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?