No saving, fixing, or setting anyone straight

... not in Spiritual Formation class, no sir!

Interesting class Thursday nights. It's all about the process of being transformed into Christ-likeness, a'la 2 Corinthians 3:18, with special emphasis on five key attributes that the profs (and their department) set as goals for the students, as things which they believe should characterize Seminary grads:

Authentic Piety
Differentiation of Self
Emotional Intelligence
Humility
Generativity

I won't detail these.. there's far too much to share here. We were asked to take inventory of ourselves according to these categories, and assess in which we need to make the most progress. Ouch. Not a happy task. Suffice it to say that at one point, I held up the sheet which defined these characteristics and said to the class: "I'm glad this is not my final year of Sem, because according to this list, I'm sure not ready to graduate!" That got a laugh, and a lot of sympathetic nods and Amens.

So, this is the topic of the course - how formation happens in the spiritual life.

We have to.. oops, we are privileged to.. do this in small groups. My little band of spiritual derelicts included a couple of people I knew already. There were actually several familiar faces in the class, which was kinda cool. I even remembered their names, and they remembered mine.

Just before we headed off to talk about our struggles and failings, we were given the advice in the title of this post. In small groups we don't save people, we don't fix people, we don't set people straight. We ask questions. We wonder aloud about stuff. And (my favorite), we think of silence as another member of the group; we let silence have a turn to share.

I like that. :) I don't do it very well, but I like the idea just the same. Hiya, Silence! What you up to these days? ... oh, mmhmm ... I see ... you don't get out much, do you?

Yeah, yeah, funny boy. It really IS a good idea to give silence a turn. He's actually a pretty good guy when you get to know him.

Finally, in addition to the readings and assignments, one of the things we need to do this term is to identify a new spiritual practice and do it at least weekly, if not more.

Here's some websites the profs gave us to explore for possible spiritual practice ideas, and they range from Evangelical to Jesuit to New Age. Some are a little too squishy for my taste, but I've found at least one idea which I may just implement. Heck, it's only for one quarter; how bad could it be? ;)

http://renovare.us/
http://www.practicingourfaith.org/
http://www.sacredspace.ie/
http://www.jesuit.org/Spirituality/DailyExamen/default.aspx
http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/