So The last days have been days colored in the three colors of the NCD trinitarian compass. The NCD concept is not new and there was nothing in the conference that was truly astounding or revolutionary and I think that is the strength of NCD. It just confirms what we already know from the bible.
One of the seminars featured a three color view of spirituality, see the image, where you would fit youirself into one of these labels, now to grow in our spirituality and become more balanced we need to first celebrate our own spirituality and let it flourish and then investigate the two oposites to ours and try to experience God in these.
At first I had trouble with this exercise as my spirituality is expressed by a deep love for the word and I need to be able to rationaly and logically explain my beliefs based on the word of God, this leaves me deep into the orthodox corner. However I love to worship God by singing, jumping, shouting and generally making a LOT of noise! wich is the opposite of the orthodox (Enthusiastic). So I didn’t know what to do to make sense of that how could my starting point be both? I asked Christian Schwartz and he said well, then you are allready experiencing God in a balanced way and what you need to do now is go deeper in both directions. Then he asked, Do you feel that these two oposing views are conflicting in your life. No I said I find that the more I devote myself to the word the louder I want to shout. AHA!, said Christian the deeper you go, the higher you jump! He started to laugh and immediately jotted that down in his little notebook.
I have now been contenmplating this for a while and I find it tremendously liberating. The more I hold on to the word of God and the truth the more I can exult in reckless worship. This while still maintaining a balanced Spirituality.
I just love the NCD defenition of balance! The way to balance is becoming more radical in ALL areas, that is the further out in the red (evangelism, discipleship) I get the further I need to go in blue (Spiritual power and emotional health) and green (Social justice and Tolerance)
