Being conquered by the disciplines

The other day I heard Rev. Nancy Allen mention that the disciplines that one may take on for Lent are not to be seen as something to conquer. For instance, if you are fasting from chocolate and "power through" the season without eating chocolate, it may seem like an acceptable way to talk about your success in "conquering" the temptation to eat chocolate. 

However, from a spiritual formation stand point the spiritual disciplines are not for us to "conquer". The spiritual disciplines are designed to "conquer" us. 

The disciplines are called disciplines because they "discipline" our mind, spirit, body and heart. They work on us over time to wear us down in order to remake us. They conquer us, in a sense, in order that we may be transformed. 

Even the non-religious disciplines break us down in order to transform us. 

Franklin-Covey and the calendaring systems they have are disciplines designed to force us to behave in a way so that our habits are different - that we are transformed into a more organized person (or so the promise goes). 

“We enter the land of silence by the silence of surrender, and there is no map of the silence that is surrender…. The practice of silence…cannot be reduced to a spiritual technique. Techniques are all the rage today. They suggest a certain control that aims to determine a certain outcome. They clearly have their place. But this is not what contemplative practice does…. A spiritual practice simply disposes us to allow something to take place. For example, a gardener does not actually grow plants. A gardener practices certain gardening skills that facilitate growth that is beyond the gardener’s direct control.”

— Martin Laird - Into the Silent Land

So may we be conquered by the disciplines of the season. 

Book #250 should be...

Back in 2010 I had this experience with Amazon and every year since then I post about it. I am not paid by Amazon or the "Kindle corporation" to share this story, but I do because it continues to be for me the standard by which I judge all other customer service experiences. 

At the time of the incident, I had about 15-20 books on my Kindle. And now - 249. So in celebration of the great service at Amazon I wanted to open up to the readers of this blog what should be the 250th book I should purchase?

Car accidents and the Bible

You know when there is a police report of a car accident and the two people involved have conflicting stories of what happened? In an accident report with two people there are really four stories going on:

• Person A's story about Person B
• Person A's story about themselves
• Person B's story about Person A
• Person B's story about themselves

Could this also be true about the Bible? 

The idea being that there are two subjects in the Bible - God and humans. As such there are four main narratives going on in the Bible: 

• God's story about humans
• God's story about God
• Human's story about humans
• Human's story about God

I wonder what it would be like if a police report was turned in after sitting in our churches. You have these four stories about the two parties and just how different they might very well be. 

(I know it is lame and incomplete, but all police reports are incomplete.)

And, I am afraid to say, just like in a police report we are more apt to believe our story is more true than the story of the other person. 

We live in a world that needs Good News. We live in a time that needs to hear God's story. We live in a time that has long been too dependent upon the partial truth of the human perspective.

Can we begin to take into consideration the story of God as a credible witness?  

Being Christian is less "light switch" and more "language"

For reasons that I cannot fully understand, for many people, being Christian is like a light switch. That is to say you either are a Christian or you are not. You are on or you are off. Others have noted the light switch metaphor is not helpful and suggest a "dimmer" switch to be better metaphor. That is we are rarely all the way on or all the way off. Being Christian is being in flux.

For years the dimmer switch metaphor has been helpful for me to talk about evangelism as well as my own understanding of the Christian life. The more I sit with it the more I settle into a different metaphor - being Christian is like learning a language.

1. It takes time. Humans may have a propensity for language but it still takes time to learn language. We make mistakes. We learn the nuances. We have difficulties making new sounds. Learning any language takes time, learning the language of God in Christ takes time. 
2. We build on the past. Language builds on the communities of people over time. For instance, English is indebted to at least the German and Anglo-Frisian communities. Being Christian requires that we take seriously the past and understands the debt we owe to the Sinners and Saints that came before us. 
3. We evolve. Language evolves. The word nice has evolved over time and what it meant to be nice today is different than years ago. Being Christian today might look a little different than it did years ago there is not ONE universal never changing way to be Christian. We are all learning how to be Christian together. 
4. Yelling louder to non-speakers does not help. You know that old joke where the English man is trying to communicate with the Frenchwoman by just speaking English louder? It does not help. Yelling Christian language louder to others who do not speak the language does not help. 
5. We do not have to fear mixing. In Texas there is another language called "Spanglish" which is mix of Spanish and English. Being Christian means that we are able to mix different ideas with Christianity without fear of "losing our religion". Instead we are helping to create a new generation of people who can speak Christian. Finding ways to mix the message of Christ with other faith traditions only makes each tradition more dynamic and accessible for new people.
6. We are not able to speak it perfectly. No one has perfect grasp of language and no one has perfect grasp on being Christian. We are all learning and trying the best we can. This is in part why grace is important in both communicating and being Christian. 
7. There are some universals. It seems there are universals in language. For instance shaking a head universally means "no". There is even suggestions that politeness in language is universal. Being Christian recognizes the universals between the message of Jesus and Shintoism to Sikhism. It is in the universals that we can communicate and build relationships.
8. It is the best we have. Language is great but even language falls short on being able to describe the mysteries of the world. How do you describe the color blue or the feeling of rage? Metaphor, story, parable and simile are the best we have. How do you describe the love of God or how to be in relationship with others? Christians know that Christianity is not perfect but it is the best that we know of. This does not mean it is supreme, just like one dialect is not supreme, it is the one that we have found that continues to be the best we personally have.
9.  It helps to learn about others. In order to better understand the world around us as well as build relationships it helps to learn about other languages. Likewise, it is helpful to learn about other religious traditions in order to better understand our neighbor. 
10. Some people just know more than we do. Shakespeare had a better understanding of how to use words than I do. It does not mean I am a fool, I understand that some people are gifted in language in a way that I want to learn from them and even mimic them. There are some people who know more about being faithful to God than I do, for instance Jesus. It does not mean I am a fool, I understand that there are some people who are gifted in the way that I want to learn from them and even (gasp!) mimic them.

How are you practicing being a Christian?