Meditations from Zion

March 2022: This Meditations Blog has been around for several years. For most of that time, I only had  one blog and its sole purpose was to catalog my spiritual journey. It’s amazing to look back and see where I have landed–still a Christian, but practicing a much deeper set of practices that include much more alone time, silence, and contemplation. In 2019, I changed churches and became an active member at St. John’s Episcopal Church, a most unlikely landing place after 40 years of worshipping primarily in a non-denominational environment. I am currently a student at the Living School for Action and Contemplation, a two year commitment under teachers like Richard Rohr, Cynthia Bourgeault, James Finley, and Brian McClaren. I need to spend more time documenting this transformation, but it’s difficult to split my time between writing my novels, marketing them, blogging as a fiction writer, and so on. But, let’s see how it goes. I posted today about one of my favorite practices, and hopefully, I can keep that up. Special thanks go to my followers of this blog over the years.

June, 2012: I have completed my intended trek through the New Testament. Will I just go back and “do it again,” or something else? Perhaps it’s time to let go? The last few weeks have been scattered at best. Perhaps it’s all too self-serving. I don’t know. And yet, everything rushed back to me when I read those final verses of Revelation, that night of Dec 24, 1979, when I faced the biggest decision of my life: were the words I had read true or false? Was this to be my journey? Was I to be a Christ follower? I was such a different person back then. I was so proud of my profane mouth, my sexually active lifestyle, my drug use, my ability to drink men under the table, and so on. Could I really turn around and go a different path? And to what end? Realistically, I have to assume I would have died in that other self-destructive mode. So, here I am, alive, but somehow still skimming the surface, playing it safe, riding the Ferris Wheel instead of the Comet. My pastor says, “bold prayers honor God.” I think it’s time. Past time.

February, 2012: Taking a break from my New Testament crawl (reached Revelation 9), but I would very much like to do a Lenten series. Beginning with Ash Wednesday, I’ll be responding to a variety of scriptures on the topic of seeking pulled from both Old Testament and New.

May, 2011: I am now in Hebrews and ready to start my 4th year of study, a tortoise crawl through the New Testament that has been an amazing ride. Historically, I have been the “hare,” jumping around from scripture to scripture, reading plan to reading plan. I thank you for sharing this exploration with me. Some days are deeper than others but each day is a glimpse into the small revelations my God has shared with me. I am truly blessed.

November 2010: The journey continues. Along the way, I’ve developed a standard style, adding the book and author to my tags. The question is should I return to old posts and add these tags? A friend of mine actually searched for my “take” on a particular scripture and had no luck. That’s because I hadn’t really developed a plan back in Matthew. I’m on Ephesians now. I’ll have to think about it. But I do want to thank all of you have been reading faithfully. I encourage you leave comments that we might dialogue further on these texts. Blessings. ib

January 2010: The Meditations keep morphing. Where I started this blog as a place to post sermon echoes, Lenten devotions, and other thoughts related to the disciplines of walking with Christ, I have discovered it is more gratifying to my personal walk to write daily (or as close to daily as I can).

Currently, I am making a very slow journey through the New Testament, from eight to fifteen lines per day. As the Spirit leads, I select a verse or verses and respond in writing. It’s really quite simple and straightforward.

I post a link to a meditation each day on Facebook and Twitter as a way of drawing readers. I confess, I do want to share my thoughts and prayers with others and I would like to generate a dialog in the body of Christ. In other words, I welcome comments. In the meantime, I write, I pray, and I seek God’s voice.