10.7.07

sacramental space


at the moment I am trying to write Bible studies for a camp that I am leading on which is run by West Runton holidays as part of Scripture Union.

I am doing the 'spiritual programme' and the theme this year is 'it's not what you know it's who you know' - which has been totally nicked from a short run of sermons at church which I have adapted.

the holiday is in Norfolk and I am really looking forward to it - the Norfolk skies are fantastic and watching young people enjoy themselves and discover something about God is just life's breath to me.

last year there was this lad who gave his testimony at the end of camp and he just looked like he'd been lit up from the inside. you know how sometimes people just seem to glow?

I think well run holidays, where the young people are given the space from everyday life and the expectations that people put on them, can be sacramental. They are something that is used by God to encounter people.

roll on Norfolk.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

'Sacrament' is a very interesting word. When it has a very narrow meaning it can often be seriously over-used. When it's meaning is more broad - like your definition - ther temptetation is often to under-use it... I find many, many things sacramental in that way. I wonder what it is that makes some people prefer the more narrow definition?

Jody Stowell said...

I think that a lot of people don't believe in a sacramental view of the Sacraments, let alone allowing the idea that God might use any of Creation willy nilly - goodness anyone would think he owned the place :-)

my christian background was very much a 'symbolic' view of Communion and Baptism, but I always knew there was more to it than that, so it felt good to learn the sacramental aspect - my (baptist) tutor is extremely sacramental and has written a very good book called Promise and Presence which really resonated with me.

Anonymous said...

I think the main problem I have with the classically accepted sacraments (whichever tradition you're coming from) is the way that they are protected by adherents as if any kind of questioning of their operation will make them fall apart.
The college I'm at is default Liberal-Catholic and yet claims to be non-party, but that default setting makes it very difficult to be true to my own spirituality as I've got to act in chapel (in regards to the sacraments) in a manner that I want to question!

By the way, hope you don't mind my reply to your man/humankind comment. I just don't like words being hijacked by modern renderings...

Jody Stowell said...

well, I guess the sacraments have really been denigrated by evangelicals, well they have in my neck of the woods anyway, and I wonder if liberal-catholics would be a wee bit defensive of having them questioned.

but it's like all things, if it is true and real it will stand up to a bit of questioning and it will still be true and real even if we don't believe it.

I tend to get a bit jumpy if things are ringfenced in the 'not allowed to question' bracket - must be my upbringing!