The Giraffe

SPIRITUAL FORMATION

Richard Foster reminded the delegates at the Renovare conference in Wincheser last weekend that there is a real difference between trying and being in training, in relation to spiritual formation and discipleship. This is about intentionality and Grace as opposed to  just  will power. There is a goal in mind and we are empowered to embrace the small spiritual disciplines that will enable us to be progressively formed, conformed and transformed into the image of Christ.

We are encouraged to train like an athlete in the spiritual disciplines that we need and we have Christ as our ever-present Teacher to guide us into what we need for our own growth.

Spiritual Growth happens best in small groups, such as in  the Spiritual Formation Groups recommended by Renovare that enable us to explore the six streams or movements in history of the Church and that reflect or flow out of the life of Jesus. This gives us a balanced vision of Christian faith and practice that we are to emulate. From the life of Jesus there emerges six distinct areas: devotion to God, virtue in thought. word and action, empowerment by the Spirit, compassion toward all people, prclmation of the good news of the gospel , harmony between faith and work. These are the contemplative movement, the holiness movement, the charismatic movement, the social justice movement, the evangelical movement, and the incarnational movement. We can learn how to pracitce the disciplines connected to these streams through the various examples throughout the history of the Church.  We can learn from the likes of St Benedict, St Francis, St Ignatious of Loyola to name but a few. The priority is just to begin with the little discipline, with the encouragement and acccoutability we draw from the members of our Spiritual Formation group. 

Rule of Life

I want to be more intentional about the way I live my life and I realise that I need some framework or structure to help my life be more abundant and to be more focused. This is like a trellis for a tomato plant, that guides, supports and helps it to grow. I am frustrated with some of the dis-organisation in my life and how nothing seems to change, where I lurch from one good intention to the next, with no discernible difference. This structure will assist me to change my practices and routines so that I can move closer to the way of life I really want to be living. This order or structure in monastic terms is called a rule of life and is a framework for developing, maintaining and growing in all aspects of our lives but ensuring that God is the focal point.

“A rule of life is a response to being loved by God in the first place and feeling moved to become what God calls us to be in the world.” (Debra Farrington) It will cover various categories including prayer, work, study, worship, community, care for ourselves, outreach/service, money, our relationships.

It can seem like an imposed law that constrains and restricts, making life become more of a chore, just adding things to a check-list. This legalism is not what I mean and would be most ineffective. It is a means of establishing commitment in my life and ensuring I can make some progress in small steps over time. I have wanted to get fit and have had a gym membership for over a year and have only been twice. I need some support and motivation to actually put in the work that is required to accomplish this goal. The spur came when my wife said she wanted to train to complete the London Marathon and we decided to re-assess our gym commitment. We are now aiming to attend the gym twice weekly and to stick to our training program that was developed with our gym instructors. If we can only make once a week, that is fine, so long as we resume our initial aim. It is early days but I feel we will motivate each other if we start feeling the effects of winter nights drawing in- cold and dark.

I feel challenged about how I work out my commitment to following Jesus in the real world and this requires some ordering of my life. I will start with a simple rule of life, nothing as grand as St Benedict's rule whcih governed every aspect of monastic life but a few pointers to help me along. I will make a commitment to practice the Daily Office as a means to spend time in God's presence, to write in my journal each day, to cook a healthy meal from scratch each evening and to set a definite time aside to read specific books and to complete fifteen minutes writing per day.

Monasticism

Monastic is a fascinating and paradoxical word, at root meaning "one"(mono), yet by defintiion meaning "community". It suggests persons who one by one share a practice or way of life together, making them a community. ( Brian Mclaren The Strategy We Pursue)

This is an energising quote because is crystallises my thinking about the merits and benefits of Monasticism for today's turbulent world. Monasteries practice a way of life, namely a life of prayer lived in community, often engaged with the world but at a distance. This is not about running away or cutting themselves off from real life, but a place of solitude and silence, where the presence of God is sought for and on behalf of the world. You don't run away from the world to the desert, for it will catch up with you. The Desert Mothers and Fathers attest to this, in how much they had to face the shadow side and very often the demonic in their daily life of prayer. Monasteries are places of spiritual formation and transformation and have a rich heritage to pass onto us in terms of how we learn to connect with God at a deeper level, how we can grow in contemplative awareness and demonstrate this in radical action.

Merton spoke of monks as marginal people and on the surface of seemingly little value, but they point to a different rythmn of life that shows up the futility of our hectic, stressful and busy lifestyle. The call to poverty points to our greed and the drive to consume the next products. The vow of obedience shatters the illusion of power plays and the call to celibacy reveals to us the source of true desire.

Is my fascination with Monasticism a blast of nostalgia for things now past, given the philosophical and cultural transition we find ourselves in, characterised as Mclaren states by the "posties" (post-modern, post-colonial, post-christendom etc) or simply wanting to realise the assets of our spiritual inheritance?

I would agree with Prodigal Kiwi that Monasteries are places to learn about the practice of prayer and this has been my experience. For myself I am grateful to the Anglican Franciscans for all they have taught me on my regular visits to their beantiful home.

This topic will develop over the next months as I want to look at the wisdom that can be drawn from Monasticism and it is a theme very much on my heart. Emergent Kiwi has already set the ball rolling with a an excellent article about PoMo Monasteries and I hope my thoughts will come by way of a longer response to his article. Thanks Steve for the inspiration.

DEEP STUFF

I want to develop the theme of how we can become people of depth, how a blog entry can be more than a three minute wonder, how it can actually lead to spiritual transformation. Here’s a quote from Gordon Cosby, the founder of the Church of the Savior in Washington DC.

The Church of the Savior, A Radical Experiment, edited by Peter Renner

""The hope of the Christian church in the new millennium, we firmly believe, will be the proliferation of small churches dedicated to radical discipleship. Within these churches will be groups with focused, corporate Missions."

"A really great church is not the one which has the most important people in town, or has the most wealth, or has the largest number of people and the biggest budget. The really great church is the one that can help the addicts that hit rock bottom."

"The central reality of church is a group of people, core people, called to be in a deepening personal belonging of friendship with Jesus of Nazareth; with Jesus Christ. What we are saying is, put Jesus in the central place out of all the places that we can search for truth; he is the revelation of divinity and the channel through which truth is mediated to us. If one longs for depth of life we must focus on a very few things. There is so little time in one's brief lifetime. And what is that one thing? We are saying it is Jesus. I choose to go deep-sea diving in that ocean."

"The soul of the church is a gathered people whose reason for gathering is Jesus. The Pearl of great price is Jesus in the midst of his people. The church is a people who gather because they want to know Jesus in a deeper way."

Richard Foster said there is a need for deep people in the Celebration of Discipline.. I am committed to becoming that kind of person and I know it will take the rest of my life and will involve the spiritual disciplines. I want to learn to “go deep sea diving in the ocean” ( Gordon Cosby) I want a deeper relationship with Jesus, with my wife and in all my relationships. I want to be a person of substance not just appearances, but to be authentically myself I know I will need to face my fears and brokenness and this will require vulnerability that I may not be prepared to face, but I am fed up of shallowness, of not being the person I long to be. Maybe its too idealistic, but I want to try I want depth in my understanding and my conversations. I want to grow in my capacity to love and show compassion. Maybe the pressures at depth may be too much for me to take, but I want to try and see what lies below the surface and take the risk. Is anyone willing to join me?