asks the question – how often we meet around the table as a family and recognize in our discussions that Christ has been with us in our daily recap stories and in our laughter.

A child's part in spiritual formation

“Children are our first defense against the deadening and flattening effects of disconnecting God and life.” E. Peterson

This was something to digest, having a one year old in my house seems as if my spiritual formation is at an end! Isaiah said: “And a little child shall lead them” (11:6) and we know Christ’s attitude to children (Matt 18). What children do is they break the divisions between private and public and the temptation to make my prayer life a separate, quite, secluded part of my life. A relationship with a child is all encompassing and everything happens in the moment. Only later do they learn to differentiate and compartmentalize their lives. Children break us out of the secluded routines and help us as the psalmist says: “…walk before God in the light of life.” (Ps. 56:13b) But, I be honest, a child’s screaming tests my ‘harmony’ in a big way – maybe it is helping me live my faith in the raw of the emotional day?

“We can’t master spiritual formation” Eugene Peterson

In a small book released in March this year called: “Living the Resurrection” are a few lecture notes E. Peterson gave at Regent College, Vancouver.

The events of the resurrection found in all our Gospels lead Peterson to the conclusion that meeting with the Resurrected Christ is something that we cannot easily put into tight, easy compartments of spiritual progress. We are quick to formalize and strategize our spiritual awakening into programmes that help us feel a sense of achievement and puts us in control of its making. Meeting with the resurrected Christ may change this altogether when like the early disciples meeting the empty tomb face to face experienced the wonder of things out of their control but regardless, a spiritual awakening.