Archive for the ‘Disciplines’ Category

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Beyond Study For Spiritual Growth

June 1, 2012

I write about study a lot, because that’s what I do. It’s just natural. Strange, though. When I was in school, I was not a “good” student. I guess I was bright, but not smart. You probably know some of those people even as adults. They pick up new words easily. They repeat them. But they really don’t have any depth in the concepts behind the words.

I’d pick up stuff quickly, but I had (and still have) no interest in grades. The only time I cared about grades was when the report card came home and Dad gave me one of his patented 2-hour lectures about being too smart to get those grades or something like that.

But I’m curious, and I love to learn more. Then I started working in business and in “church work.” That added experience. The Beatles went to India and brought back Transcendental Meditation, but then I discovered the wealth of Christian contemplatives. Knowledge plus experience plus contemplation leads to wisdom. I’ve discovered this truth in business. I’ve discovered this in matters of the Spirit. One day you realize you’re confident in what you’re saying. You hit that inflection point where the three streams join.

Knowledge comes from study. It provides the foundation, for if you are ignorant, you will never grow. Experience comes from doing–service. Getting out into the world and working with and for people. Contemplation is also doing–of a different sort. It is the act of reflecting on the combination of learning and doing, putting it all together and understanding.

These three different activities, when brought together under the purpose of living with-God, change your life. You become more like the person Jesus and Paul and John and the others describe in the Gospels.

And maybe someday, you become wise.

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Never Stop Learning

May 29, 2012

Does your entire knowledge of the Bible come from what you were taught as a child? Were you inoculated with education? I once read a theory called “the inoculation theory of education.” You were injected with a little bit of the “disease” so that you wouldn’t get any major dose later.

There is a meme going around the Web in one of the areas I read that goes something like “20 things I know that I wished I knew when I was 20.” There was another one over the weekend. One of the points the writer made was to never stop reading. In fact, increase the amount of reading you do.

While I respect people I know with many advanced degrees, I’m content with the fact that I dropped out of grad school before finishing my degree. It really wouldn’t have meant much in my life. You see, I’m almost completely self-taught. I read, listen, think. Then read some more. I only had one math teacher who was really a teacher. For the rest, I learned some math from school, but I learned a lot more outside school. Same with engineering, philosophy, theology, psychology.

You can do that too, if you wish. I read another guy on the Web who talked about a friend. His friend said he wished he could read as many books as him. “How much TV do you watch?” The friend replied a couple of hours most evenings. So, cut out the TV and read. It’s simply a choice. Do you want to learn and grow or simply be entertained?

Read the Bible. Read respected spiritual writers. Check out the “Desert Fathers.” For example John Climacus had psychology figured out 13 centuries before Freud–and probably did a better job. He understood all the emotions and energies that prevent you from living with God. He wrote it in The Ladder of Divine Ascent. A tip–try reading some things you might disagree with. You broaden your experience. It’ll force you to think. You may learn something new.

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Are You Changing Yourself

May 24, 2012

A reader of the magazine I edit sent this little poster he wrote. It was meant for manufacturing company workers, but it applies here:

There is nothing more threatening to a boss than a leader!

How do you tell which one you are?  Ask yourself why do you want to know. 

 If you answer that you want to know so you can change others’ opinion of you, you might be a boss.

 If you answer that you want to know so that you can change yourself, you are a leader!

 Why would someone begin Spiritual Practices? When you started, what was in your mind? Was it because you wanted to let other people know so that they would think of you as a saint or guru or something like that? Or, were you simply trying to change yourself?

These questions are worth pondering occasionally. Just to keep us on the right path.

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Finding Your Vision for Leadership

May 3, 2012

Earlier I wrote about leadership as a spiritual discipline. The basic process of leadership is having a vision of the future and articulating that vision such that you get others to align with it.

But how do you get the vision in the first place? Do you just sit around gazing at your navel waiting for God to strike you? Well, actually, you have to help God.

The vision comes from looking around at your situation. Maybe in your church. Or your community. Or your business. And it occurs to you that there is a problem that is looking for a solution. You figure out how to solve that problem. That’s your vision. Now your journey of leadership has begun. Good is it’s something you’re interested in. Better is if it is something that many others are also interested in. Best is a solution that is a benefit and joy to other people.

Go for it. What are you waiting for? There are lots of problems waiting for a leader.

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Living a Disciplined Life

April 30, 2012

Benjamin Franklin was full of sayings. In fact, I just saw a blog that talked about 12. Try this one on for size:

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealth and wise.”

Paul devotes fully a quarter of his letter to the Romans to practical advice about how to live from the time you rise until the time you go to bed. In one section, he discusses all the things that you typically do late at night. Under the cover of darkness, lots of sinful activity occurs. Young police officers whom I’ve known and who want to be in the action want to work the shift that covers from about 11 pm until about 3 am. Lots of stuff happening there.

To live a fruitful life, making a habit of early to bed and early to rise is the first habit you should cultivate. For many people that is tough. But you accomplish much more with that lifestyle and keep yourself free of many temptations.

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Live for Others As A Spiritual Discipline

April 20, 2012

Paul’s letter to the Romans is an orderly description of the progression of incorporating Spiritual discipline–or Spiritual practices–in your life. He builds toward the final section (Chapters 12-15) which is all about how to live your life. What is important after believing in Jesus as your path to God (or whatever words from your tradition you wish to use) is what you do from the time you get up in the morning until the time you go to bed at night.

He is quite comprehensive. About the only thing Western people (and maybe a lot of Easterners, too) would disagree with would be the first part of Chapter 13 where Paul describes the relationship to government. He asks why fear them. If you do good, then you have nothing to fear. On the other hand, he probably at that time had a benign attitude toward Rome. He no doubt thought, like almost everyone of his time, that Rome was never going anywhere.

In the time since (and I bet Paul reconsidered much of that thought 10-15 years later), we have seen governments come and go. We have seen how governments mistreat their citizens–for example when the various governments (federal, state and local) actively suppressed black people in the U.S. I grew up intellectually and morally in a time of witness against a government that practiced segregation. Against a government that practiced sending armies into small countries and killing tens of thousands. It’s common these days for people globally to stand as a witness against corrupt and tyrannical regimes.

Practicing life in the Spirit must go beyond your faith community and your inner life. It must go beyond celebration and worship and study, prayer and meditation. It must go out into the streets, into  the workplace, into your relationships–and do right at all times. And that takes discipline!

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Overburdened With Spiritual Practices

April 18, 2012

Sometimes with all good intentions, I add a spiritual practice. Then maybe a physical practice. Maybe I want to add more study to my meditation practice and then look for another service. Then I feel a need to run further (which means take more time for my morning workout). And then when do I find time for some additional Yoga practice to try new poses?

Our pastor started this line of thinking a few weeks ago when he asked if we’ve added so many spiritual practices that we feel like we’re batting a bunch of balloons trying to keep them all in the air. Leo Babauta, a writer who focuses on how to live each day, talked about how we tend to overplan. We sort of overlook how much time it takes to do things. We lay out a plan for the day–or maybe for a vacation–only to find that there aren’t enough hours in the day.

This happens to me frequently. I feel like the guy in the old FedEx commercial who kept answering the phone–“I can do that”, “I can do that”, “I can do that”, “How am I ever gonna do all that?”

So we all need to release the inner OCD and learn to just do what we can, relax, go with the flow. Pick the most important thing for the moment and do it, not worrying about the other stuff.

I sometimes say, only half-jokingly, that part of my philosophy of life comes from the old Mad Magazine mascot Alfred E. Newman, who would say through that goofy grin, “What? Me worry?”

By the way–OCD=obsessive-compulsive disorder–you’ve got it, you know it. And where else can you find a Christian blog that quotes both ZenHabits and Mad Magazine in the same post? Enjoy the day, one moment at a time.

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Introverts and Extroverts

April 12, 2012

There are two types of people. Well, maybe three. There are people who get energy from being with other people. We call those extroverts. There are people who get energy from being alone. These are called introverts. Then there are people like me, I suppose. On the Myers-Briggs Types Indicator, my scores on that scale come back ambivalent.

But how we are determines how we like to worship. It determines how we work best. But we need a little of both.

A man called Chris Anderson started a conference years ago where he invited people with significant ideas to present short talks (no longer than 20 minutes but most often about 10 minutes) to an audience who paid as much as five figures to the left of the decimal point to listen. He called it the TED Talks conference. It became successful. There are now many of these around the world. He now records them and you can watch for free.

Recently Susan Cain presented on being an introvert in a culture that increasingly rewards (or forces you to be) an extrovert. It is worth a listen.

In our spiritual practice, we need to be aware of our tendency and seek balance. Introverts would tend toward study and meditation. Extroverts tend toward worship, celebration and service. Following the example of Jesus, everyone needs time alone to find God and center themselves. It might be difficult for extroverts, but it is necessary to achieve depth in your celebrations and service. Study and meditation alone will not make you whole. Introverts need to get out and be with people. Learn to celebrate and serve. Just as Jesus often withdrew to be with God in order to serve more, we also need to seek that balance.

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Becoming Self Aware

March 23, 2012

I am working this week in chunks of time in the early morning and late evening with a few exceptions. Otherwise, I’m playing with the grandkids. As they get older, I am reminded of some of the stages of growth in maturity of a human being. Sometimes we forget. Some people never progress.

By two, kids are walking, talking, interacting, but often they just follow their impulses. So, to socialize them, you try to channel their impulses and teach a few life lessons. By four or five, it’s time that they begin to realize that following nature’s impulses may not be the best course. It’s time that they see the impact of their words and actions on others–and how that reflects back to them.

So the grandson is learning self-awareness. You know, it’s when you start something–maybe you start getting mad at someone or something. And it just builds. You just can’t stop. You need to be able to see yourself and recognize what’s happening. Then pause for a time and let yourself come back into balance. Blogger Rex Hammock calls for giving it five minutes.

As I study Spiritual Discipline–or as John Ortberg recently called it, Spiritual Practices–I become ever more impressed with the basic need for self-awareness as something that comes before the practice. How do I feel? With whom do I have issues? Have I let something gain control of me? Where do I stand toward God at this moment?

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Is Confession Confusing

March 5, 2012

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the Discipline of Confession as a “corporate” discipline–that is one that you should do with another person. This has been brought up several times in groups where people are puzzled and concerned about this.

On the one hand, many people are reluctant to share their deepest sins with another person. Trust seems to be a major roadblock. But I think there is a deeper problem–it’s hard. It is hard enough just to look at yourself and become aware of things you do or thoughts you dwell upon as sins. But to tell another person really opens you up to the possibility of ridicule, rejection or worse.

But psychologists will tell you both from experience and from research that healing cannot commence until you seriously recognize your problem and get it out in the open. That is the only place where healing can begin.

On the other hand, there is the situation of being the hearer of the confession. Do those words from Scripture really tell me that I can extend forgiveness to another? Just because Jesus said we have the power to forgive sins on earth, is it really true?

Some people are raised to believe that priests and pastors are people set aside by God and invested with certain powers–one of which is to hear confessions and forgive. Others do not accept that distinction–rather accepting the theology of the priesthood of all believers.

We believe that God’s grace is there for everyone. If anyone confesses their sin and resolves to turn their life around and walk with God, they are forgiven. There is no problem for a believer to be the healing person to put that into words for the penitent person. In fact, you can become God’s instrument of healing and faith formation for that person in that moment.

And what better thing can we do with our lives than help someone else begin the journey?

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