From the Pastor - "Theology by Heart" February 2016
Have
you ever written or received a love letter?
It’s a way of communicating how you feel about someone or learning how
someone else sees you.
Writing
your thoughts and feelings is one way of doing theological reflection. It is called “theology by heart.”1 You might write a letter to God about something
important on your heart. You could paraphrase
a passage of Scripture, putting the text in your own words.
John
Wesley wrote his personal journal with the intent of sharing it with other
people. His journal entries were
reflections of his faith in daily life.
Writing
as a form of theological reflection places a focus on one’s interior spiritual
life. It is deeply personal and can
reveal how the Holy Spirit is working one’s life. Best of all, it is very accessible, in the
sense of being relatively easy to practice.
Some
may say it can become too self-centered by ignoring the need for action and
change in the world. However, it can be
a window through which one sees things as they are or how they should be. This type of reflexive writing can be a way
of stepping back and considering a possible course of action, a complex range
of factors that influence a situation.
It can elevate the role of faith and the key values in our lives.
Give
this form of theological reflection a try.
In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, you might write a “love letter” to God
or to the people of Trinity Church to share what you cherish most about that
relationship. Or, perhaps you might even
imagine the kind of love letter God might write to you.
Yours
in Christ,
Rev.
Brian C. Smith
_________
1 Elaine Graham, Heather Walton, and Frances Ward. Theological
Reflection: Methods. London: SCM, 2005. 18-46
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