This post comes from one of our short-term project participants during Summer 2023.
We talked for two and a half hours. I don’t remember everything I said, but according to some, having a spiritual conversation for that long is uncommon at best.
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For the past few months, I have commenced my Sprachspielen article with an apology, specifically for deviating from the series that I began last November. Due to my slipping memory, I must repeat the exercise for April’s edition of Sprachspielen. It completely escaped my mind that Easter occurs this year in mid-April, and it is my custom on the big, Christian holidays to focus on words that have some kind of connection to each of these events in Church calendar.
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We’ve been visiting back home with family over the past few months, but we’ll soon be returning to Wales. As preparation for our return, we went on retreat a few weeks ago. On our first day, we were given Mark 7 as a text on which to pray and meditate, with the instructions to pause where we felt God inviting us to stop and pray. Most of Mark 7 features a dispute some of the Jewish religious leaders brought against Jesus about cleansing rituals and His response about what truly corrupts our hearts. God stopped me further into the chapter where he heals two people from neighbouring nations.
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I often reflect on Mary’s words in the Magnificat in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Young Mary knows that God’s calling on her life to bear His son would undoubtedly come with complications and questions in her community, in her betrothal, and in the political climate of that day. Nonetheless, she is full of faith. She is, in the midst of uncertain times, giving praise for not only who God is, but for the way he has included her in his plan.
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This year has been filled with a lot of crazy. There have been a lot of tasks and things that I could not have planned. In the span of the last month, I have helped co-workers move, I have finished coordinating student projects for Linguae Christi (why I originally came to Wales), I went to London for a conference, and I have helped another colleague move. This has been a whirlwind to end the summer (not to mention dealing with personal and family stressors) and if I’m honest I’ve been slightly overwhelmed by all the changes and the transitions.
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With this month’s instalment of Sprachspielen, I would like to introduce a “mini-series” of sorts, where I deal with six different concepts over the coming months, which have a clear connection to each other and are seen by us as all being parts of a whole. I am referring to what we call our “Six-Fold Incarnational Strategy,” (hereafter, “6fis”). I realise that this title is a mouthful and sounds quite lofty and cerebral at first hearing, but I can assure you that there is no “rocket science” here, but a simple guide that we use in our personal and local ministries here in our various areas. You will have undoubtedly heard us speak about the 6fis on numerous occasions, and you can find it mentioned on our website in various places. Because the 6fis is so foundational to our work, I will be dealing with these six elements of the 6fis over the next few instalments of Sprachspielen.
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