by Stephen W. and Gwen Harding SmithHello Friends, welcome to our new blog where we'll be sharing our lives with you, step by step. We thought on this first look into the new blog we'd share the outline of what we're going to be doing here.First, we're going to give you a paragraph each entry from Steve's new book: The Jesus Life: Eight Ways to Re-Discover Authentic Christianity and then we're just going to unpack the paragraph, give you our personal insight and reactions to how we're living this out. If you sit with the title of the book you can see that both of us, after 31 years of marriage and 57 years of life have come to the conclusion that some thing is deeply wrong with how we are going about living the Christian life out. Deeply wrong.When I ask people to give me five words that would be to describe their life right now, to date, no one has EVER given me the word "abundant." Yet, this descriptor is precisely what so many of us are longing for and desperately thirsty for.Here's the outline we're going to follow in the blog--giving you our honest, heartfelt and sometimes raw reactions to the challenge Jesus left us with---to live a life that is "Abundant" in the midst of a life and world that is so filled with disappointment, suffering, depression, economic challenge--that is unparalleled in history.We look forward to unpacking this step by step. Here is some of what we'll be discussing and some of where we're headed here on the blog:Part One: Losing Our Way1. Recovering our lifeWe’ve lost the way that leads to life.Part Two: Walking In the Way2. The Rhythm of JesusLiving a life that sustains3. The Way Jesus “did” his lifeExploring a model for our own.Part Three: Finding The Way4. The Way of DailinessLiving The Jesus Life Everyday5. The Way of HiddenessChoosing obscurity to cultivate life6. The Way of FamilyLiving the life with our family7. The Way of CompanionshipCultivating friendships in reality and truth8. The Way of the TableSavoring a sacred mystery9. The Way of Doing GoodExtending life to others10. The Way of RitualCreating signposts as we journey through life11. The Way of SufferingUnderstanding the role of pain and sufferingPart Four: Living The Life12. A Good LifeLearning to wear the easy yoke of Jesus
The Integrated Life
by Stephen W. SmithToday in Colorado--well it's stunning and mesmerizing. It's why I chose to live in such staggering beauty. I took a long drive today into the foothills and my road took me up and down, swaggering by hills and through green pastures. Beauty that is intoxicating. I stopped at a favorite tea house where I ordered French Press Coffee, Carrot Cake and ice water and just basked in the sunshine.Glory! Why is it, that carrot cakes seems to help almost everything and everyone?Then I reached for my journal and began to write a page about how deeply I am longing to live what I am going to call "the integrated life." A life that I will begin to share with you here. I came up with ten descriptions of the integrated life I want to live. In post after post, Gwen and I will begin to share our hearts, soul's longings and deep stirrings with you. Perhaps our thoughts will stir you to think more deeply; more contemplatively; more reflectively about the life that you are living and whether you are happy with the life you are living.Here's how the dictionary defines the word "integrate:"in·te·grate [in-ti-greyt] Show IPA verb, -grat·ed, -grat·ing.verb (used with object)1.to bring together or incorporate (parts) into a whole.2.to make up, combine, or complete to produce a whole or a larger unit, as parts do.3.to unite or combine.4.to give or cause to give equal opportunity and consideration to (a racial, religious, or ethnic group or a member of such a group): to integrate minority groups in the school system.5.to combine (educational facilities, classes, and the like, previously segregated by race) into one unified system; desegregate.I want all of this in my life. I'm tired of managing silos of work, health, family and faith. I don't believe in silo thinking any more. I don't believe in the balanced life any more. I believe the balanced life is a myth and lie that someone invented to sell books and fill seminars. I've tried to find balance. Now I am liking two words, far, far better than balanced! They are the words integrated and rhythm. I'll explain more in the blogs to follow.I met today with some social marketing geeks who are going to help us revamp our blog, give a face lift to our old look and capture the message we will begin to share with you.OK blog readers. I invite you to comment. What do you think an integrated life looks like? Do you want one? What can we do to live the life we want?Copyright 2011. Stephen W. Smith
Morphing the Blog
Gwen and I have decided, together, to morph this blog. We're going to be doing some significant changes in upcoming days and weeks. And the most important is that we're going to enter entries together. Both of us will be writing on this blog and the focus of our writing and musings will be our own interaction with the topic and themes in my new book, The Jesus Life: Eight Ways to Re-discover Authentic Christianity."
Why are we doing this? We're doing this for three main reasons. Both of us want to desperately live--The Jesus Life. We're tired of the church life, the busy life, the American life and more. In the book I explore how to return to the life Jesus described and offered--the abundant life. That's the life we want. Second, Gwen's gotten so much favorable feedback from her writing on her Caringbridge.org site, (her recovery from major back surgery) that we felt this would be a great outlet and spiritual practice to just write, share our thoughts and encourage our on-line village of friends and companions to journey with us into The Jesus Life. Third, we're doing this because we want to invite you into the life we are leaning into. We want to discuss, dialogue and divulge our heart with you as we interact with the most important and some of the most neglected themes of our times. In The Jesus Life, we're going to explore some of the content of the book; give you excerpts BEFORE the book is published and ideas on how to integrate what is shared. It will be personal. It will be real. It will be heart-felt. And it will be from both of our perspectives--male and female; husband and wife, father and mother, son and daughter of God and fellow pilgrims on this long arduous journey home.So, after some significant changes to our blog in the new week, we'll be up and running. I hope you'll spread the word!We hope you'll "subscribe" to the blog and share this with your friends. We hope you'll consider journeying with us together as we embark on this new chapter of our life, marriage, work and family!Blessings,Steve