24 February 2006

The week ends with this comment about covenanting from "The Covenanted Self" by Walter Brueggemann.

Thus I suggest that covenanting (and spirituality), consists in learning the skills and sensitivities that include both the courage to assert self and the grace to abandon self to another. Such covenanting recognizes that both parties have claims to make, and that one must learn the right time in which to pursue and honor each claim, and then have the confident, unencumbered freedom to move in both directions.

I find that this suggestion brings the concept of "spirituality" into a very active and everyday experience. It is not some individual journey one takes that is merely inward. Our spirituality is a dialogical adventure. It is relational. It takes at least two sides to create this "covenant" or "spiritual" life and both sides - or all sides - must be willing to take an active part in a discipline that becomes the way life is lived. In such a relationship, it is key to enter into the two actions that Brueggemann has mentioned previously: asserting self and abandoning self. We must remember that we must never be in a relationship in which only one of these two actions is taken by either side of the covenant relationship. Rather, it is essential to welfare of each party that the two actions become a pattern that involves timing and listening and patience and love and justice. Within any dialogical relationship there is the presence of at least two who must express their power of being. A true spirituality or covenant relationship seeks to create life that honors the worth of the other and demand that the other be fully present as that other. In this way, each party is being pulled into the depths of the relationship and into a greater sense of self.

Connection: We are, in our relationships today, people who practice a spirituality that places demands on us. Do not be afraid to take part in a demanding and giving covenant relationship with those around you. We will all find new life there.

Lord God, when you led Israel out into the wilderness and liberated them from captivity in Egypt, you taught them and you thus, teach us the way to build a community that is not afraid to share its life and enter into a spiritual union with those who are other than us. Continue to bring us into new life even today. Amen.