What did we do?

What happened in January?

becomingflame.com went live

On January 1st, becomingflame.com went live with its first post and About page.

scripture

We focused on scriptures that talk about light (as opposed to darkness), beginning with the first ‘word’ of creation in Genesis, moving on to the Word who was with God before creation, who is the light of the world, the life of all people. We talked about the choice between light and darkness. Finally, we talked about being the light of the world ourselves.

• Let there be light
• Life and light
• Light and darkness
• Jesus, the light of the world
• Us, the light of the world

prayers

We looked at a few prayers for different situations.

• A prayer when reading scripture
• A Prayer when parting
• Prayer for when we mess up

other writings

We looked at writings from Thomas Merton, Mary Oliver, and Frederick Buechner that emphasized how the anxiety and concerns of daily life can snuff out our flame, the flicker of our ‘real self’. We were repeatedly encouraged to pay attention in order tend to that flame.

• Thomas Merton on the ‘real self’
• Mary Oliver on ‘Attention’
• Thomas Merton – The First Responsibility
• Praying – a poem by Mary Oliver
• Frederick Buechner – A million things