Wrestling with Spiritual Formation
I have been wrestling with “Spiritual Formation.”
What is it? Can it be accomplished? How?
Spiritual practices seem so empty at times.
I have been led to a beginning question. One that is more perplexing than the first. If we are to gain any knowledge or experience of spiritual formation maybe we should contemplate this question first. Maybe it holds the key.
What is the soul?
There, I asked it aloud. Now it must be dealt with.
What if the soul is not something we have but it is more something we are? “It is the very life-pulse within us, that which makes us alive…As such it has two functions:
First of all, it is the principle of energy. Life is energy. There is only one body that does not have any energy or tension within it, a dead one. The soul is what gives life. Inside us it, lies the fire, the eros, the energy that drives us…
Ronald Rolheiser states in The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality, “But the soul does more than merely give energy. It is also the adhesive that holds us together, the principle of integration and individuation within us. The soul not only makes us alive, it also makes us one.”
What if spiritual formation was the nurturing of the fire that burns within us—the energy and tension that defines “alive?” What if it’s about finding a way for peace and tension to live in harmony?
What if spiritual formation is less about spiritual practices and more about nurturing that which keeps us from falling apart? What if it is about nurturing live giving relationships/communities?
What if spiritual formation was more about living with Christ than practicing Christ?
It seems that if this is true then spiritual formation would have a more organic order for our practice than a master plan mindset toward our practices. Our practices would have more descriptive patterns than prescriptive patterns.
Patterns are integral to our lives. They protect us, help us organize what we do from day to day, and even entertain us. Most of the time, we don’t even think about them. We simply absorb them.
When we see a man coming toward us in the distance, we observe the pattern of his walk and know instantly that he is a good friend and not someone intending to do us harm. When we wake up in the morning, our first thought may be: What day is it? Weekdays tend to follow one pattern; weekends another. We hear three or four notes of a melody and we begin to sing along.
Patterns, as organizational tools, can be prescriptive or descriptive. Master plans tend to follow prescriptive patterns. Prescriptive patterns are “prescribed”; they are specific, rigid, and regular. A physician dictates which medication you should use, how often you should take it, and for how long. A general aviation pilot knows to follow a basic airport traffic pattern when no air traffic control tower is present. The patient gets better; collisions are minimized. Sometimes prescriptive patterns are good and necessary.
But when we talk about spiritual formation, prescriptive patterns may not be helpful. Forcing behaviors to accomplish spiritual health may not be the “silver bullet” we are looking for.
Organic order is strengthened by descriptive patterns. Descriptive patterns have an expressive, evocative, and eloquent spirit. They describe reality. They don’t force it. We discover descriptive patterns through observation, as they emerge.
Maybe it would be more helpful to think of those elements that keep us alive and together and describe those as our journey of spiritual formation.
Lord, help me to be alive and soulful…
Comment by: Rick
106/15/07 10:50 AM | Comment Link |
I’ve got lots of thoughts mulling in my head about “spiritual formation” as well, but so far it’s been mostly contemplating the notion of sharing what’s going on internally with those living life around me. You’ve forced me back inside with this, I think. I’m split on trying to figure out if my wonderings are from a mid-life-almost-40-and-20-yrs-in-my-career itch or not, and whether that matters if its ultimately leading me towards something more meaningful and transforming.
“Maybe it would be more helpful to think of those elements that keep us alive and together and describe those as our journey of spiritual formation.” - I think you’re on to something there, because I can’t think of working on the inside without also thinking about what it looks like being shared.
Comment by: Evan McBroom
208/15/07 11:16 PM | Comment Link |
Joe - God is infinitely creative…so I vote for “descriptive” and “organic.”
Comment by: Glenn
309/12/07 10:46 AM | Comment Link |
What’s really amazing is that Scripture defines soul the same way you do. Genesis 2:7 puts it as: dust + breath (of God) = SOUL. I’ve been pursing spiritual formation for many years. But looking back it seems more “dust” than “breath” and the result feels like my soul is touch far less than I wish. I spend much time in bible study, prayer and meditation (not to deny it’s importance), only to find that a real soul-moment comes when I’m hiking in the mountains, reading a business management book, or mowing the lawn!
I’ve got the same “almost 40…” itch that Rick mentions, but am convinced it is the growing cry of my soul to insist on getting fed. I wonder how I can feed it better in the next 20 years
Comment by: Cathy
410/8/07 1:38 PM | Comment Link |
I like your thoughts and wonder how they play out practically. I teach seminars on worship and I know how much people like the practical. Leaders are often like sheep … want to be led. Looking for the next greatest formula. I try to resist that in what I write an teach but it’s hard. There is a practical side to things, and that’s importnat too. how do you be practical without being formulaic. how do you live with Christ without practicing Christ? You’re a deep thinker and you challenge the status quo. Good deal. Cathy
Comment by: Robert
511/29/07 4:35 PM | Comment Link |
Joe,
Everything we do and experience forms the spirit within us whether intentional or not. I watch a porn flick and my spirit is formed, or deformed. I spend time meditating on the beatitudes and my spirit is formed. Or the other day I realize the contrast between an incredible sunset and the golden arches and I think to myself, “McDonalds would pay millions for a sign like that sunset.” and my spirit was most definitely formed.
Some things we do and experience will harden our hearts and some things will soften them. The goal is to do and experience more things that soften the heart, and to be more available to what those softening things are.
-Robert
Comment by: Dr. Don
612/27/07 2:15 AM | Comment Link |
Descriptive reality is found everywhere, including spiritual formation. Spiritual formation follows patterns. They are just more complicated than some other patterns we observe. Just because they are complicated does not mean they don’t exist.
The best Plans are “Organic Master Plans.” Master plans are not only necessary, they are implicit. It’s what we do with them that defines the communities we create.
All of life is practical. We will arise each morning and live. That is practical. We will do whatever we do, that is practical. The practical and the philosophical cannot be separated. They are one. Practical talk sounds great to someone who is trying to make things better. Philosophical talk is great to someone who is trying to figure things out. Jesus never separated the two because they cannot, in reality, be separated.
Master planning is absolutely necessary and done whether we like it or not. It can be “organic,” or “mechanistic.” Organic Master Planning encompasses the whole of reality and meshes with God’s creative genius.
Comment by: Scott French
707/12/08 9:04 AM | Comment Link |
This discussion is very interesting. I am just now starting to read and consider what it means to help others live the Christian life in this way.
So, I offer a couple of initial observations. First, I think that Church leaders who are focusing on help their congregation become disciples have no choice but to explore a more descriptive approach. The focus on more “programs” as a means for facilitating growth just won’t work in an age where people’s time is so fractured due to broken families, commuting, multiple jobs, etc.. Prescriptive isn’t practical, it seems, in this day and age.
Second, prescriptive seems to have a nasty little side-effect. It actually helps the one being discipled to “compartmentalize” their life. On Sunday, we go to church. On Wednesday night, we have Bible Study. But, what about the rest of the week? It is so easy for us to put Christianity into a box that we take out when it is expected of us, instead of realizing that being a disciple is all about living. Somehow, we need to be helping Christians live as Christ lived (who was the fullest expression of living that ever graced our world).
By the way, the question of prescriptive versus descriptive is also coming up (not necessarily in those terms) in the business world as the workforce ages.
Comment by: Dr. Don
807/16/08 3:05 PM | Comment Link |
As I’ve zoomed past mid-life I continually see how growth is experienced in seasons. Some seasons the Word of God seems a bit dry and cold. Some seasons my prayers seem like wisps of wind that simply blow away to no where. In other seasons these expereiences are full of life and joy.
Either way, it still seems to me that spritual development is both prescriptive and descriptive. God prescribes practices that serve as conduits to our relationship with Him - prayer, meditation and study of His Word, community, generosity, etc. Not unlike any relationship.
Yet, apart from the organic understanding and artful practice of our seasons, these patterns do not serve to draw us closer to God.
I am reminded of plants - fully organic. The prescription for growing plants is fairly simple. They need sun, water, and nutrients - prescription.
The trick is how much sun, water, and nutrients, and at what times - description.
We too are living, organic, spiritual beings. It seems that we need an artful combination of presciptive and descriptive patterns applied in proper measure, for each season of development.
Just some further thoughts.
Comment by: Paul Miller
907/25/08 9:45 AM | Comment Link |
I hear what you’re saying — spiritual practices can become another box into which we try to put people. On the other hand, I’m not sure that “living with Christ” and “practicing Christ” are concepts that are in conflict. The spiritual life has to incorporate both inward formation and outward practices in an organic, and often dialectical relationship. I’m a musician, and one of the things I know for sure is that if I try to put “practicing scales and arpeggios” in opposition to “making beautiful music” I’m in trouble. Without the seemingly uninspired, repetitive practice of the techniques of playing the piano, the music won’t come. They depend on one another. The longing for an immediate, spontaneous relationship with God and flourishing of the soul sometimes causes us to denigrate the very every day practices that mysteriously generate the life within. We need to explore the relationship between practices and spiritual life, not place them in opposition to one another.
Comment by: Scott French
1008/4/08 12:28 AM | Comment Link |
re: “We need to explore the relationship between practices and spiritual life, not place them in opposition to one another.”
I agree. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I do think that they are complementary. Practicing Christ makes it possible to align ourselves with God and His purposes by giving structure to the new life we have in Jesus. Without this, it would seem to be very difficult indeed to live with Christ in the day to day moments of life. Jesus certainly had his practices - no doubt to nurture the unity He shared with the Father.
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