Why Spiritual Formation?
At the church I attend, we are in the midst of a sermon series on Spiritual Formation called “Forming Habits that Form Us”. While this series has been going, I started reading a book that has helped frame the topic and I find that I’m better able to benefit from what’s being preached.
The introduction of the book You are What You Love by James Smith[i] has a concise way of describing “the why” of spiritual formation. It says that the bottom line of being human is answering the question "What do you want?”. Another way to say it is “What do you love most” or even “What do you worship”. Along the same line of thinking, the early church leader Augustine is known for describing the human plight as coming from our disordered loves. According to him, we've promoted the wrong things to the place of our ultimate desire. The aim of discipleship is to put our heart in order.
Some forms of “discipleship” are aimed at teaching the correct answers to the question “What do you Want”. They train with the right answers, which has its place, but fail to reach the affections of the heart. As a result, such an approach has little power to transform. In You are What You Love, the author, James Smith, uses a fictional example of explorers who find a magical place that grants whatever they truly want - not what they say they want, but their deepest unspoken desires. The explorers realize the danger of entering the enchanted place. They pause and consider the devastation that might ensue if they don’t “want” the right things. We too can pause and ask, what would happen if the things I desire most would be granted? Not what I say I want, but what I really want. Would it be good or not so good?
In order to bridge the gap between "what is good for us to want" and "what we actually want", we engage in practices of spiritual formation. This is what it means to form habits that form us. There are two common ways people deal with out of place desires. The first approach is to find ways to suppress desire all together. The second is to let the desire rule over one’s life completely. As a biblical third option, we can learn to have our desires reshaped. It may come as a surprise that our desires can be reformed, but it’s true. A small illustration from my own life would be coffee. As a young adult I might occasionally “tolerate” a cup of coffee. But then I was introduced to frozen, blended, sweetened coffee drinks and it in a short time it became a habit. I eventually learned that the cost and calories of stylized coffee was more than I can handle. In response I eliminated the expensive prep and sweeteners, but not the rich, dark, caffeinated daily retreat of a hot cup of joe. It’s now some twenty years later and rarely go a day without it. I want coffee.
We don’t need to eliminate our desires, we need to shape them. G.K. Chesterton is known for saying that every man that knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God. Perhaps, what Chesterton is getting at is that at the root of such a search is the desire to find something that will satisfy the deepest longings of the soul. Desire is not the problem. In fact, shaping or appropriately connecting to our deepest desires is part of the answer. C.S. Lewis said that "Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”[ii]
We can engage in practices that give shape to our desires. The fancy church word for practices used to shape us is liturgy. Simply defined liturgy is the work of the people. Besides “church” liturgies, we live in the midst of many cultural liturgies without recognizing them. Smith tells the story of two young fish swimming along when an older fish comes swimming in the opposite direction. The older greets the two younger fish saying “How’s the water boys?”. The two younger fish swim away and finally one fish asks the second fish the question they were both wanting to ask “What the hell is water?”. (p. 38) We often don’t realize the “secular” liturgies we live in. We might say, with the fish, “what the hell is a secular liturgy?”
Consider the things in our culture that shape our desires. Perhaps we could start with the subconscious rehearsing of the American Dream. Or, we can reflect on the countless messages of movies, TV or social media that offer various images of what the good life is. These are liturgies that have the power to give shape to what we desire. They offer the hope that achieving these dreams will provide satisfaction to the deepest longings of our soul. To the extent we buy into what is being offered, we will give our life’s energy trying to obtain what we’ve been led to believe will satisfy our heart. The more energy we spend on obtaining the object of our desire, the more devoted our heart becomes to any given desire.
With spiritual formation, we are looking at engaging in practices (or liturgies) that free us from settling for mud pies. We want to be oriented to true north - to know what’s behind the different versions of the good life being offered. We take part in what frees us from spending our life’s resources on empty things.
The Prophet Isaiah said it like this, “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk, without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.” Isaiah 55:1-2
Comments
Post a Comment