Where I've Been . . .

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Up a winding road.

Hello, friends.

It’s been weighing on my heart to write a note here, sharing where I’ve been and why there was no registration announcement for the Look at Jesus course earlier this week, as promised. 

I mentioned in my previous post that we went on vacation for the holidays to visit my family in California. I wasn’t sure how much time I would have to write here, or how much internet connectivity I would have to write even if I wanted to. And it turned out the opportunities were scarce. When I did write, it was mainly to share some reflections on my personal blog about the spiritual retreat we took at the beginning of the trip (you can find those reflections here, here, and here). 

But there wasn’t much room for the kind of contemplative writing I bring to this space. I just had to trust that was going to be okay.

Then, toward the end of our time in California, shortly before the new year turned, I kept noticing that I didn’t feel ready to open registration for the Look at Jesus course. This bothered me, and I struggled to take my hesitation seriously — mainly because I had voiced the registration and course dates to you here, and I wanted to be faithful to my word. 

But the closer the registration date loomed, the less and less confident I felt that the course was ready to open again in January. There were several reasons for this, but some of those reasons had to do with commitments cropping up on my calendar that would have made teaching the course with faithfulness in January and February a bit difficult. This was problematic to me, because I like to give my courses my full attention when I teach.

So I’ve decided to postpone the course for a short while, and I hope to have an update on course dates for you soon. 

As it happens, I got dreadfully ill over the New Year’s holiday and was unable to share the registration postponement plan with you when I had hoped to do so. Thankfully, I’m all better now. Thank you so much for your patience!

Now I’m back home in our cozy home after nearly three weeks away, and it feels so great to be back. I look forward to returning to the regular weekday posting schedule here in the coming week.

xoxo,

Christianne 

Registration Open for Look at Jesus Course!

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Hi, everyone!

I’m excited to open registration (at long last!) for Look at Jesus: a Gospel immersion course. Below, I’ve shared a short preview video, registration details, and a list of FAQs about the course. 

I hope you will choose to join us for what I am sure will be a meaningful time of exploration and dialogue!

xoxo,

Christianne 

Course dates: October 18-November 26

Course length: Six weeks 

Course fee:$70 $35 (one-time reduced rate for pilot class)

To register, see below!

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Frequently Asked Questions 

What will be covered in the course? 

In this 6-week course, we’ll read all four Gospel accounts in the Bible — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — and reflect on what we’re noticing about the main character in each account, which is Jesus. Opportunities will be provided for both personal reflection and group discussion throughout the course.

What kind of coursework will there be, and what is the time commitment?

We will read one Gospel per week for the first four weeks, and you can complete that reading on your own timetable. Two reflection postings will be offered each week (on Tuesdays and Fridays), and you can reflect upon and respond to these questions at your own pace, as well. In the last two weeks of class, several personal reflection exercises will help you pull together your thoughts and experiences in a meaningful way.

What sort of interaction can I expect to share with the course instructor and other participants? 

A video post by me, the instructor, will be shared at the start of each week. I will also post two reflection questions each week, and everyone enrolled in the course is welcome to respond to these questions in a shared comment space. Our course classroom will also include a discussion board forum where you are welcome to share additional questions and thoughts with the rest of the enrolled community. (Participation in the discussion board forum is, of course, optional.)

Do I have to purchase any extra materials for this course?

Besides a copy of the Bible, a computer, and internet access to access the course, no other books or materials are required. 

Do I need to be a Christian to take this course? 

No, you do not. This course is open to anyone who wants to get to know the person of Jesus a little bit more. (But please note that the course is being taught by a Christian instructor with a distinctly Christian perspective and spirituality.)

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I hope you’ll join us! 

To enroll in the pilot course that begins October 18 — at a 50% discount of $35 — click on the button below. (You will be redirected to Paypal.)

[[PAYMENT BADGE DISABLED]]

After you register, you will receive a welcome e-mail from me with additional sneak peeks, goodies, and get-to-know-you questions.

If there are additional questions I can answer for you about the course, leave them in the comments below or e-mail me at christianne118 at gmail dot com. 

xoxo,

Christianne 

How We Are Like the Trees

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Over the weekend, I stumbled on a video that made me think of you. 

It made me think of you for a couple reasons, actually. 

First, it offers a moment of stillness and rest. The pace of this video is slow and contemplative. The narrator’s voice is sweet and gentle. The images are lush and beautiful. The environment is hushed. That’s what this online space seeks to offer you with each daily post: a moment of stillness, gentleness, reflection, and quiet. 

The video’s message itself also speaks so well to the reason we gather in this space. We are always forming. Formation is forever and constant. We can learn much from our friends, these trees. 

Approximate run time: 2 minutes, 56 seconds

“It is not easy to grow so much for so long.”

This is so true, isn’t it? You are growing. You are always growing. There is always an opportunity for more and more reflection on that growth. It is not easy to grow so much for so long. 

Today, I invite you to be gentle with yourself in the midst of all that growth. 

Just notice what the video evoked in you. Could you relate to the trees? Did the music or a particular image speak? How did the video meet you in your present moment? How does it invite gentleness inside your soul?

Look at Jesus -- and an Invitation

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If there is any one thing at which I can point and say, “This, this is my heart,” this video would be it. 

Below is a short video clip with N. T. Wright answering the question, “What would you say to your children and grandchildren on your deathbed?” In effect, his answer is to encourage them to spend more and more time in the Gospels, just looking at and getting to know Jesus. 

Run time: approx. 3 minutes 45 seconds

If you can't see the video, click here to view it.

Video hat tip: Kurt Willems

My friends, this is my heart toward you. I want so much to say over and over again, “Look at Jesus. Look at Jesus. Look at Jesus.” 

By way of announcement, I am excited to share with you that in the next couple months, I am planning to offer a Gospel immersion experience here on this site.

This will be a chance (for those of us who are interested) to read through the Gospels together — “at a run,” as N. T. Wright puts it — in order to allow the character and person of Jesus to become more and more alive for us. It will also include opportunities for some of the more meditative interactions with the Gospel that are described in the video above, that of sitting with actual scenes for a reflective period of time. 

I’m thinking there will be some video components, a discussion board, and perhaps some one-on-one exchanges with me, too.

Would this interest you? I hope so! I’ve been thinking on this for several months, and I just keep getting more and more excited about it. :-)

For our meditation today, I’ll leave you with the closing words offered in the video above. They really are just so true and beautiful and echo my own heart’s cry: 

“If you want to know who God is, look at Jesus. If you want to know what it means to be human, look at Jesus. If you want to know what love is, look at Jesus. If you want to know what grief is, look at Jesus. And go on looking until you’re not just a spectator, but you’re actually part of the drama which has him as the central character.”

— N. T. Wright

How Is Your Life With God?

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This website, when it first began, was going to be a place to talk generally about spiritual formation, based on the courses I was taking for my graduate studies. I had planned for there to be essays and resources about the spiritual life and what it means to form over time in our lives with God. It was also going to be a place for me to “form out loud” and share pieces of my own interior journey with God and myself with you.

But over time, my understanding of what this space is meant to be has grown.

Specifically, I’ve noticed that this is meant to be a space devoted to you.

Life can be so hectic.

Especially in this time in which we live, when there is no shortage of information coming toward us each moment and there is so much opportunity for connectivity and ongoing distraction. It can be so easy to get lost in the noise, to drown out the still moments and our sense of ourselves with activity without ever realizing what’s been lost in the process.

Consider this space an oasis from the noise. A place for stillness. For reflection. For a contemplative moment you share with yourself and with God each day.

Each morning of the week, as I spend time with God and hold you and this online space in my mind, I will write a post that grows out of that time with God and invites you into a contemplative moment. The posts each day may pose a question or invite you to make an observation about your life or interior journey.

They will always be written with the intention to invite you to slow down and notice what is true for you and your relationship with yourself, the world around you, and with God. 

I anticipate that the questions or opportunities for reflection may recycle from time to time, and I think that is okay. On any given day, depending on the circumstances of life in which we find ourselves, our answers to any given question may be different, right?

So each day, as you are invited into a still moment of reflection here, consider how it applies to you in the concrete place in which you find yourself in that moment in time.

The purpose is ongoing reflection … intentionality … stillness … at least for a few moments each day. 

This morning, then, as I spent time with God and asked him what question or thoughts might be most helpful for you today, your connection to God came to mind. 

How is your life with God in this moment?

Time for a New Turn: Journey Toward Nonviolence

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Dear friends,

Thank you for being patient with me through this new life transition.

The truth is, there has been more than one transition taking place right now for me. Yes, there has been the new commitment to full-time work, and that has been a great new commitment in my life.

But there’s also been a continuing concern for the subject of nonviolence. 

It’s a subject that preoccupies my mind regularly. I encounter situations that make me wonder what the nonviolent response would be. Or I recognize places of unlove in my heart and wonder how God could implant a greater heart of charity in that place instead. Or I find myself wondering about others who are walking a similar path. What would it be like to connect with them over these ideas? How might we encourage one another and learn together?

For a while, I thought I could somehow do both: explore spiritual formation and prayer alongside nonviolence, either in this space or in two different online spaces. But given the commitments on my plate right now, my energy and time are limited. I simply couldn’t do either one justice if I tried to do both.

So I’ve made a decision. I’m committing to the subject of nonviolence. I’ve begun a new online space solely for that purpose, and you’re welcome to join me there.

It’s called Journey Toward Nonviolence.

I’m going to be closing down this website in the near future. I’m so sorry if this news disappoints readers who had found a safe home here. I had every intention of providing a greater sense of resource and community around the subject of spiritual formation when I began hosting this space.

But life is funny sometimes … sometimes it takes you down a road you least expected, and you find yourself unwilling to resist following the path. 

That’s where I find myself right now with this nonviolence concern. I don’t know where the path will lead, but I need to follow it … and I need to explore it out loud with others who are interested in exploring it, too. 

You are welcome to join me if the subject interests you, and I do hope you will! If you’d rather connect on a more personal level, please feel free to friend me on Facebook … that’s where I’ll be maintaining a more social presence for now. :)

Thanks for joining me for the journey here. I wish you well. 

Love,

Christianne

A Bit of Housekeeping Detail

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As I’ve had a bit of time over the holidays to think about the intentionality I plan to bring to this space in the upcoming year, I thought I would share with you some quick updates that have already been applied to the site on that front.

  1. I’ll begin by saying: It has been a lot of fun for me to begin the new series of sharing my journey into nonviolence and peacemaking with you so far! I’ve enjoyed sharing some of the early stories and journal snippets with you, and I’ve enjoyed framing questions for you to consider at the end of each post in order to involve you more directly in this process. Thank you so much for sharing your responses! Your stories continue to floor, humble, and inspire me.
  2. On that note, I’ve decided to give this nonviolence and peacemaking series an official name. It is now called the “Journey Toward Nonviolence” series. Each post in this series will be prefaced with this title (in front of its own unique title) in order to make these posts more easily distinguishable from other types of posts. 
  3. I’ve created a badge in the sidebar that leads to a designated page for this series. Once you reach the page, there’s a brief summary of my journey toward nonviolence and then a chronological listing of all the posts in the series. This will make it easy for anyone joining in late to follow along.
  4. A new “Currently Featured Posts” section has been added to the sidebar. Over the past couple months, I’ve noticed many new visitors to the site have gravitated toward certain types of posts. This new section of the sidebar should make it much easier for new visitors to find the kind of posts people seem to enjoy reading the most on this site.
  5. And finally … I’ve joined Twitter! This began as a 30-day experiment that I’ve decided to make permanent. You can read my tweets or choose to follow me by clicking here. 

    I’m looking forward to the year ahead with you! I anticipate that we will grow and learn much from each other in this space. Thanks for joining me for the journey.

    Welcome to Still Forming

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    It gives me great pleasure to formally launch this website, Still Forming, into the public sphere.

    As you will be able to tell once you start poking around in some of the older posts, I began placing content on this site one full year ago, in the autumn and winter months of 2008. I worked hard on the content and architecture for several steady months and was almost ready to launch when some things happened that made me slow down and push the pause button.

    Now, though much later than originally expected, I am thrilled to begin sharing this space with all of you and discovering new things God has in store as we move forward in these pages together.

    If you’re curious to know what this site is all about, I encourage you to read the About page. There, you’ll find an explanation for the website’s name and a brief bio of myself.

    If you take some time to explore what’s previously been published here, all of which was written during the fall and winter months of 2008, you’ll discover a lot of my earliest thoughts and questions about social justice and nonviolence. Some of those thoughts and questions are difficult to hold, and I don’t presume to have them figured out, but they’ve been important questions to my journey and formation process to ask.

    The early posts on nonviolence, peacemaking, and social justice include:

    I’m also enrolled full-time in a graduate program in spiritual formation, and I’ve been actively exploring the contemplative, inner life of faith for quite a long while. Consequently, you’ll discover in some of my early posts several of the fruitful things I was learning and practicing while enrolled in a spiritual disciplines course for my graduate program in late 2008.

    These early posts on contemplative prayer, spiritual formation, and the spiritual disciplines include:

    It’s interesting to me now, reading this older content, to see how much I’ve developed in some of these areas and in what ways I’m still holding similar questions and struggles. If you’ve been reading along in my previous blog, Lilies Have Dreams (which is now imported here), you know that I took some extended time of solitude and study this summer to explore the questions of nonviolence and peace that I found myself unable to ignore. I look forward to sharing some of the fruits of that time here and continuing to explore more of these subjects in the coming days and months with you.

    Welcome to the journey, where all of us are — and are meant to be — still forming.