Thursday, December 20, 2007

My Spiritual Rule

These are the elements that make up my Spiritual Rule. The bold lettered ones are those which I find particularly stretching right now.


  • Pray the Hours

    • Built in:

      • Poetry

      • Scripture

      • Prayer

      • Meditation

  • Practice Submission (to discomfort, To Elaine’s guidance and to spiritual directors)

  • Nightly Devotions and prayers with the kids (Worship, Prayer)

  • Pray with Elaine nightly (Examination and confession)

  • Attend to eating

    • Eat breakfast

    • Whole grain foods

    • Fast Fridays

  • Take a Sabbath weekly

    • Quarterly retreats

  • Study - PSALM

    • Poetry

    • Scripture

    • Art

      • Art Appreciation

      • Creation

        • Music practice

        • Painting

    • Literature

    • Meditation

      • People watching

      • Contemplation

  • Practice Hospitality

    • At Coffeehouse

    • At Home

    • In spiritual direction

    • In visitation

    • Live ecologically responsibly

      • Eliminate carbon footprint

      • Recycle

  • Celebration

    • Romance and sex

      • Dates

      • Sitters

    • Music and dancing

    • Painting

    • Worship in other traditions - celebrating communion when permissible

Spiritual Directors

Qualities I look for in a spiritual director:
  • Takes a wide view of christianity, like Foster’s streams
  • Takes this thing of spiritual growth seriously
  • Has a warmth of hospitality
  • Doesn’t loose interest - ever
  • Available
  • Someone versed in the disciplines who can help me navigate them and challenge me to more without overwhelming.
  • Something of a contemplative
  • A dreamer who can help make God’s dreams for me reality. One who can dream with God about who I will become.
  • A good listener
  • Not afraid to take authority, to require something of me as needed.
  • Zossima like
  • Appreciates the mystics and is literate in the Spiritual Classics

He will turn my board meeting into dancing


My first experience with a church board was did not instill much faith in the system. I was on staff as children’s ministry director at a contentious church. The Youth Pastor and I decided to take up an invitation from the Senior Pastor to sit in on a board meeting. It was the first and last board meeting either of us went to of our own accord. They first vehemently denied the pastor any options the pastor gave to assist with his retirement, they didn’t want to encourage him to say any longer. They then dug into me and continued to rake me over the coals for an hour. I was just beginning my experiments with The Disciplines then and was in the midst of an extended fast. That I maintained my cool and sat in submission to the beating had to have been because the disciplines had placed me squarely in Grace. Nothing but grace can account for it. I went home and prayed psalm 119 several times, it was all I could do for solace.

Thinking about guidance brought those memories and feelings up again. I believe this is not the way a board should operate. Instead of viewing themselves as the empowered representatives of the congregation, I believe they are men and women chosen for their maturity and willingness to seek the will of God. Board meetings should be worship, times devoted to the discipline of corporate guidance and firmly rooted in the celebration of who we are together in Christ.

In the West, especially in America, we have been acclimated to Democracy, even to the point of seeing its spread as our sacred mission. Our two party system of representative governance provides us with checks and balances, but it also provides us with winners and losers. Each election sees half the country demoralized and the other half victorious. This is not how the church should operate.

Corinne McLaughlin suggests that a “spiritual” approach to politics would seek a synthesis of ideas. She suggests that synthesis is more than compromise, because in compromise both sides loose something. “A spirit of goodwill towards those with opposing views, a win/win rather than win/lose approach, a release of self-righteousness, and a compassionate, healing spirit are the keys to this new politics.”1

Of all places a healing, compassionate spirit should be found it should be in the church. The discipline of corporate guidance provides us with the key. Instead of Robert’s Rules which are built on the win/lose model, I would like to take a system like The Handbook For Consensus Building2 and infuse it with liturgy.

Guidance is a corporate discipline so it is appropriate that it fit in the context of worship. Foster points out that when sending out Paul and Barnabas as missionaries, The church at Antioch came together in prayer and worship. “Having become a prepared people, the call of God arose out of their corporate worship: ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”3

I envision a spiritual rule for board meetings. Like Foster says this must be in the “organic and functional sense.”4 It cannot be empty form or cold corporate policy to be any different from the contentious politicking of the past. The Short Guide for Consensus building suggests stages such as convening, assessing, discussing, deciding and implementing. Building into that the liturgical elements of convocation, worship, meditation and celebration create a mystical format for a spiritual body to use.

Celebration is important. It intersects with guidance in the organizational because we must begin with the joyful understanding of our identity, that we are one, the body. Jesus commanded that we love one another, “that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”5

For example, as I read The Divine Embrace, I must confess I was put off by Webber’s mostly negative view of the places his stone “skipped across the water of history.” He spent much time in the first half of the book, “rescuing” spirituality from this danger and that.6 His melody had a harsh tone in my ear. This is partly because Foster’s Streams of Living Water still plays there. Foster celebrates each of the traditions before touching on the dangers and so has greatly impacted my thinking. Both authors offer true guidance to me, but the celebratory style of Foster (and the second half of Webber) was much more gratifying to me.

So it is as we gather to seek God’s face. Without celebrating him and each other, we risk turning one another off to hearing true guidance.

Celebration is a powerful thing. This week I spent three quarters of an hour dancing before God on the platform of my church! Discretion is advised here, I signed a paper stating I would not embarrass the Assemblies of God and if any one saw me dancing they would be embarrassed for me! Needless to say I was alone. Most of the music wasn’t of the Christian sub-culture suggested by Calhoun in her exercise7, but it was amazing how“Tell Me Something Good” by Rufus can usher one into God’s story of love.

How wonderful it is when celebration can happen with others and not just alone. How I long for the Spirit of celebration to permeate my next board meeting!



1 McLaughlin, Corinne. "Beyond Right and Left." The Center For Visionary Leadership. 2004. 20 Dec. 2007 <http://www.visionarylead.org/articles/beyond_lr.htm>.

2 Susskind, Lawrence E. "Short Guide to Consensus Building." Harvard Public Disputes Program. 9 Aug. 1999. MIT. 20 Dec. 2007 <http://web.mit.edu/publicdisputes/practice/cbh_ch1.html>.

3 Foster, Richard J. Celebration of Discipline. San Fransisco: HarperCollins. 1980. Pp. 177-178.

4 Foster. 175.

5 John 15:11 (NIV)

6 Webber, Robert E. The Divine Embrace. Grand Rapids: Baker Books. 2006. Pp 31, 57, 79, 101.

7 Calhoun, Adele Ahlberg. Spiritual Disciplines Handbook. Doweners Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. 2005. Pg. 28 (exercise 1).


Friday, December 07, 2007

submission

My wife is really good at making me do things that are difficult for me to do. Twice this week I have had to submit to her in things that I had no great desire to do. In both cases she told me what I needed to do. I am afraid my initial response was irritation and rudeness, but as I sat there in the silence of her anger, I realized that I needed the discipline of submission today. I needed to serve and she was making sure that I did. O God help me to always understand your whispered calls to service and when I miss it, allow me to hear the not so whispered reminders coming from Elaine!

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Service and hospitality

Self Righteous service comes through human effort. It expends immense amounts of energy calculating and scheming how to render the service. Sociological charts and surveys are devised so we can “help those people.” True service comes from a relationship deep inside. We serve out of whispered promptings, divine urgings. Energy is expended but it is not the frantic energy of the flesh.”1

Hospitality gives service a personality. It is warm and emotional in its connection to the basic human needs. As the disciple learns to understand his or her own dependence on God for basic needs, he and she also learns the beauty of providing for those needs in others. In essence hospitality is extending the borders of the heart, of the family to encompass the neighbor and stranger, the enemy and the friend.

Our ‘dwelling pace’ may be physical: a room, apartment, or house. It may also be a metaphor for mental and motional ‘space.’ We can invite others into our inner world of thoughts and feelings, sharing gifts of the heart and mind. Gracious inner space gives others room to play, question and converse; room to be heard and understood; room to reveal themselves as they choose.”

I can’t understand the image of Christ as stranger. How could he come to those beloved disciples on the road to Emmaus unrecognized? How could he be naked, poor, imprisoned, and we not see him there? How could he, my dear heart, be the stinking, cursing, drunk and homeless? Could he be my neighbor John who riding is bicycle home from the bar, at two AM, went over the handlebars and broke his nose? Could it have been Jesus I drove home with tears in his eyes and pain in his body? It is hard for me to see Jesus there, not because I don’t think he would stoop so low, but because I love him and don’t want to see blood pour from his nose or tears from his eyes. What would it mean to see my Jesus in all those around me? Is he there in people I know, and who don’t even know him, or just in strangers? Does he visit in the familiar as well as the strange? Perhaps he does, perhaps his incarnation is both in us as his hands and feet and in the fleshly suffering of those around us. Perhaps his paschal mystery continues in all who are hurting, naked and abandoned, just as his advent happens in us as we engage them in service and hospitality.

Seeing our neighbors and strangers as Jesus can be difficult precisely because we cannot see Jesus as coming to us in the form of a sinner.

What does it take to see to see in every other person a sister or brother? If we cannot truly accept our weaknesses as well as our gifts, we will be unable to love others in their brokenness and giftedness.

We are speaking again of humility. A humble heart is hospitable. It accepts people as they are - a mix of familiar and unfamiliar, good and bad. Acceptance leaves others free to be themselves in our dwelling place. It does not require them to be like us. Our guest may be friend or total stranger, mentally impaired or emotionally estranged, different in race, faith, social circumstance, or political perspective. Hospitality means giving all guests the freedom to reveal themselves as they choose. A guest should not need to fear personal attack, rejection, or conversion efforts on the part of the host. Freedom is the medium of human exchange in true hospitality.”2

God is the great Host, his hospitality for us is unmatched. There are beautiful days when I am aware of God’s grace pervading my day - those times when he lays out a feast for my soul. I have experience reading books and feeling warmth fill my body, or praying the psalms and weeping at his goodness to me, or walking the fields at my grandparents’ farm knowing he was there ministering to me in the breeze. I am left with an overwhelming sense of gratitude � overwhelming in it’s emotion, humility and a small sadness. Thompson describes it in her travels in Scotland, and in her friend’s trip to Mexico, as they received the hospitality of the locals. “My friend felt a mixture of wonder, gratitude guilt and humility.”3 That is just what I feel when God lavishes his grace on me.


Maslow meets Johari


I have often wondered how to get people to open up, to explore the depths of our relationship together and our relationship with God. Could it be that I haven’t given enough room to those around me? Have I not invited them in to a house of hospitality even when I visit their houses or talk at the restaurant?

What if the way to get people to open up is by opening up yourself. This is what the Johari window describes as self disclosure. We can also provide room by meeting the felt needs, working our way up the Maslow pyramid, giving people room to hunger for more - more us, more God. A time may then come when they will gladly give up those needs to become a deeper disciple and know their true fulfillment comes from God. He has a way of overwhelming Maslow’s pyramid.



1 Foster, Richard J. Celebration of Discipline. HarperCollins, 1978. Pg 128.

2 Thompson, Marjorie J. Soul Fest. Westminster John Knox Press. 1995. Pg134.

3 Thompson Pg126.


Monday, December 03, 2007

Formational Reading

"When we read a book [or a blog post], three intrinsic ... rules govern our study. The intrinsic rules may, in the beginning, necessitate three separate reading but in time can be done concurrently. The first reading involves understanding the book: what is the author saying? The second reading involves interpreting the book: what does the author mean? The third reading involves evaluating the book: is the author right or wrong? Most of us tend to do the third reading right away and often never do the first and second readings at all. We give a critical analysis of a book before we understand what it says. We judge a book to be right or wrong before we interpret its meaning. The wise writer of Ecclesiastes says that there is a time for every matter under heaven, and the time for critical analysis of a book comes after careful understanding and interpretation."
-Richard J Foster,
Celebration of Discipline
Chapter 5: The Discipline of Study