Augustine Assignments

This is an ecumenical youth group for youth ages 11-18 to explore community building through various fun and engaging assignments. Find out more about our Edinburgh based eccumenical youth group:   https://www.facebook.com/aucassignments/, or by email [email protected]

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Jesus Curses a Fig Tree Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered. When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked. Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

Matthew 21:18-22 New International Version (NIV)

In this passage Jesus is showing that the nation of Israel has become barren in its relationship to God. It also feels like a commentary on prayer, and it’s power as metaphorically immense when aligned with the God who is love.

It in some ways feels like a piece of inspiration for Paul’s letter to the Galatians and the fruit of the spirit.

It is a reminder that when we work to engage with God it is not to follow rules or habit, but to infuse our everyday and very beings with love.

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Prayer Walking

“Prayer walking is a way of saturating a particular place and people with prayer... This type of intercession intentionally invites people to go to the site of their concern: the office, the conference room, the dining room, the kitchen, the school, the hospital, the government buildings. The immediacy of context can fuel prayer and offer a way for listening more deeply to God, to what [God’s] concerns for this place might be.“

From Spiritual Disciplines Handbook by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun.

We went to Edinburgh Old College and prayed for the work of the University and those working there as we walked around the lawn twice. Ideas of each person being empowered and feel God’s love in their day to day focused our prayer.

We went to the Talbot Rice Gallery and wandered the exhibit praying for the artists, many students of the University sharing concerns about Twitter and our world. Prayer that we all may find better communication and relations.

As was found: ‘Alone, in our separate kinds of expertise and experience, we know both too much and too little, and so we succumb to despair or to hope, and neither is a sensible attitude. Neither despair nor hope is tuned to the senses, to mindful matter, to material semiotics, to mortal earthlings in thick co-presence.’   - Donna J. Haraway from ‘Staying with the Trouble.’

And we wandered the Meadows and back to Church praying for the people at sport, relaxing over barbecues, and the magic trick performing beggar, and so many more that they may all enjoy being alive, and food and friendship, and simple pleasures of being in the sun. 

May the Holy Spirit work in all of these spaces, bringing us all towards the love of God.

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Rest

“[It is] God who works and then rests. When we rest we honor the way God made us. Rest can be a spiritual act -- a truly human act of submission to and dependence on God who watches over all things as we rest.”

With reflection questions and spiritual exercises that had us considering:

- deep rest, in terms of both body and soul

- human limits and exhaustion

- time for play as something regular and inviolable, fun and delightful

- and what it means to “place yourself in the presence of God”, particularly as you welcome rest

From the Spiritual Disciplines Handbook by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun

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I believe in God, creator of an unfinished world, who does not decree an eternal plan of development in which we cannot participate. I belive in God, who has not divided people into the poor and rich, specialists and the ignorant, owners and slaves. I believe in Jesus Christ, who saw the world situation and who took a stand in it. Taking him as my example, I see the precaution with which we must organize, the extent to which our intelligence is atrophied, our imagination impoverished, and our efforts neutralised. Each day I fear that he may have died in vain because we do not live as he lived, because we betray his message. I believe in Jesus Christ, who rises for our life, so that we may be liberated from the prejudices and presumptions of fear and hate, so that we may transform the world into the Kingdom of God. I believe in the Spirit who came with Jesus into the world. I believe in the community of all peoples, and in our responsibility for making of our world a place of misery, hunger and violence, or a City of God.

Credo from Nicaragua, Anon. 1987, published in Seasons with the Spirit: A compilation of prayers and meditations from All Year Round, 2002

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Greyfriars kirkyard, gathered on a few benches, discussing how to approach leading others in spiritual practice.

Things like introducing the space to make it welcoming, learning from previous feedback, and giving space to have people feedback their thoughts.

We can sometimes forget worship isn’t a performance or chore, but a spiritual practice for a community to engage with God.

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But as for me, it is good to be near God.

Psalm 73:28, Bible, New International Version

We are looking at spiritual practices considering how we work at being near to God. We started with group sessions and how we construct them to be accessible and welcoming, ways as community that we support our journeys with God.

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When looking through the Museum we were asking ourselves what here reminds us of God. Everything from a chain being God connecting us to the photos you see here. For these photos some thoughts:

Spinning wheel, God takes raw things and makes us. I'm thinking Psalm 139- "knitted me together in my mother's womb".

Rock (folded schist from Loch Monar, Highlands). Over years and years, tectonic forces folded rock layers into this formation. Rock seems so hard and unchanging, usually you would need destructive power to shape or move it. But here, it's happened just by the natural movement and change of the earth over a very long time. Maybe God is the same- changing us and the world in gradual, imperceptible ways, and without using the destructive power we might think is the only way.

Elements- all so different in character, but they all come together to make everything. Maybe God is similar- so many different ways of thinking about and understanding God, we see a lot of different characterisation Bionically (and in texts of other religions). But in the end all elements are part of the universe, and it would be impossible to not have all of them.

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The last in our series on philosophy and God.

Looking at reasons for believing in God and how that interacts with our day to day lives.

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Prayer

Dear God,

Why have you done what you’ve done?

I am confused but I am grateful.

Thank you for the opportunity to know you but I don’t know why I can’t relate to you.

Amen

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The abstraction ladder from Language in Thought and Action, by S.I. Hayakawa

This was useful in considering facts relative to beliefs.

We considered the kind of evidence you might want for choosing a university, such as the location, or reputation and facilities, or the subjects taught there and the graduation and success rates, or the personal evidence of examining what you want to learn and what feels like a good environment when you visit. Then you may end up with all sorts of beliefs about what would be a good choice for you.

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The words of Agur son of Jakeh. An oracle. Thus says the man: I am weary, O God,    I am weary, O God. How can I prevail? Surely I am too stupid to be human;    I do not have human understanding. I have not learned wisdom,    nor have I knowledge of the holy ones. Who has ascended to heaven and come down?    Who has gathered the wind in the hollow of the hand? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment?    Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is the person’s name?    And what is the name of the person’s child?    Surely you know! Every word of God proves true;    he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words,    or else he will rebuke you, and you will be found a liar. Two things I ask of you;    do not deny them to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lying;    give me neither poverty nor riches;    feed me with the food that I need, or I shall be full, and deny you,    and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ or I shall be poor, and steal,    and profane the name of my God

Proverbs 30: 1-9, Bible new revised standard version, Anglicised   

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We got to talk about the ethics and responsibility of beliefs.

It made us ask: What is a thoughtful and examined faith?

We also played trivia, thinking about the facts that belief is built upon. 

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Instead of an Augustine Assignments Saturday April 28th we are encouraging people to go to the Eco-Congregation Scotland Annual Gathering. The workshops in the past have been fabulous. Hopefully the speakers and discussion tables prove to be as good.

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The word's out, Poem by Godfrey Rust

Sometimes I listen for your word and hear nothing. 

In the quiet of my room the only noise is the thump of my heart and voices arguing inside my head.

It's not that I don't give you a chance.   Sometimes I say nothing for as long as five minutes. Your silence is still deafening.

Then I open a book and out tumbles your voice.   And when I try to shut that up I find you can get a word in anywhere.

I've even heard you sometimes from the pulpit.

I hear you on the Nine O'Clock News saying What have you done with the world I gave you?

I hear you in the tabloids saying Whoever is without sin cast the first stone.

With the first burst of spring flowers you say Look—no hands!

With the most extraordinary sunset you say Look, just relax.

The shrunken face of hunger is you saying Feed me.

The beggar on the underground is you saying House me.

The dreaded diagnosis is you saying Heal me.

The valium prescription is you saying Free me.

The redundancy notice is you saying Value me.

The scream of the torture victim is you saying Father, forgive.

The priest staring down the barrel of a gun is you saying Love casts out fear.

When I am late and hurrying you are the face on the clock saying I am the beginning and the end.

When I am greedy you are the face on the banknote saying Treasure is in heaven.

When I am proud you drop your banana-skins in front of me saying Don't look down.

When I am lonely you are the stillness of the house saying I am with you, always.

And when I am grieving you are the voice at the graveside saying I am the Resurrection and the Life.

Sometimes I listen for your word and hear nothing.

And sometimes I hear nothing else.

We have been closing with poems, discussing what we think they mean, what sticks out to us, and what we feel. This one can be found here. An interesting way to end a discussion of evil and representations of God.

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This fairtrade shoots and ladders game gave us a chance to think about what a banana co-operative farm might think of as evil, in particular deadly fungus killing the crops, or a hurricane.

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The argument turns upon a distinction between 'description' and 'representation'. Description attempts to depict or imitate something in language. Representation attempts to re-present something by pressing words and images into oblique modes such as metaphor, poetry, parable, and prophecy. Williams' argument is that oblique representation may convey the truth or reality of something (or someone) better than accurate description.

Julian Templeton book review Re-presenting God of Rowan Williams book The Edge of Words: God and the habits of language, published in Reform magazine.

He continues: “The biblical writers, aware of the prohibition against images, were reticent about describing God so instead used metaphors such as rock and fire. Jesus too, rather than describe God and his Kingdom, told parables. We would not imagine that the Unjust Judge in the parable would be promising material for representing God, yet, by the end of the parable we are left in little doubt about the nature of God’s generosity. Williams argues that Jesus used ‘carefully calculated shocks’ like this to represent God more effectively than description could achieve.”

We found ourselves asking can anyone describe God?

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Our discussion ranged from what makes something evil, is evil values based, to growth and how some of that is up to attitude. It was fun to ask ourselves if evil really did challenge our concepts of God.