The English word religion has been around a long time…like, as long as there was English. That’s no surprise, right? And also no surprise is that it has always carried the meaning of “action or conduct indicating belief in and reverence for a divine power one seeks to please” as well as “a life bound by monastic vows.”
What’s interesting is the root of this common word. It comes from Latin, which isn’t surprising either, but while the Latin religionem does indeed mean “respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods” and so on, Cicero is actually credited with creating this noun from the verb relegere, which literally means “go through it again” or “reread.”
Isn’t that interesting? I’d never thought about it that way, but systems of religion are indeed built on dwelling on thoughts, rereading sacred texts, going through it again and again and again. This is why pretty much every religion on the planet ends up with rites and rituals and creeds, Christianity being no exception. It’s through repetition that we learn a thing and discover its depths.
It’s also worth noting that many later ancients thought religionem was in fact derived from religare, which means “to bind fast.” So though we can, in fact, trace the word to Cicero, that “binding fast” has greatly informed its use and development as well.
Hi, guys! Here’s my video update from Friday, January 14, 2022.
In case you don’t have time to watch, here’s the gist. =)
My goal was to write 20,000 words this week, and so far I’m on schedule, with 16K written as of Thursday evening. I’m not sure I’ll actually hit my 4K goal today, because we’re heading down to the DC area this afternoon for dinner, but hopefully I can either get it in or make up for it over the weekend. Next week, more writing!
I have a new editor at Bethany House and got to meet her via Zoom yesterday, which was fun. And as you can see in the other post, I also got my first listen to the audio narrator selected for the Visibullis biblical fiction books!
My son, Rowyn, also had his 1-year lab work done after his Type 1 diagnosis, and I’m happy to report that everything else they check for–cholesterol, thyroid issues, Celiac (commonly go along with T1)–are are perfect!
It’s been so great getting to know all of you this week! Please chime in, either in comments here or in the app, with your updates or prayer requests!
Exciting news! So a couple months ago, I signed a contract with Tantor Audio to produce my biblical fiction (A Stray Drop of Blood, A Soft Breath of Wind, and Jewel of Persia) as audio books. Yay!
Well, they’re doing the casting now! I thought it would be fun to share with you guys the narrators as we select them. (By “select,” I mean that they send me their choice and I can veto it or approve it, LOL.)
So this is the narrator for Stray Drop and Soft Breath, Mary Sarah. She has quite the resume! I admit I wasn’t sure as I listened to the first paragraph or two, but by the end of this clip she had totally won me over. The passion and drama in her reading!!!
What do you think?
(We’re still nailing down Jewel of Persia‘s casting, but hopefully I’ll have that one to share next week.)
These are reflections that I usually ponder for obvious reasons during Holy Week, so I certainly didn’t expect to start a year off with a post about the cross. But during my prayer time last week, I was meditating on Jesus’ cross–the physical one, which both He and Simon the Cyrene carried–and something new occurred to me. And that is this:
When Jesus spoke so often throughout His ministry about us, His followers, taking up our crosses, He was certainly speaking about burdens and sacrifices, yes … but He knew something else about His own cross. He knew it wasn’t only about suffering and sacrifice. He also knew it was about PURPOSE.
Christ didn’t suffer and die and accept that burden of our sins for nothing. He did it for a purpose–the ultimate purpose. He did it for the salvation of all mankind.
We know this, of course … but have we ever paused to apply that to our crosses? Maybe you have, but it had never come to me in quite that way before. That He is calling us to take up our purpose. Our calling. He is calling us to walk that out every day. He is calling us to obey and act and carry it into our lives. Up that hill.
Is it a sacrifice? Yes. It is sometimes hard and heavy? Yes. Do we do it anyway? Yes. Because it’s worth it. He is worth it. Working for Him and His Kingdom is worth it.
We have many jobs in our lives, many things that employ our time. We celebrate the dignity of work, of earning, of enabling the survival of the families with whom God has trusted us.
But we are also ALL called to follow Him, first and foremost. We are called to go forth, every day and every week, and shine His light into this dark world. We are called to take up His cross, His passion, His purpose for our own and share about the salvation of mankind. To share in that salvation. We are called to go and to do and to obey.
For a purpose. His purpose. The purpose of the Cross.
How are we walking that out in our daily lives? How are we focusing first and foremost on it in our other work? Is everything we do for the purpose of the Cross … or are we at cross-purposes with Him?
What do we need to reevaluate as this year begins to align ourselves more fully with His purposes?
One of my goals for the year is to spend more time in prayer …. But then, that begged the question of what prayer is, exactly. I always thought I knew, but it turns out I kinda didn’t.
In my mind, prayer was an act of worship. But in fact, pray means simply “to ask earnestly, to beg” (that meaning in English dates to the 1200s and is taken from Latin precari, which means the same thing). In the 14th century, it also began to mean “to invite.” You’ve probably come across this in some books, where characters say, “I pray thee, come and see…” (Interestingly, by Colonial days, this has been contracted to prithee or just shortened to pray.) Either way, the meaning conveys earnest asking, but NOT worship. Worship is something else altogether. So while, yes, we pray to God—and we shouldn’t pray to just any god—and our prayer can be adoration of Him, which is worship, there’s a distinction that I hadn’t fully comprehended. And one that greatly affects my own understanding of what it really means to pray.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.