William Hunter
1st September 2006, 03:03 PM (15:03)
I think it was about 6 yrs. ago I was at NTS while visiting my youngest daughter who has since graduated from there. While in their book store I found out that they were using the above book in some of their spiritual formation classes. The foreward is by Henry J.M. Nouwen, published by Westminister John Knox Press, with a copyright date of 1995.
I am just beginning my 6th time thorugh this book in a continued effort to deepen my initmacy with Christ. I found this book to be the best spiritual formation book I've read and I've been through a few over the yrs. In the beginning of the book, Thompkins quotes Ps. 63:5: "My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips..."
It has the following chapters:
1. Hunter and Thirst for the Spirit (The Spiritual Yearning of Our Time)
2. Chewing the Bread of the Word (The Nature and Practice of Spiritual Reading)
3. Communication and Communion with God (Approaches to Prayer)
4. Gathered in the Spirit (Our Common Worship)
5. The Practice of Self-Emptying (Rediscovering the Fast)
6. Of Conscience and Consciencness (Self-Exampnation, Confession, and Awareness)
7. Companions on the Journey (The Gift of Spiritual Direction)
8. Entertaining Angels Unawares (The Spirit of Hospitality)
9. Putting It All Together (Deveoping a Rule of Life)
Then there is Appendix A---Group Study Guide
The above may sound a bity acadmeic but this book is very far from that. It really is a personal spiritual formation guide and workbook. It use it with a journal at my side along with my Bible.Henry Nouwen wrote of this book: "She (the author) simply invites us to creat the space where the life of God in us can be nurtured and brought to fruition...(we seem to have) a fear of empty space. "Soul Feast" shows us that the disciples of the spiritual life are meant to offer creative boundaries to that empty space within and among us, so that we can acknowledge it without fear and allow God to transform there our stony hearts into hearts of flesh. Spiritual disciples are nothing more and mothing less than ways to creat room where Christ can invite us to feast with Him at the table of abundance."
In the Introduction, Thompkins says: "Yet I know from expereince that many pastores, church educators, and seminarians are as hungry for guidance in the spiritual life as laypersons, since training for church leadership in most Protestant institutions has not typically included a full range of practices for nurturning inward faith as well as its outward expressions...Ther is a childlike simplicity to Christian spirituality. In a certain sense we neve get past practicing the basics." She qoutes Teres of Avila: "No soul on this road is such a giant that it does not often need to become a child at the breast again...For there is no state of prayer, however sublime, in which it is not necessary often to go back to the beginning."
Thompkins has a short section in the intro. of the book on how to use this book. It instructions could well be used in other spiritual formation efforts.
In chapter one, Thompkins writes: "...technoloical advances have led to exponential change at virtually every level of our lives...Many people long for some center of stability amid such rapid and pervasive change...We live in a culture that glorfied superficial values. As a society we have little deep sense of purpose that calls us to sacrifice individual desires for the sake of a larger good...They [we] see that material wealth, sexual attractiveness, physical prowess, and social status are the spiritual equivalent of empty calories. We are beginning to strave for values of enduring substance..."
This book continues to teach and reteach me how to make God come alive afresh for me, and then for my congregation. Since we are made for relationship with God, how do I so foster that relationship beyond the usual shallowness we find in most congregations, that my own relationship Christ helps my cong. that is made up of broken people who have had broken and fractured relationships all ove their lives, including with themselves? This book has been of invaluable help to me. And at each stage of growth, as I mature in Christ, it leads me at that level. This is a rare book that can be used over and over again for it calls and guides at each new level of spiritual growth and need we find ourselves.
To close, I would offer one more quote: "If we wish to see, name, and love Christ 'in the flesh' of daily existence, we will eventually need some kind of intensional practice of spiritual discipline." She helps us sort living truth from dying customs, resulting in an intimacy with Christ we did not realize we could get to. I find this every time I use this book to guide me in my spiritual growth. It is best devotional help I have used in my walk wtih Christ. I am soon going to need to replace it with a new copy for this one is wearing out.
I am just beginning my 6th time thorugh this book in a continued effort to deepen my initmacy with Christ. I found this book to be the best spiritual formation book I've read and I've been through a few over the yrs. In the beginning of the book, Thompkins quotes Ps. 63:5: "My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips..."
It has the following chapters:
1. Hunter and Thirst for the Spirit (The Spiritual Yearning of Our Time)
2. Chewing the Bread of the Word (The Nature and Practice of Spiritual Reading)
3. Communication and Communion with God (Approaches to Prayer)
4. Gathered in the Spirit (Our Common Worship)
5. The Practice of Self-Emptying (Rediscovering the Fast)
6. Of Conscience and Consciencness (Self-Exampnation, Confession, and Awareness)
7. Companions on the Journey (The Gift of Spiritual Direction)
8. Entertaining Angels Unawares (The Spirit of Hospitality)
9. Putting It All Together (Deveoping a Rule of Life)
Then there is Appendix A---Group Study Guide
The above may sound a bity acadmeic but this book is very far from that. It really is a personal spiritual formation guide and workbook. It use it with a journal at my side along with my Bible.Henry Nouwen wrote of this book: "She (the author) simply invites us to creat the space where the life of God in us can be nurtured and brought to fruition...(we seem to have) a fear of empty space. "Soul Feast" shows us that the disciples of the spiritual life are meant to offer creative boundaries to that empty space within and among us, so that we can acknowledge it without fear and allow God to transform there our stony hearts into hearts of flesh. Spiritual disciples are nothing more and mothing less than ways to creat room where Christ can invite us to feast with Him at the table of abundance."
In the Introduction, Thompkins says: "Yet I know from expereince that many pastores, church educators, and seminarians are as hungry for guidance in the spiritual life as laypersons, since training for church leadership in most Protestant institutions has not typically included a full range of practices for nurturning inward faith as well as its outward expressions...Ther is a childlike simplicity to Christian spirituality. In a certain sense we neve get past practicing the basics." She qoutes Teres of Avila: "No soul on this road is such a giant that it does not often need to become a child at the breast again...For there is no state of prayer, however sublime, in which it is not necessary often to go back to the beginning."
Thompkins has a short section in the intro. of the book on how to use this book. It instructions could well be used in other spiritual formation efforts.
In chapter one, Thompkins writes: "...technoloical advances have led to exponential change at virtually every level of our lives...Many people long for some center of stability amid such rapid and pervasive change...We live in a culture that glorfied superficial values. As a society we have little deep sense of purpose that calls us to sacrifice individual desires for the sake of a larger good...They [we] see that material wealth, sexual attractiveness, physical prowess, and social status are the spiritual equivalent of empty calories. We are beginning to strave for values of enduring substance..."
This book continues to teach and reteach me how to make God come alive afresh for me, and then for my congregation. Since we are made for relationship with God, how do I so foster that relationship beyond the usual shallowness we find in most congregations, that my own relationship Christ helps my cong. that is made up of broken people who have had broken and fractured relationships all ove their lives, including with themselves? This book has been of invaluable help to me. And at each stage of growth, as I mature in Christ, it leads me at that level. This is a rare book that can be used over and over again for it calls and guides at each new level of spiritual growth and need we find ourselves.
To close, I would offer one more quote: "If we wish to see, name, and love Christ 'in the flesh' of daily existence, we will eventually need some kind of intensional practice of spiritual discipline." She helps us sort living truth from dying customs, resulting in an intimacy with Christ we did not realize we could get to. I find this every time I use this book to guide me in my spiritual growth. It is best devotional help I have used in my walk wtih Christ. I am soon going to need to replace it with a new copy for this one is wearing out.