As always, don’t treat these questions like “homework” or a list that needs to be covered in its entirety. Instead, simply pick the one question that speaks to you most and let it lead you where you need to go. The goal of these questions is not to help you analyze what Prophecy means in the abstract, but to figure out what being a part of a community of Prophecy means for you and your daily living. So, which question is calling to you? Which one contains “your work”?
- Who has been a prophetic oracle to you? Whose voice has influenced, and thus, predicted your future? Is it still doing so? (Every man is hero and an oracle to somebody, and to that person, whatever he says has an enhanced value. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson)
- What are you willing to being driven into the desert for? (The ones we call the prophets were the ones jailed and driven into the desert. ~Noam Chomsky)
- How is Beauty calling you to a new future? (Beauty is the oracle that speaks to us all. – Luis Barragan)
- What would it look like for you to remember? (“The biblical prophet didn’t so much predict the future as to speak for God in a world that has gone askew by forgetting …something essential.” – Peter Santucci)
- Have you domesticated your prophets? Is your “cloud of prophetic witnesses” really just an echo chamber? (Avoid the bad habit of domesticating the prophet of your choice, turning him into a cheerleader for your way of thinking and way of life. – Parker Palmer)
- Which Martin Luther King Jr. do you celebrate? (Martin Luther King Was a Radical, Not a Saint: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/martin-luther-king-was-a-_1_b_6498740.html)
- Are your New Year’s resolutions too small? Are they really big enough to bring down your bully?
- What New Year’s resolution will make life feel like a playground again?
- How has the election of President Trump “mugged you with truth”? (“You can tell the future?” “More like the future mugs me from time to time…. The oracle spirit kind of hijacks me once in a while, and speaks important stuff.” ~Rick Riordan)
- On Inauguration Day, what would it take for you to believe in “maybe”? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX0OARBqBp0 )
- What’s your wave? (It is a mistake to see [the prophet] as an isolated, heroic individual. It is better to see him/her as the crest of a wave. -Rev. Dr. Rebecca Ann Parker)
- Is your prophetic engagement with or without love? (If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. – 1 Corinthians 13:2)
What’s your question? Your question may not be listed above. As always, if the above questions don’t include what life is asking from you, spend the month listening to your days to hear it.