Epiphany Season Series: Lighting the Way

We like to talk about compassion, service, justice, equity, and wholeness. We strive after these virtues in our lives, and with starry-eyed hope believe that we can change the world. 

But despite our best intentions, we end up falling right back into the well-worn programs, habits, and hang-ups that we’ve been carrying around for our entire lives. Like Saint Paul, we realize, “when I want to do good, I don’t, and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway.” 

Fortunately, we’re not the first people to have this problem. As saints and psychologists both know: if you want to change the system, change yourself! But how?

Our Epiphany season series, Lighting the Way, introduces us to the contemplative spiritual practices that the Christian tradition has used for centuries to help us heal from the emotional wounds and baggage of a lifetime as we walk on the spiritual journey. 

Like lamp posts and lighthouses, these spiritual technologies light the way home to our true identity as beloved children of God, and help us to see ourselves and our world through the eyes of Christ.

As we gather, learn, reflect, and practice together in Sunday worship over the next seven weeks, we’ll discover that the very stuff we struggle with can become, with the help of these practices and a helping of grace, fuel for our own transformation into the people we were always meant to be.

Here’s the road map for our next seven weeks together:

January 16th — The Road Home: The Call to the Spiritual Journey

January 23rd — Starting with Stillness: Silent Prayer

January 30th — Listening Deeply: Lectio Divina

February 6th — Re-Member Who You Are: Eucharist

February 13th — Polishing the Mirror: Psalmody and Chanting

February 20th — Holding You in the Light: Sacred Community

February 27th — Transfiguration: Seeing with the Eye of the Heart

I invite you to bring your curiosity, your questions, and your willingness to try new things as we undertake this journey. In the words of the Maine poet Phillip Booth,“how you get there is where you’ll arrive!”

—Pr. Nate