Journeys Home: Interfaith Prayers

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Interfaith Prayers

Prayers for persons celebrating a variety of holidays right now. Tomorrow (the 5th) is Twelfth Night, the close of Christmastide. Monday (the 6th) is Epiphany, the Christian commemoration of the manifestation of Christ's divine nature, and it is also the Feast of the Theophany in Orthodox Christianity: the feast to recall the revelation of the Blessed Trinity in Christ's baptism. Tuesday the 7th is Christmas in the Orthodox Christian tradition. Tomorrow (the 5th) is also Guru Gobindh Singh's birthday in Sikhism. Guru Gobindh Singh was the founder of the Khalsa, the collective body of all initiated Sikhs. He affirmed the sacred text, the Guru Granth Sahib, as his successor and the text has ever since been Sikhs' sovereign active living Guru.

We have another tragic news story involving end-of-life issues, this one concerning Jahi McMath, the 13-year-old whose entire brain has ceased to function following routine surgery. Prayers for all those involved, and for ongoing ethical clarity concerning these tragic issues and decisions. http://www.religionnews.com/2014/01/03/family-ethics-medicine-law-collide-jahi-mcmaths-life-death/

Christian leaders in Nigeria are expressing concern about the threat of rising, radical Islam in that nation, including the violent anti-Christain Boko Haram sect. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joop-koopman/if-nigeria-falls-to-islamic-extremists_b_4532300.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

Violence continues in Syria. http://news.yahoo.com/syria-rebel-alliance-declares-war-al-qaeda-093008523.html;_ylt=A0oG7kmZt8hSqzcA4GVXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTB0NHNmOXFqBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2FjMgR2dGlkA1ZJUDM0NV8x

There has been violence between Christians and Muslims in Bangui, the capital of Central African Republic. http://www.trust.org/item/20140101153144-j1xqa/?source=dpagehead Muslims have also experience violence recently in parts of India: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/04/world/asia/uttar-pradesh-religious-violence.html?_r=0

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Journeys Home

The contents of this blog are my personal views and opinions and are not in any way representative of my employers, publishers, or any associations or organizations with which I'm affiliated.

All pictures not drawn or taken by me are copied here under fair use principles. Please contact me to remove any such pictures.

Welcome to this blog, which I've been keeping since 2009. Please feel free to browse the contents, or follow it for updates. Check back as often you'd like!

Lately, this blog has included a variety of odd things that interest me as I go along--including music and art. Several previous posts were year-long series on subjects in religion and spirituality, each undertaken as an enjoyable discipline to keep my own spiritual life on a positive path. In 2014, I listened to and wrote about Bach's sacred cantatas on or near the Sundays and special days for which they were written. In 2015, I wrote about special days celebrated by different world religions. In 2016, I studied the lives of saints and faithful persons honored on different Christian liturgical calendars. In 2017-18, I studied the entire Bible (including the Apocrypha) and posted my notes.

Throughout this blog, I've written about a number of subjects, including Bible-based reflections, spirituality and religion, interfaith concerns, my hometown, favorite roads and places, current events, the funny and weird moments of life, favorite music and art, and so on. But I've always had three interrelated themes in mind. One is the joy of making everyday connections as we move through our lives. Another is "the journey," including the spiritual quest, in which we struggle for understanding and assurances and look to God in hope. The third is "home": the places and circumstances that anchor us, the goals of our journeys, and the heavenly home that the Lord prepares for us (John 14:2)

My hometown area, Fayette Co., IL, is always an anchor and "conceptual continuity" for me. The header photograph is from that area, near Brownstown, the vicinity where my maternal ancestors settled before the Civil War.

All original material copyright 2009-2024 by Paul E. Stroble. All Bible quotations in this blog are from the New Revised Standard Version unless otherwise indicated. The New Revised Standard Version Bible is copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

A word about my Bible notes

At about the time I turned 50 in 2007, I made an effort to deepen my Bible study. I wanted to study comparatively unfamiliar areas of the book, and I especially wanted to gain a better sense of its canonical interconnections (prophecies, allusions, historical connections, etc.). I had a then-30-year-old Bible that was a worse-for-wear hodgepodge of notes, jottings, and cross-references. I had also purchased a new NRSV. My old and new notetaking comprised both a midlife resolution and an enjoyable, renewed devotion to study.

Eventually, I incorporated my notes into a Blogspot site, “Changing Bibles,” and three WordPress sites, “The Love of Bible Study,” “Psalm 121,” and “Bible Connections.”

Then, the notetaking evolved into my book, "Walking with Jesus through the New Testament" (Westminster John Knox Press, 2015).

THEN, in 2017-2018, I did another series of notetaking as an effort to study the Bible start to finish. I posted those notes on my main blog, “Journeys Home.” Once finished, I put the notes into one file (215 pages!) and posted that file onto “Journeys Home” and “Changing Bibles.” I think I also shared these notes onto my other eclectic blog, “Grace, Place, and the Like” on WordPress.”

More recently, I created a site called "Plague Stories of the Bible". These are Bible lessons written in response to (and during) the Covid pandemic.

My initial resolution to read the Bible as a midlife project clearly got out of hand, but in a good way.

Some of my books.

High on the Okaw's Western Bank: Vandalia, Illinois, 1819-1839 (University of Illinois Press, 1992)
The Social Ontology of Karl Barth (International Scholars Publications, 1995)
Journeys Home (Self-Published, 1995)
"The Kentucky Council of Churches, 1947-1997," manuscript in the Filson Club, Louisville, KY.
Life and Letters of Paul: Galatians (Abingdon, 2000)
Mystery: Exploring the Mystery of God (Abingdon, 2002)
What Do Other Faiths Believe? (Abingdon, 2003)
You Gave Me a Wide Place: Holy Places of Our Lives (Upper Room Books, 2006)
What about Religion and Science (Abingdon, 2007)
What Does the Bible Say about Jesus (Abingdon 2008)
What Does the Bible Say about Life Together (Abingdon, 2008)
Celebrate the Newborn Jesus (Abingdon, 2009)
Walking with Jesus through the Old Testament: Devotions for Lent (Westminster John Knox Press, January 2016)
Faithful Citizen (principal author), FaithfulCitizen.net (Logos Productions, 2011).
Dreaming at the Electric Hobo, poetry chapbook (Finishing Line Press, 2015)
Little River, poetry chapbook (Finishing Line Press, 2017)
Small Corner of the Stars, poetry chapbook (Finishing Line Press, 2017)
Backyard Darwin, poetry chapbook (Finishing Line Press, 2019)
Walking Lorton Book, poetry book (Finishing Line Press, 2021)
Four Mile, poetry book (Finishing Line Press, 2022)
Galapagos Joy, poetry chapbook (Finishing Line Press, 2023)
East Rock, poetry book (Finishing Line Press, 2024)
Holy Week 1847, poetry book (Finishing Line Press, 2025)

Books and studies to which I've contributed.

Vandalia Bicentennial 1819-2019
Vandalia Remembered: Celebrating a City with a Capital Heritage, 1819-1994. Leader-Union Publishing Co., 1994.
Encyclopedia of Louisville. University Press of Kentucky, 2000
Becoming the People of God: Living Faithfully as Friends and Family. Abingdon Press, 2001.
Becoming the People of God: Caring for God's Earth. Abingdon Press, 2002.
Becoming the People of God: Walking Humbly, Doing Justice. Abingdon Press, 2002.
Becoming the People of God: Forming a Global Family. Abingdon Press, 2003.
Becoming the People of God: Opting for Virtue in Public Life. Abingdon Press, 2003.
Becoming the People of God: Working Together: Sharing the Bounty. Abingdon Press, 2003.
Living by the Word. Chalice Press, 2005.
Connecting Faith & Life in Hard Times: A FaithLink Feature. Abingdon Press, 2009.
FaithLink Feature: The Sandy Hook Shootings, 2012

My Other Sites

Although "Journeys Home" is my primary blog, I also have these sites:

My Instagram page is https://www.instagram.com/paulstroble/

"Grace, Place, and the Like," paulstroble.wordpress.com, is an "annex" of this "Journeys Home" site.

These sites are not updated but hopefully are still interesting:

"Plague Stories of the Bible," https://www.plaguestoriesofthebible.com are Bible lessons written in response to (and during) the Covid pandemic.

"Psalm 121," http://hundredtwentyfirstpsalm.com are my reveries and notes around my favorite psalm.

"Changing Bibles," changingbibles.blogspot.com are brief notes and informal studies of the Bible.

"Bible Connections," bibleconnections.wordpress.com, are essays that trace themes and connections across the Bible's books.

"The Love of Bible Study," theloveofbiblestudy.com are essays about the seasons when I perused the pages of my beat-up, 35-year-old Bible.

"I Will Dwell in the House of the Lord For Ever," a Tumblog of vintage postcards of church buildings. http://paulestroble.tumblr.com

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Interfaith Prayers

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