Personal Disciplines and Communal Practice (Video)

Recently, I had the chance to speak to some of the leadership of the church I serve about moving from a deciding body to a discerning body. In an effort to guide the group toward discernment, there are both personal disciplines and communal practices. This video was an effort to teach different disciplines and practices.

You may not care to watch this entire video, I do not blame you - I don’t like to listen to me, too. However, if you are interested in some of the disciplines and practices, I have put minute marks below for your reference.

• Description of the soul - 1:00

• Discipline vs. Practice - 3:00

• Difference between prayer, contemplation, meditation - 4:00

• Why we would rather choose to decide than discern - 9:00

• The discipline of breath prayer - 11:00

• The discipline of centering prayer - 12:30

• The discipline of the Jesus Prayer - 16:00

• The disciplines of contemplation 23:40

• The Examen - 24:45

• Lectio Divina - 27:00

• The disciplines of meditation - 29:00

• Parable of The Useless Tree 30:30

• Prayer for indifference - 35:40

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I hope this teaching is helpful for you to either participate in these disciplines and practices or at the very least give you something to push against and discover your own Lenten disciplines and practices. (These minute marks and links are also in the comments of the video on Youtube.)

Why We Fail At Self Control or Self Control as Pomegranate

“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.”

— Galatians 5:22-23

Self control is like a pomegranate of the fruits of the spirit. It is the fruit so many of us want to want to like but it is just too difficult to access.

By in large it seems that I fail at self control because I conflate self control with restraint. Restraint is a part of self control but self control is more complex than simple restraint. When I act as though self control is simply restraint then I am not only restrained from the behaviors such as lashing out and yelling, but also from the embracing and showing grand gestures of love. Restraint is great for a stoic, but Christians are not stoics. Christians are called to the fruit of self control.

But what is self control?

Perhaps it is helpful to think of what is the opposite of self control. The opposite is not unbounded emotion, but rather other control. When we are attempting to control others we are doing the opposite of self control.

Controlling others what we do when we are fearful. It is not lost on me that people on line who cause all sorts of heartache as “trolls”. Trolls take delight in controlling others by causing others to get into a rage as a result of the trolls actions. The troll operates from a place of fear that they are not being heard or they have no power, and so they control others out of that fear in order to get heard or feel powerful.

It is said in 1 John 4, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” When we try to control others we are in the presence of fear and if there is fear then there is no love. All of this to say, when we feel like we are loosing control or not practicing restraint it might be because we are lacking love in the moment.

And so, we might fail at self control not because we are not trying, but because we lack the love that drives out fear in that moment.

The next time you feel a lack of self control or even restraint, ask yourself what are you afraid of in that moment. Then, and this is the courageous move, ask yourself, “what do I love about this person?” It has been my experience that when I discover the love in the relationship, I no longer seek to control the other person. When I discover love, fear is cast out.

The pomegranate is not as difficult to eat. We just have been trying to access it in the wrong ways.

Reading Scripture Is Not The Ultimate Reading

Christians around the world read scripture. It is a critical spiritual disciple and one that I believe every Christian needs to engage in. The problem is that too often we think reading scripture is the ultimate “reading” - it is not. Reading scripture is important but perhaps you can see that reading scripture places the human being at the center of the action, and that is problematic.

Another limitation to reading scripture is that it is a practice that engages and is focused on the mind. When we read scripture we are seeking information. We will engage in study and research like we are doing some sort of term paper for school. It is popular to think that if you know when Romans was written, have a grasp on two source source hypothesis, and know what trito-Isaiah is then you “really know your Bible.” And you do. You know a lot of information about the Bible. Generally those who elevate orthodoxy and the mind are those who elevate reading scripture or sometimes it is expressed as “read your Bible”. This is all well and good, but limiting to the Christian life.

Many people have seen the deficiency in just reading scriptures. The argument is that it is not enough to engage the mind with reading scripture we must engage the hands. Orthodoxy is nice and all, but there is no orthodoxy without orthopraxy (right action). This group tends to elevate the morality and ethics of the Bible. The concern is less with engaging the mind than it is engaging the hands. Rather than ask people to read scriptures, you might hear this group speak about the scripture reading for the day. It is a little shift in the focus from reading scripture to scripture reading. It is not the human reading the sacred words, but that the sacred words are reading the human. it is the scripture that is doing the act of reading so that in time the human identifies the story of the Bible as their own story and not just a tale of the past.

Up until about five years ago, I assumed that this was the way to engage with scripture. I ask about the scripture reading in worship more than I ask what verses were read or quoted in the sermon. I had been one who understood the limitations to engage in the head and thought hand engagement was better. Maybe it is, maybe it is not, but five years ago it was revealed to me that scripture reading, othopraxy and ethics/morality focus is limited. Which leads me to the third way to engage with scripture.

You may know it as Lectio Divina, but this is the way that I now engage with scripture. It is not a practice where I read scripture (although passages are read). It is not a practice that demands a scripture reading (but scripture is used). Lectio Divina is Latin for "Divine Reading.” Notice the actual words and order - Divine Reading. It is not about the human reading scripture, nor is it about scripture reading the human, it is the Divine doing the reading. It is the Divine who is the main actor. It is the work of the Divine that is paramount in this practice. As such, Lectio Divina is less about information or ethics/morality as it is about formation. It is less about head or hands and more about heart. It is less about orthodoxy or orthopraxy but about orthocardia - right heart.

If you are interested to experience the difference between reading scripture, scripture reading and Lectio Divina, call your pastor and I am sure they can help. I know pastors can help because it was pastors who helped me - Nancy Allen, Bob and Judy Holloway, Estee Valendy, Jerry Hass, Rabbi Chava Bahle, Joretta Marshall, Grace Imathiu and Loyd Allen.

Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom?

In Philippians 2:1-11 we read the following:

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

This is among the richer scriptures in the New Testament regarding Christ. There is debate if this is a song or poem, if Paul wrote it or if he just knew of it. It is identified as a “Christological hymn” however let us not forget that it is not just about Christ. It is an invitation for each of us on how to live our lives after the example (pattern) of Christ.

What is this pattern? In short it is the pattern of kenosis - the pattern of divesting power. Here is what that might look like:

First we begin with fear of the Lord. This is not that we are “afraid” of the Lord but that we do not compare ourselves to anyone else but the Lord. In doing so, we begin to see that we are in fact not the Lord and that our Sin is ever before us. If we compare ourselves to others, then we become prideful and boastful to the point where we begin to feel like we are “above” or even “godlike” to others. Thus fear of the Lord is knowing who/what to compare yourself to.

When we compare ourselves to God, we are face to face with the shortcomings we have. These shortcomings are the very things that keep us from union with God, others, world and self. And so, if unity is what we seek, we must renounce our current way of life.

When we renounce ways of living that keep us from union, we become a learning again. The idea that “what got you here cannot take you there” is at play. So as ones who have renounced “what got us here” because it “cannot take us there” we are humbled as one who is just beginning a new journey. We have to learn again a new way to live that is without that which we renounced. (Thus, religion is about helping us unlearn before it is about helping us learn.)

Once we renounce our previous ways and in a posture of a humble learner, what are we to do? We need a teacher to show us and tell us what to do. When you are taking a class, the teacher will often tell you to do things that you do not fully understand at the time. However, you trust the teacher and you do what they tell you to do hopeful that in the doing you will come to a greater understanding. Trusting the teacher and doing what they ask is called obedience. Obeying is not a high value in the individualist times we are in, and maybe this is part of our resistance to the spiritual life.

Finally, even if you obey the teacher, the lessons of how to live a life like Christ will take patience. We will not learn over night. It was said that one monk put a stone in his mouth for three years just to learn to be silent. It was said that one monk was in the desert for over fifty years and was just beginning to tame anger. It was said that Jesus Christ himself took forty days in the wilderness to overcome the temptations. It took God in Christ three days to defeat death. Needless to say, if it takes God in Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit some time to overcome things, it will take you time as well.

This is a pattern to consider as the spiritual life:
1) Fear of the Lord
2) Renunciation
3) Humility
4) Obedience
5) Patience

Now, if only I could get that first one down…