Not sure how I selected this book, but since I ordered via Amazon, it was an intentional choice. My usual way of turning to new-to-me authors is from quotes or chapter notes or additional resources suggested in a book that is assisting me in this phase of my walk. I have used this book all of this past Christian year and my understanding of the historical and current inhabiting has become more solidified. Pacing my spiritual journey with the rhythms of the Christian year has not been part of my devotional life until the past seven years, but now the rhythms, which include the liturgy, have enveloped me like a cloud.
Here is a section in the Foreword by Lauren Winner where she is explaining why observing the Christian year is important to her.
One of my goals in life is to inhabit the Christian story so fully that Advent will e the instinctive beginning of my year. Why is this so important to me, this living into the church's calendar? Well, for many reason. Fist, I want the Christian story to shape everything I do, even how I reckon time. I want the rhythms of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost to be more basic to my life than the days on which my quarterly estimated taxes are due. Second, I have found that inhabiting the church calendar is powerfully evangelistic ....you will be doing something so counter cultural that it will not escape the notice of your friends and neighbors -- and they will ask you why you are doing the things you are doing -- and you will have a chance to tell them something about Jesus. And third, most important: almost more than anything else I've done since becoming a Christian, trying to live inside church time has formed me in the Christian story. Which is to say, almost more than anything else, living inside church time has formed me in Jesus' story. Jesus drew my attention to himself, and the church calendar has kept it fixed there -- on him. Church time has offered me the chance to reprise and reiterate Jesus' life every year.
The part I'm selecting to share came from the Thanksgiving chapter which was yesterday's reading in Living the Christian Year by Bobby Gross. Each chapter includes topic based prayers and reading from the A, B, or C year of the lectionary.
Our texts this week call us to thanksgiving. We give thanks for the bounty of the earth: common grace. We give thanks for the blessings of Christ: spiritual grace. We give thanks for the promises of God: eschatological grace. We remind ourselves that all we have comes from God, not our own hands (Deut 8:7). We express our gratitude by giving a portion back to God and sharing generously with others.We also celebrate God's generosity by feasting with gratitude in anticipation of the great feast in the age to come.
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