Shifting Gears

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“Baseball is for watching. From April to October I watch the Red Sox every night. (Other sports fill the darker months.) I do not write; I do not work at all. After supper I become the American male — but I think I do something else. Try to forgive my comparisons, but before Yeats went to sleep every night he read an American Western. When Eliot was done with poetry and editing, he read a mystery book. Everyone who concentrates all day, in the evening needs to let the half-wit out for a walk. Sometimes it is Zane Grey, sometimes Agatha Christie, sometimes the Red Sox.”

Donald Hall, cited here

I’m in “knowledge work,” meaning I work with ideas and read ideas and think about ideas and write about ideas and talk about ideas all day long. My work is thought work. I think before I’m on the clock and I think after I’m off the clock. I also think while I’m on the clock. Thinking takes place in meetings, sometimes in a journal, other times in a Word document, too often in email or on Teams, enjoyably so when according to schedule in a classroom with engaged students, periodically while on the phone, very occasionally from a pulpit, and most often in passing conversations. My area is Christian spirituality, Christian spiritual formation, ministry practice, and church leadership. I’m living this stuff, even when I’m not working on this stuff.

The product or result of this kind of work can be difficult to quantify. Sometimes the product is concrete, such as a paper or an article, even a blog post. Sometimes it is concrete but difficult to measure in terms of quality or effectiveness, such as a sermon or a lesson. A colleague, Elizabeth Shively, tells the story of a pastor who, after preaching, responded to congregants who told him “good sermon today” with the witty reply, “it is probably too soon to tell.”

What I want to remember here, and what I want to share, is that thinking takes a lot of energy, and when energy is expended, it can’t be renewed without rest. Thinking can be quite intense. As Donald Hall observes, there is a need to shift gears after long periods of concentration. We need to take a break. Our minds need to wander, to relax, to engage with something different. An activity like walking can help us get out of our head and back into our bodies. Hall writes that we need to let the half-wit out for a walk after a day of concentration. This can take the form of reading mysteries or Westerns or watching sports. It can also take the form of a literal walk.

Hall’s renewal activity of preference was watching baseball. I go with movies and television, and reading stuff other than theology, biblical studies, and practical ministry books. I like action movies and science fiction. I like watching the English Premier League. I don’t have the same attachment to soccer as I do the major American sports, where I get wrapped up in fan allegiances to the Cowboys, Rangers, Mavericks, Royals, or Chiefs. I watch stand-up comedy or listen to a podcast that make me laugh. I go on walks. I exercise. Sometimes I work in the yard or clean the pool.

But honestly, when I do the fun stuff–the gear shifting, refreshing, relaxing, renewing stuff–I can feel guilty about it. I think I should be doing more, you know, work. It doesn’t help that as soon as I’m done with one thing, I’m on to the next thing. Once I scale one mountain peak, my eyes are on the next one. Without fully appreciating the view from the top, and having not yet completed or even begun the descent, I’m already planning the next climb.

There are a couple of spiritual disciplines that apply here. One is sabbath keeping. Another is celebration. A third is confession.

A family commitment we’ve articulated together concerns establishing sustainable rhythms of work and rest. I’m working on routines and rhythms that help me identify my most important priorities and projects and establishing timelines for completion that are reasonable and realistic. When I say I’m working on them, I mean I’ve been working on them for the duration of my adult life. Now in my forties, I’m working on them with greater intention and clarity than even before. I want to work at a human pace. These processes are always being fine-tuned and refined, even as I make adjustments that are bringing me closer to where I want to be. But life is in flux. The moment I’m dialed in, something changes.

Recent initiatives: I’ve built in time each week to assess what I’ve gotten done so I can celebrate and what I can calendar time to work on in the week ahead. Beyond weekly plans, I’ve added a monthly plan, widening the time scale so that I can think about the things that would make me most happy to finish over a longer period. Stuff that comes up that is new and that I know I can’t get to immediately I place under a “future” heading. These are projects that are interesting and could be important but are not urgent. I clean up this list every month, promoting some projects to active, and deleting others altogether, having determined some things are not mine to do or were just passing fancies.

A growth area, I think, is formalizing my shut down rituals, actively putting aside “work” and formally closing down the shop for the day. I’ve got some ideas that I think will help, like shutting off my computer in the evenings, establishing a routine window of time during the week to turn my phone off, and choosing to shift gears in a way that names the change of focus, allowing for enjoyment, guilt free.

When it is the time for working, I work. When it is time to cease, I need to learn to celebrate and release. More work will always be waiting in the morning. I want to enjoy the downshift, and not burn out the engine.

Review: The Action Bible – Faith in Action Edition (with Giveaway!)

When I was in elementary school, a member of my family bought me a Picture Bible they saw advertised on television. The printing was right out of the comic book pages, mixing magenta, cyan, and yellow, portraying the major stories of the Bible. The dialogue was abbreviated. It did not include every story and detail from a full translation of the Bible. But it got me thinking about the biblical stories. It familiarized me with the overall arc of the Bible. It better acquainted me with many of the people, both men and women, who appear in Scripture.

Now, I’m a parent. I have children. I want them to read. I want them to know the stories of the Bible. I’ve shared my Picture Bible with them. After all these years, it is falling apart. I was glad to be able to hand one of my children this edition of The Action Bible. It is way cooler, and more easily engages them.

The Faith in Action Edition of The Action Bible is organized according to Scripture’s traditional ordering. It begins in Genesis and ends with a very brief depiction from Revelation. In between, you find narrative. There are seven major category groupings for the stories within: Courage, Faith, Hope, Love, Service, Trust, and Wisdom. These are color coded and are part of each narrative heading, which not only titles the story (“Facing the Heat” for the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the Fiery Furnace; “On Trial” for the story of Jesus before the Caiaphas). The headings also include the relevant Scripture passages.

Each story includes a QR code (and sometimes more than one) which can be scanned for additional devotional and study resources.

This is a great resource to engage young readers and start conversations about the Bible, God, and what it means to live by faith.

* I received a copy of The Action Bible: Faith in Action Edition in exchange for an honest review. If you’d like a chance to win a copy, leave a comment. You’ll need to complete the form so that I have an associated email address. I’ll select a winner at random this Saturday.

“What More Could He Have Done for You?”

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Author and speaker Brennan Manning has an amazing story about how he got the name “Brennan.” While growing up, his best friend was Ray. The two of them did everything together: bought a new car together as teenagers, double-dated together, went to school together and so forth. They even enlisted in the Army together, went to boot camp together and fought on the frontlines together. One night while sitting in a foxhole, Brennan was reminiscing about the old days in Brooklyn while Ray listened and ate a chocolate bar. Suddenly a live grenade came into the foxhole. Ray looked a Brennan, smiled, dropped his chocolate bar and threw himself on the live grenade. It exploded, killing Ray, but Brennan’s life was spared.

When Brennan became a priest he was instructed to take on the name of a saint. He thought of his friend, Ray Brennan. So he took on the name Brennan. Years later he went to visit Ray’s mother in Brooklyn. They sat up late one night having tea when Brennan asked her, “Do you think Ray loved me?” Mrs. Brennan got up off the couch, shook her finger in front of Brennan’s face and shouted, “Jesus Christ–what more could he have done for you?!” Brennan said that at that moment he experienced an epiphany. He imagined himself standing before the cross of Jesus wondering, Does God really love me? and Jesus’ mother Mary pointing to her son, saying, “Jesus Christ–what more could he have done for you?”

The cross of Jesus is God’s way of doing all he could do for us. And yet we often wonder, Does God really love me? Am I important to God? Does God care about me? And Jesus’ mother responds, “What more could he have done for you?”

James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love with the God Jesus Knows, p. 142-143

Today is Ash Wednesday. It is also St. Valentine’s Day.

You may be wondering if you are loved. You are. John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Ash Wednesday is a day of repentance, a day to be reminded of our frailty, mortality, and failures. But it is also a day of love. It is a day we are marked with a cross. It is a day we are reminded of the cross of Christ, who came in weakness to give us strength, who took on mortality to give us immortality, and who took our sin and failure upon himself in order to extend to us the gifts of restoration, forgiveness, and fellowship with God.

We have been embraced by way of a costly love. What more could he have done for you?

To Try: Speaking Aloud to God

In The Secret of Guidance, F. B. Myer states, “it is well to acquire the habit of speaking to God as to a present friends while sitting in the house or walking by the way. Seek the habit of talking things over with God–letters, your plans, your hopes, your mistakes, your sorrows and sins.”

Having begun as a child in my earliest efforts at prayer with simple, spoken petitions, I later moved to prayer in silence, confining my conversation with God to the realm of thought and movements of the heart–unless I was leading a group. Silent prayer was beneficial yet difficult, as I often found myself easily distracted. As I continued in leadership, I found that spoken prayer came with greater ease, joy, and a fuller sense of God’s presence. Praying with others, aloud, made me glad. But I only spoke with God aloud while with others, not when I was alone, as Myer recommends.

I’ve been experimenting with this suggestion, speaking aloud to God. Most often, I have done this while on a walk in my neighborhood, alone. That seems to be the best place, and the best time. After suggesting that we speak to God aloud, Myer counsels, “Not perhaps always, because our desires are often too sacred or too deep to be put into words.” Silent prayer can be appropriate. Spoken prayer, also, may be more suitable in certain settings. Discernment is needed.

Myer also notes that when we talk to God about everyday concerns, “Things look very different when brought into the calm light of His presence.” I have found that speaking with God, aloud, does change my perspective. I notice how I’m phrasing things. I’m hearing what I am saying even as I form the words. I’m more mindful of who I’m speaking to, more patient in the silences, more open to hearing a response. There is a movement in me.

Try it. See what happens.

What do you notice? What changes in how you speak, and in how you listen?

Spiritual Formation is for Everyone

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Spiritual formation is not optional. Every thought you think, every emotion you let shape your behavior, every attitude you let rest in your body, every decision you make, each word you speak, every relationship you enter into, the habits that make up your days, whether or not you have social media (if you do, how you use it), how you respond to pain and suffering, how you handle failure or success–all these things and more are forming us into a particular shape. Stasis is not on the menu. We are either being transformed into the love and beauty of Jesus or malformed by the entropy of sin and death. . . To believe otherwise is an illusion; and to give no thought to this is to come dangerously close to wasting you life.

John Mark Comer, Practicing the Way: Be With Jesus, Become Like Him, Do As He Did, p. 71

John Mark Comer claims that spiritual formation is not optional. He is right. We’re all undergoing a spiritual formation.

This truth has given shape to my work. Spiritual formation courses are required under every degree plan at the seminary. I spend a lot of time with students talking about spiritual formation–what it is, why it matters, how it works, the difference it makes, and what it looks like when it is distinctly Christian.

We require these courses to draw attention to the fact that all ministers have received a spiritual formation, are undergoing a spiritual formation, and are becoming a particular kind of person. We ask, “Is the life you are now living leading you toward becoming more like Christ, or not?” This question is not only pertinent for those with a ministerial vocation, but for all people, inside and outside of Christian congregational fellowship.

We do not start from scratch. I often tell our students that they have been on the receiving end of formation and malformation. I assure them that God has already equipped them with much that is good through experiences of worship, fellowship, Bible study, service, prayer, meditation on God’s Word, and so on, as well as in interactions with God during the commonplace proceedings of daily life. Students easily agree that not all of their experiences have been positive. They have been wounded by others in the Christian community, some in very traumatic ways. Life in the wider world has also brought suffering and hardship, instances where it has been very difficult to discern or understand God’s action, or the seeming lack thereof.

This is not only true for students in the seminary. As Comer writes, this is true for us all. We would all benefit from careful reflection on the spiritual formation we have received, giving thanks for what is good and appropriately grieving what was wrong, thanking God for all that is praiseworthy and petitioning God for healing and restoration where wounds remain.

We would also benefit from reflection on where our current life trajectory is taking us. Do we possess a quiet confidence that we remain in step with the Holy Spirit, who is even now guiding us more fully toward conformity to Christ? Have we beheld Jesus, sharpening our vision of who he is and open to his instruction as our teacher and friend? Have we firmly fixed our heart upon the Father, deriving our ultimate sense of identity and belonging from an unshakeable conviction that we belong foremost to the family of God?

Are we taking daily steps to be “transformed into the love and beauty of Jesus?”

If you are not sure, ask God for help. God tends to respond to requests like these.

God’s grace is abundant in supply, and those who seek God will surely find him. Spiritual formation is for everyone. It is ongoing. It is happening. Where will yours take you? Toward God? Or toward something else?

A few are bent on hell. Most are simply adrift. But some have begun to walk the Way of Jesus with Jesus, who is the Way. His invitation remains open to all: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Christ offers to lead you personally. That’s quite an offer. Is there one better?

The Transforming Power of the Cross

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[W]e don’t need to understand every atonement theory to know the transforming power of the Cross. Its undeniable power to transform us is a simple fact, confirmed by human experience.

A Catholic archbishop described how three mischievous teenage boys decided to play a trick on their local priest. While he was hearing confessions one day, they took turns going into the confessional and admitting to doing all sorts of fantastic things that they had made up.

A young boy volunteered to be the first one. However, the priest was not to be fooled and said to him, “I want you to make this penance for what you have done. Go to the front of the church, to the cross on which Jesus hangs, look Jesus in the face, and say three times, “All this you did for me, and I don’t give a damn.”

The teenager did it once, twice, and then, when he began repeating the sentence a third time, broke down in tears, and his words simply became, “You did this for me.” He left the church facing a new direction.

When the archbishop finished the story, he said, “The reason I know this is that I was that young man.”†

Trevor Hudson, Seeking God: Finding Another Kind of Life with St. Ignatius and Dallas Willard, p. 133-134

The way of Christ is the way of the Cross. In Luke 9:23, Jesus said, ““Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

But before we take up our cross, it is helpful to recall Jesus took up his. He carried his cross and died upon it for us.

Why?

Love.

The love of Christ displayed in the Cross has the power to turn us around, to transform us, to renew us, to embolden us, and to empower us. It is a reminder of our calling to die daily, to share in the sufferings of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:31, 1 Peter 4:12-19).

What moves us to respond to this call? “You did this for me,” as Jean-Marie Lustiger discovered. Or as Paul wrote, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

How do we keep this before us? By actively bringing the story of the Cross to our minds, by thinking carefully and at length about God’s action at Calvary. We return to the Gospels. We read the accounts.

Hudson recommends being reminded by way of symbol. We can place a small cross at our desk, on the dresser, in a pocket, some place where we will see, touch, and encounter it, thus being reminded of the Cross.

The reminder is twofold. First, Christ loves you with a costly love. And second, Christ calls you to cross-carrying discipleship. Ephesians 5:1-2 says: “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Walk in the way of love. It is the way of the Cross.

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† Hudson’s citation: “The boy’s name was Jean-Marie Lustiger. He was admitted to the Catholic church the following Easter. And he became the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris. True story. He died on August 5th, 2007”; “You Did That for me?” Father Paul’s Homily Blog, March 28, 2010, http://frpaulhomilies.blogspot.com/2010/03/you-did-that-for-me.html.