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We've walked through Part 1 and 2, and now we come to chapter 13. Chapters 13 and 14 mark an important transition from Part 2 to Part 3. Chapter 13 describes the often repeated cycle of institutionalization. (Richard Rohr summarizes this movement as man --> movement --> machine --> monument (or museum). Through the lens of organizational science see also Roxburgh in The Sky is Falling). This is a cogently argued chapter where Brian asks the million dollar question: "do we try to reform existing communities that have lost their way, or do we bypass them to start new ones?" His answer: yes. We do need to be about both things. Frankly, since God is at work in both places, we don't have the option of abandoning one or the other.
It wasn't so long ago that another well known author addressed this question. While Bob Webber acknowledged the need for change, he held little hope for the modern church. He observed that renovation required far more energy than a new beginning. In The Younger Evangelicals (2002) he wrote,
Brian is not naive. He knows that the reason many are fleeing the church on the corner is a good one. Too many established churches are mired in bureaucracy and have lost any missional purpose. They have ceased looking outside themselves for what God is up to. When a group absorbs too much of its direction and meaning from the surrounding culture, it ceases to be faithful to the Gospel. Soon it remakes God in the image of some cultural deity (read: money, sex, power) and becomes an unhealthy place to be. When it then defends its unorthodoxy as a biblical norm, it loses any legitimacy or authority it once possessed. Churches like this would do well to remember the letters to the Churches in the book of Revelations. Or, they could learn from Luther who wrote,
How to respond? More critically, how do we break this cycle of downward spiral all too well documented in our day? Is there any hope? That is the subject of chapter 14.
It was not so long ago that the slave trade was vigorously defended on biblical grounds. Brian rehearses some of this history for us then asks the question: "Where was the Holy Spirit at work? Outside the religious institutions, or inside them?" He argues that change came through networks that developed on the margins and between social institutions, and then gradually inside them. When one part of the church or culture refuses to learn, God overflows the old structures to work in new ways. Disciples must be learners, because we will always get some of it wrong. If we remain open to new perspectives, there is hope.
Brian next draws on a diagram from Phyllis Tickle. (LEFT)
This convergence of missional, liturgical, and monastic movements seems to be generating much of this emergent conversation. As we cross traditional boundaries we are becoming a learning community again, and in many locations a community of practice. The beauty is the possibility that we can learn and grow in creative new ways without abandoning the best of who we were. The future of God is among the people of God.
Part Three "Ancient"
Part three details the rich Judeo-Christian history of our spiritual practices and calls us to deepen our walk. McLaren tells a story about learning to fly-fish, and he makes the point that the best way to learn a new practice is to find the community that is practicing. If you want to learn golf, hang out with golfers. If you want to fish... Brian writes that this is what our faith communities are meant to be. “When our churches are schools of practice, they make history and change history.” Too often we are too busy defending some creed when we should be improving our practice (145).
“Ancient” is further divided into the three classical dimensions of the spiritual life: katharsis, fotosis and theosis, or self-examination, illumination and unification with God. The seven ancient practices each contribute in some way to these experiences. Brian merely lists them here. The seven practices are:
* Fasting
In the next three chapters Brian considers katharsis, photosis, and theosis respectively. Shades of Robert Webber and Len Sweet, "when the community of faith realizes it has lost its way, it begins moving forward by looking back" (146). That's good advice. While our culture appreciates the "new" and "unique," we need to recall the wisdom of Thomas Merton. He wrote,
"That which is oldest is most young and most new. There is nothing so ancient and so dead as human novelty. The 'latest' is always stillborn. What is really NEW is what was there all the time. I say, not what has repeated itself all the time; the really "new" is that which, at every moment, springs freshly into new existence. This newness never repeats itself. Yet it is so old it goes back to the earliest beginning. It is the very beginning itself, which speaks to us." (New Seeds of Contemplation)
Katharsis - the Via Purgativa
In some ways the next three chapters are the strongest of the book. In part, this is because Brian builds on a strong analogy: that of an old house we want to live in. We begin by cleaning and repair, or purging unwanted tennants (rats and insects).
We are welcomed to an abbey where we begin the process of reclamation. Everything depends on letting the light in so we can see the current state of the house. Three things prevent our seeing clearly: pride, a preoccupation with self and personal power; lust, a preoccupation with pleasure; greed, a preoccupation with material possessions. The old Benedictine vows of poverty, chastity and obedience are all meant to send us strongly on our way.
Brian writes that no one ever graduates from this first stage, but rather we carry it with us in ongoing reflection. Then he invites us to see the currency of the practice. We might find some friends to share the journey, sharing life as we grapple with growth and grace and our inner resistance to change. Other practices would grow out of this exploration, such as secretly giving or serving someone else as a way of countering pride and the need for reward or control.
Though this movement starts small, Brian reminds us that we walk before we can run. But once we have learned to run, we don't stop walking. We depend on that first learned skill for all our lives. Similarly, we don't leave this stage behind but depend on its learning in every subsequent stage.
The pilgrim path leads through valleys to the tops of mountains. Both places are welcome, because valleys and mountain tops are equally a part of the journey. Pilgrims learn more from the valleys than from the high places. In spiritual tradition, both deserts and valleys are places of outer death and inner renewal. Treacherous terrain, getting lost, and all kinds of unexpected challenges: these things strip away the illusion that we are in control and can open space for us to discover that every moment is Holy. Henri Nouwen writes, "He who walks the mystical way is called to unmask the illusory quality of human society. No mystic can prevent himself from becoming a social critic, since in self-reflection he will discover the roots of a sick society." (The Wounded Healer, 20).
It is the inward journey, the journey into silence, that allows us to discover the deep truth of who we are. Who we are is both light and shadow, both good and evil. And we continually project both of these parts out onto the world around us. Parker Palmer writes that, "A good leader is intensely aware of the interplay between shadow and light, lest the act of leadership do more harm than good." (Let Your Life Speak, 84) Palmer describes five interior monsters that we must encounter in order to become leaders who listen -- hospitable people.
1. insecurity about identity and worth.
Photosis - the Via Illuminativa
In this chapter we return to the Abbess and the abbey. This time we are welcomed into a garden and asked to notice the health and vitality of the plants we see there. Light is necessary for life and growth. Once having cleansed the windows of the soul, light streams in, bringing sight and life. The purpose of sight is more than seeing, however, it is to see everything in the light of God. We are reminded that the apostle John makes a stunning statement in his short letter when wraps up the message of the Gospel in this phrase: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."
Naturally, there are specific practices that help us become filled with light like study and contemplation and gathering with other believers. But this isn't a one-way journey; rather, it is filled with contrasts and like the life of the garden it has both rhythms and seasons. The garden knows rest at night, but death in the dark winter. Yet out of death comes new life in the spring, and greater wisdom. The function of the felt absence of God is to increase desire, as in the spiritual reflections of St. John of the Cross.
("Spiritual Canticle" Translated J. F. Nims. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 5
The final page of this chapter is spent reflecting on the daily office and its place in illumination. Dating back to the Jewish practice of gathering at fixed hours for prayer, the office has five daily stations for prayer. As such, it is a rhythm that integrates work and prayer with the intention of hallowing the day and keeping the mind attentive to God. Brian moves us next to theosis - the Via Unitiva -- as we come to the end of this journey.
Theosis - Via Unitiva
We are back at the abbey on a cool autumn evening. The abbess invites us to sit near the crackling fire. She reminds us of the ways our renovation probject have been a parable of the threefold way, then she walks over to the fire and stirs it with a cold, iron rod. The logs crackle and send up a flurry of sparks.
"When a couple builds or buys their first home, the hearth is the heart of it," she remarks. The hearth, center of the old kitchens, was the place of hospitality. Food was cooked there, warmth shared. The family gathered around the warm fire. And it took work to maintain it. But we've moved a long way from this understanding or experience. James Houston somewhere comments that we moved from hearth to couch in our therapy centered world, and our hearts are both lonely and cold as a result.
Some years back one of my favorite recording artists wrote a beautiful song that tells the experience of tending the inner fire of the Spirit. Steve Bell sings,
Burning ember, I remember love’s first light in me
Stoking fires, tending the hearth, is all about spirituality. In the coldest part of our winters I tend a fire daily in the woodstove downstairs. The warmth spreads gradually upwards through the house, until by about 11 AM the upper wood floor is warm to the touch, and acts like a slow heat sink, spreading the warmth evenly upstairs.
I have to add wood or stir the fire every hour or so. Every time I approach the fire I feel the warmth. On a cool day, it’s a very sensual experience, but also mystical.. every piece of wood is transformed, becoming one with the fire. The flames and the coals radiate heat and light. “The whole soul becomes Christ’s, just as the iron in the burning coal becomes fire as if it were burning - everything is fire, everything is light!”
Stoking the physical fire takes effort. I split some wood in the morning, and sometimes have to revisit the pile around dinner time. Stoking the inner fire takes similar focus and intention. If I don’t spend several times in focused attention on God during the week, I am like a neglected fire.. giving off little light and little warmth, not likely to be a resting place for Spirit, not likely to awake to God, and not likely to add warmth to others.
This journey into Christ, and deeper into identification with him, is a growing union in love. Love is all about union. We move toward what we love, and the deeper we move, the purer our love. While our modern paradigms of knowledge involved distance and detachment, premodern paradigms involved experience. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote, "Credo ut experiar," I believe in order to expereience. He affirmed that "God is not known if God is not loved."
Our scientific and technocratic world nearly lost this knowledge. We barely know how to affirm the value of experience, working with the philosophic divide of object and subject. But lovers and poets hold this knowledge. And those who grow in Christ have "tasted" and "seen" that the Lord is good. Sixty years ago AW Tozer wrote, "We are only now emerging from a long ice age during which an undue emphasis was laid upon objective truth at the expense of subjective experience." In "To the River" John Mellencamp sings,
This brings us to the closing chapters of Finding Our Way Again. In chapter 19 Brian writes on the need to "faith our practices." He asks, "Instead of intensifying our spiritual life by trying to do something "more," can we take what we're already doing and make it count?" He affirms a sacramental view of life, and asks whether our ordinary, daily lives can actually be hallowed for God.
Could reading the morning paper become a way that we affirm our care for God's world, our desire to be part of what God is doing internationally, nationally, locally?
Could running on the treadmill be a ritual of prayer in which each intake of breath reminds me of my need for God's grace, and each exhalation allows me to release all the things that keep me from fully experiencing that grace?
Could the morning commute awaken me to the journey I am traveling in faith...starts and stops, detours, occasional break downs, wrecks, and the occasional smooth trip?
Could every goodbye remind me this world is not my possession, and it will not endure? And at the same time could every goodbye become a "hello," an invitation for God to fill the empty spaces?
While we want to remain open to discovering or renewing faith practices, there is power to be found in "faithing" the practices we already have. A Celtic prayer calls us to the kind of faith we need: "As I stir the embers of my daily fire, I ask you, living God, to stir the embers of my heart into a flame of love for you, for my family, for my neighbor, for my enemy."
Amen, May it be so.
Conclusion
As I read back over this review and dialogue with Finding Our Way Again, I thought back to a framework I was working with some months ago. I was reflecting on the convergence of three streams: missional, monastic, and emerging. After some thought, I characterized the three distinctly like this:
The Missional conversation:
God - the Missio Dei
The New Monastic movement:
Vows
The Emergent conversation:
Place
It's interesting to run Brian's book -- or books -- through this grid. Where would you place him on this map? Do you see a convergence occurring? If so, what do you think it means for the Church in our culture?
My only real criticism of the book is that it could have been stronger if it had incorporated more of Brian's critique of consumer capitalism. In Everything Must Change he writes that, “the gods of progress — with names like Higher Consumption, More Growth and Rising Productivity — inspire a hymn, called not “Holy, holy, holy,” but “Faster, Faster, Faster”.. (193). The practices we need to rediscover are actually counter-disciplines. As William Cavanaugh writes, "Consumer culture is one of the most powerful systems of formation in the contemporary world… Such a powerful system is not morally neutral; it trains us to see the world in certain ways." (Being Consumed) Our culture wants to squeeze us into a certain mold. Apart from disciplines of resistance we will not form communities of Christ followers and offer any real alternative to the ways of Empire.
Now you have a good sense of the content and feel of Finding Our Way Again. I wish that you will take Brian's introduction to the practices, along with these reflections, and be enriched in your own journey of discovery. Find partners and comrades who are committed to discovering more of Jesus and His mission in loving and redeeming the world. The book is another gift to a Church in transition, attempting to wean itself from the approval of the world as it reorients itself to Christ and His kingdom. I close with an ancient prayer:
VENI, Sancte Spiritus, reple tuorum corda fidelium, et tui amoris in eis ignem accende.
COME, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and kindle in them the fire of Thy love.
V. Emitte Spiritum tuum et creabuntur
V. Send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created
Oremus:
Let us pray:
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Emerging Women / Renovare / Christians for Biblical Equality / Soul Horizon / OpenSource Theology / Jesus Radicals / Regeneration / New Phuture / The Off Ramp / Society for Kingdom Living / Cutting Edge / Relevant Magazine / Shoot the Messenger / Vine and Branches / Sacred Future / Tribal Generation / Reality / Waves Church / Matthew's House / Praxis / Post Boomer / FutureChurch / MethodX / TheOOZE / ginkworld / ::seven:: / emergent village / Highway Video / emerging church / Sojourners / Ship of Fools / Beyond / Next-Wave / Small Fire / ThePowerSurge / dtour
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• © 2008 Len Hjalmarson.•
Last Updated on August 21, 2008
We are divided in our churches into at least four broad categories of theology and practice. What happens when an evangelical doesn't want to leave her heritage but does want to grow in a new way? What happens when a charismatic is disillusioned by the hype and gains a passion for concrete change and social action? What happens when an activist discovers the missing dimension of inner conversion? Or what happens when a post-Charismatic like me becomes more socially active and embraces ancient rhythms of prayer? We move toward the center..
