Opening Blind Eyes (Journeys in faith)

Rating:
Summary: Incredibly Transparent View of A Personal Pilgrimage
Review: Claypool, once a learned and respected Baptist pastor and seminarian gives us his faith journey into sacramental, liturgical Christianity, becoming an Episcopal priest. It is his frank, open story of his 'awakening' as a person loved by God, with once blind eyes, so much like all of us, who once thought 'doing' equals 'being' but who solidly met the mysterious true God of grace in learning that to 'be' and not to 'do' is the most important thing you can do in this thing called living. The 'rat-race' of modern American 'Christian ministry' has sapped and zapped many of us, but, unlike most modern Christian ministry 'experts'...to be somebody does NOT mean competing and achieving. It means letting God work through, flow in, flow out of and bless you--then you bless others--pressing on and passing on His Light and Love. As he says in the book, "The challenge is to become aware of what is already inside by grace...and to learn to bring that fullness out through generous and sacrificial service to the whole of creation." I hope someone reprints this excellent book and gives it a wider audience. Also, along these same lines, read Eugene H. Peterson's excellent 'The Contemplative Pastor.'

Rating:
Summary: New Perspectives on His Journey of Hope!
Review: When I first read this gem of John's Journey of Hope I did not connect-up the contrasting picture of his Seminary struggles with mine. Since we were in Southern Seminary during the earlier struggles between trustees and faculty, we came under the influence of those Baptist giants: Moody,Theron Price,T C Smith, Elliott, Francisco, Peacock. Several were asked to resign, which caused blows to many students. John and I served on a committee of Protestors, to no avail!

While he referred to his experience of seminary years "in the community of grades," I admit mine were rather within the mold of a community of grace! We took longer routes of gaining our degrees, as teaching fellows. For me in the shorter program, it was necessary to postpone my degree until Jan. of 1958. Then it was given by grace with projects to repay missing May classes! The students from halls of Theology were an encourgaement; John called that a time of professional turmoil: "we needed to see with new eyes." He was called to a large campus pastorate...I was sent home to the changed perspective of teaching Math! Our contacts were renewed thru hearing his sermons and reading his books.

For my second reading of Opening Blind Eyes I saw the dramatic changes in John's life after his loss of Laura Lue and the wife from his divorce. Both of us moved from large churches to the more intimate smaller, for him, Northminster Church in Jackson. Since we shared the experience of leaving large churches and settling into those places of deepening relationships, we ended up in doing CPE, another parallel. When we crossed paths in his retirement from St Luke's in Birmingham, we share new interests. Here is new acceptance of "Life as Gift" + mutual journeys of Hope! Great stories & experiential questing.
Chaplain Fred W Hood