I have been asked to write a short reflection on my personal “theology of spiritual formation.” I believe it will be appropriate to begin by considering what “spiritual formation” might really mean and then to discuss how I personally see it as being pursued.
I guess in order to consider the topic of spiritual formation it might be well to begin by considering what needs to be formed. I will begin by a personal reflection. I have spent many years in pursuit of a spiritual solution to a fundamental sense of unease that has plagued me my entire life. One of the reasons I so enjoyed reading Nouwen’s Making All Things New is because Nouwen is very astute at identifying the source of this unease: loneliness. This loneliness really manifests the experiential consequence of the Enlightenment project: that I exist as an individual in the world, separated from and in competition with all others.
I found my own experience to be precisely as it was described by Nouwen: that I felt a need to validate my existence in the world by trying to prove to anyone who would listen that I was significant in some way. I spent my whole life pursuing achievements to prove my worth. I have been successful at academia, at business, and to some extent at life as we understand it in suburban America, but no matter what I was able to achieve I was not able to assuage the sense of unease, because the solution does not lie in magnifying my individuality, rather the opposite. In fact, if the sense of being an individual in competition with others is the problem, obviously strengthening that sense cannot bring about a solution.
Just so I don’t give the impression that I believe my experience of uniqueness and its antidote is unique, we can find the Apostle Paul expressing the same sentiment:
For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. (Phil. 3:3-9 NIV)
Worldly accomplishments can bring temporary satisfactions. At various times I have felt that I had finally “arrived.” But inevitably I have always found myself drawn back into the endless cycle of self-doubt and self-condemnation, struggling to prove myself worthy and ultimately finding myself wanting. I think we can see Paul also identifying this condition in Romans:
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. (Romans 7:15-23 NIV)
Fortunately Paul also identifies the solution to our dilemma: “Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25 NIV) And I think we get a final view of the solution from Paul’s letter to the Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20 NIV)
So here I think we see an entire theology of spiritual formation: the problem of loneliness, the false solution of acquiring significance through personal achievement, and the true solution of finding myself in Christ.
So the next thing is, what does it mean to be in Christ? This has everything to do with the understanding of the Church as the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is not a metaphor, it is real. Christ is the head of this body (Col. 1:18) and all of the people in it are its members. When we refer to members here we are not thinking of the term in the way you would think of membership in an organization, like membership in a civic club or political party, for example, but as members of a body, like the relationship of the foot to the whole. (Ro. 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 12:12-27) All of the members are important, there are no superfluous members, nor is any one member of more importance than the others. Just like the different members of the body have different roles, all of the members of the Church have gifts (Ro. 12, 1 Cor. 12) all of which are for the common good (1 Cor. 12:7). Altogether the different members make up the real body of Christ on earth, which continues the work of Christ in advancing the Kingdom of God. To be in Christ means to be fully realized as a member of the Body of Christ. When we pray “Thy Kingdom come” we must also be praying that we as members of the Body of Christ are advancing that Kingdom in union with the whole Body.
So the solution to my problem is to lose my sense of lonely isolation and find my identity as a member of the Body of Christ. That is exactly what spiritual formation is about. Several years ago I came to this realization: that the only way I was ever going to have peace (shalom) in my life was going to be by complete surrender of my will to Christ. And I realized after only a couple of decades of trying that I could not accomplish that surrender on my own so I needed to develop spiritual discipline. And so I became interested in spiritual disciplines.
Now, I probably should mention that I am not a stranger to spiritual disciplines. Going back a number of years to when I still had a full head of hair that had real color I have almost continuously been initiating various attempts to practice spiritual disciplines. Before I became a Christian I studied and practiced Zen Buddhism and have also dabbled in other Eastern meditative disciplines as well as Native American spirituality. When I became a Christian I tried different Christian practices such as praying the office, centering prayer, lectio divina, various daily devotionals such as Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest, etc. All of these techniques have their own intrinsic value but none of them can have much effect without discipline. And that was where I was lacking.
I was presented with the example of two friends who had spent many years making a real discipline out of spiritual practice and, driven by finding myself once again in the desolate place Paul describes in Romans Chapter 7 I decided to begin making a real discipline out of my spiritual devotional practices. I did this by setting aside a physical space where I could practice my devotions. I have a little table and a chair and a cross and a candle. Then I bought a book entitled Forty Days to a Closer Walk with God: The Practice of Centering Prayer by J. David Muyskens. This book does introduce the practice of centering prayer but also encourages journaling and lectio divina and I highly recommend it.
I used that book religiously in order to further that journey of spiritual formation. I started setting my alarm one half hour earlier than usual (now it’s even earlier) every day so that I could start my day every day with spiritual practice. At first it was hard because my mind kept coming up with reasons why I couldn’t do it but as time has passed I have found my inner resistance is almost gone and my sense of the value of it increasing. I have since from time to time been trying different spiritual practices. Today I start my session with a little liturgy I found, then I do some scripture reading from a formal reading plan, a little prayer session (often praying the scripture), then I practice 20-30 minutes of meditation. Meditation means praying for the intervention of the Holy Spirit while focusing on the words “grace and peace.”
I have tried various practices like praying the scripture which I found to be helpful if you have the right scripture (like Ps. 51, for example) and using a prayer book like John Bailey’s A Diary of Private Prayer (which, although it expresses profound sentiments, I find off putting because of the archaic language). I am still just a baby at this but I do start my day with 40 minutes of devotions every day. I have had a couple of friends and acquaintances comment on how I seem different (in a positive way) and I attribute that to the daily discipline.
The last thing I want to write about on this topic has to do with what exactly is it that I am trying to accomplish by utilizing these techniques? For the answer to that I go back to Nouwen and confirm that the whole point of spiritual practices is to make a space where the Holy Spirit can work within me so that I can be conformed to the image of Christ (Ro. 8:29; 2 Cor. 3:18). In the end that transformation is the process of becoming less and less identified with the body of sin and more and more identified as a functioning member of the Body of Christ. “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30 ESV) So just like Paul points out in 1 Cor. 12:7 the point of this activity is not to make me feel better but for the common good; to advance of the Kingdom of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment