The Bible is Clear On How Their Lifestyle Should Be

Directions:
Write three short essays, following the prompts given below.
Short Essay 1
I. The Journey continues:
In the final chapter of his book, Holy Longing (chapter uploaded), Rolheiser takes up the questions of why and how to nourish and sustain spirituality once a person awakens and decides. A running
belief throughout the book is that everyone has spirituality as potential. How then does
one nurture and nourish that potential
On p. 214 Rolheiser writes: “To sustain ourselves on that road (the marathon journey of
life), even after we have some assurance that we are on the right road, requires that along
the way we continually find what metaphorically might be termed “Elijah’s jug,” namely
the sustenance that God promised to provide to those who are walking the long road
toward the divine mountain. (Read this story in the Bible in I Kings 19:1-8. If you do
not own a bible, just Google I Kings 19:1-8 to read the passage.
Rolheiser discusses what he believes are four commandments for the long haul. He views
the four as complementary directions. He titles them:
1. Be a mystic...
2. Sin bravely...
3. Gather Ritually around the Word and Break the Bread
4. Worship and Serve the Right God
Directions
Read Rolheiser’s insights on each of these four commandments.
Then reflect and write.

Name one image or idea in each section of this chapter that you most identify with as
meaningful, that is, offering insight and support for your spiritual journey and why.
That is from each of these four commandments what belongs in your own jug like
“[Elijah’s] jug.”
Short Essay 2
Engaged Spirituality:
A. Describe an “engaged spirituality.”
B. Then explain the two distinct but interrelated dual dimensions of an “engaged
spirituality.”
C. In what ways should our spiritual center and pathway shape our response to the
world’s most pressing needs? Illustrate using the story of Dorothy Day in the movie
“Entertaining Angels” and the assigned reading selections and one other figure of your
choice. (Reading uploaded)
Short essay 3
III. A reflection and A Poem :
Maria Harris identifies adoration as the “undersong of every discipline” (p.133). She
writes:
Adoration is not the last in a series of ten. Instead, it is, like the Divinity Itself, the
beginning, and the end, the top and the bottom, the inside, and the outside, as well
as the center, of all spirituality. Adoration makes spirituality possible.
For Adoration is the discipline that acknowledges we did not create ourselves and we are
not in control of the universe. Adoration is the discipline that compels us to say in one
form or another, “Although I do not know your Name, I know You are there. I place
myself before You and participate with you in the making of the world. I have received
all that is good from You: earth, water, fire, air; life, health, intelligence; other people,
myself. I am ready to fall on my knees in wonder and awe. I believe You are dwelling at
the Center of all things, and I give you thanks (134).
A poem by Mary Oliver
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes?
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
Directions:
Reflect on “adoration” by Maria Harris and the poem by Mary Oliver.
What for you is the message of each.
What for you is an important takeaway from your semester study of Spirituality?
Why?