A Break to Read Rob Bell

I'm taking a break from trying to develop my review of Brian McLaren's Finding Your Way Again to read the controversial new book from Rob Bell, Love Wins.  I will probably post a review of Love Wins first, and then will return to Finding Your Way Again.

"Faithing Our Practices," Part One

I've been skipping around a bit in Brian McLaren's Finding Our Way Again, because it's taking me way too long to develop my review a chapter at a time.  So I have done a first read-through, and I will start working on some of the concepts that I find useful or challenging (generally those come out to be the same thing).

McLaren mentions an approach which has been called "practicing the presence of God" or, in a phrase which he admittedly did not invent but will surely popularize, "faithing our practices" - doing the same ordinary day-to-day things that we do, but doing them with full consciousness of God's presence in them.

Can I learn to feel God's presence when I wash dishes? (I greatly dislike washing dishes.)  Can I learn to see myself as serving God when I do things for my husband, or even for the dogs?

What about my work?  Can I learn to do the work in a God-conscious, prayerful way?

(And what was the very bad news that McLaren received, that he mentions toward the end but chooses not to specify?  Is it improper to respond with curiosity and concern to a "vaguebooking" statement like that?)

Because I'm not The Tower ....

One of the books that my dog chewed on as a puppy was this little book by David Jeremiah, The Prayer Matrix (Logan had a particular taste for books about prayer). While I was reorganizing my home office, I happened to come upon this book again, and realized rather quickly that it wasn't just happenstance. This well-chewed little book was waiting for me to find it at the moment when I needed it.

I have been trying for some time to restore and reinvigorate my prayer life, which has been mostly nonexistent over the past few years. Like so many people, I have been too busy running around "putting out fires," dealing with the crisis of the moment, to take the time to see the bigger picture - and I have consistently neglected to ask God for what I need.

There is more than a good reason, there is a perfect reason why I am in financial distress right now, and it is God's perfect reason. I need to learn a radical dependence upon God. I need to learn to ask.

I have always struggled against the idea of God as the cosmic vending machine, waiting for us to come up with the proper coin, the correct formula, the right magical incantation, before dispensing good things. That's not the kind of God I want to worship, and that's OK, because that's not the kind of God we have.

David Jeremiah states that God has chosen voluntarily to limit Himself, by choosing to work through the means of prayer. Jeremiah even makes this statement, which seems difficult to accept: "In certain unexplainable ways, He has made Himself subservient to the prayers of His people." Subservient? That seems wrong, doesn't it?

And yet, it's all about free will, and has been since the Garden of Eden (whether one takes the story literally or not). God could do everything without us; God could make us into automatons, mere tools with no choice other than to do His will. He chose not to do that, and part of His gift to us is the gift of choice. By stepping back until we ask for His help, He leaves us our freedom.

Jeremiah writes: "Prayer is built into the way the universe works because the universe works on relationship - our personal relationship with God." Although it is phrased differently, this is much the same insight as one that I learned early and have held for my entire adult life, that God works together with us in making our reality. I like to phrase it as "we co-create our reality," but that's too New Agey a phrasing for most Christians. I believe it is true, though, that we work in partnership with God, not because God can't do it without us but because God chooses not to do it without us.

Jeremiah quotes Jim Cymbala that prayer "has to be born out of a whole environment of felt need." I've been like the woman in the Vienna Teng song "The Tower," thinking that I need NOT to need, when it is actually the opposite. I need to acknowledge that I am in need, and if I'm not sufficiently in need then I will keep on sinking until I hit that point, because only then can I truly ask God's help through prayer. 

Developing an eclectic and open Christian faith

I have nicknamed myself "CatEcumen the Ecumenical Cat" because my spirituality draws from so many different faith traditions (and the number continues to grow as I read and learn).  Chapter 6 of Brian McLaren's Finding Our Way Again addresses the journey outward from the narrow exclusivity of denominations and sects, to a broader, "open source" path of faith, drawing from many different traditions.

When I read the chapter title, "Sharing Treasures Among Friends," I expected a focus on the local faith community and the importance of relationships within the local church, but that is not what this chapter was about.  The "friends" of the chapter title are different denominations and religious traditions, and the treasures are their spiritual practices.

This concept certainly resonates with me (see above), but it seems like the target audience for this chapter (and probably the whole book) would be the reader who is not yet comfortable with this concept.  In many ways, this book is written on a very basic, introductory level, and sometimes I get impatient with that.

So, it's the Ides of March ....

It's time for some big scary life changes, and that makes it an ideal time for reflection, a time to look both into myself and outward.
Chapter 5 of Finding Our Way Again, entitled "Paul and the Way of Love," McLaren departs from the twentieth-century convention of seeing Paul's teachings as a departure from those of Jesus, and illustrates how Paul emphasizes the practical application of the teachings of Jesus in the daily life of his time.  He gives examples of Paul's imagery, including the metaphors of walking and of pregnancy, as the bridge between theory and practice.
It is one of Paul's images that has been running through my head a lot lately, during financial trouble: 

Philippians 4:12
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.


I never actually go hungry (but then again, I am easily satisfied where food is concerned), but I have been dealing with financial ups and downs, most particularly the down side.   Even though I don't assume that every word Paul spoke is intended for all people at all times and places, and even though I do work on understanding him in his cultural context, I still like it when I have the feeling that he is speaking to me. 

Part of today's reading from the Discovery® Daily Bible Reading Guide

Philippians 4:11-13

[11] I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. [12] I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. [13] I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

Discovery® | Free Daily Bible Reading Guide Online | Scripture Union USA | Bible Reading

Chapter 4 of Finding Our Way Again in the light of Rob Bell

I was just listening tonight to the Livestream event for the publication of Rob Bell's Love Wins.  Rob Bell was being interviewed by Newsweek's Lisa Miller, and there was an ongoing commentary in the accompanying chat room, mostly tearing down Rob Bell as "universalist."  It was perfect timing for my approach to Chapter 4 of Brian McLaren's Finding Our Way Again.

McLaren writes:  "What's gotten me into trouble, though, is my suspicion that a person can be a follower of the way of Jesus without affiliating with the Christian religion, and my simultaneous lament that a person can be accepted and even celebrated as a card-carrying member of the Christian club but not actually be a follower of the way of Jesus."

Rob Bell pointed out in tonight's interview that Jesus can be the way for everyone to reach God, even those who are not consciously aware of the fact that they are being brought to God by Jesus.   This, of course, seems like scandalous universalism to many, and there have been lengthy and impassioned pre-publication reviews of the book as theologically dangerous and misleading for its message that God is ultimately unwilling to give up on anyone.

One member of the audience asked him about the narrow way to salvation.  The same issue is addressed by McLaren in describing the call of Jesus, not to a new religion, but to a new way of life - called to practice loving enemies as if they were friends, and hungering and thirsting not so much for food and drink but for justice.  McLaren describes this way of life as a "rocky mountain footpath that required careful attention and commitment, step by step."  The narrowness of the path is not found in its exclusivity, but in its difficulty.  There are many ways (a broad Roman road) NOT to follow the way of Jesus, and only that narrow path to follow, but following is not a matter of proclaiming creeds, or even believing in the creeds one proclaims. It is a way of life.

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McLaren's Seven Abrahamic Practices

Just when I start thinking that Finding Our Way Again is too simplistic and introductory for my taste, Brian McLaren comes up with another fresh insight.  Maybe starting from the assumption that the reader knows very little about the history of religion is a good thing, because it takes the reader back to re-evaluate old, easy assumptions.

McLaren uses Abraham, patriarch of the three faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as a starting point to identify basic categories of spiritual practices:

1. Pilgrimage
2. Fasting
3. The holy meal
4. Formal, fixed-hour prayer
5. Giving / tithing
6. Sabbath
7. Liturgical year

Although McLaren is stretching in some respects, this is a good concept: tracing back the patterns that the Abrahamic faiths have in common, and finding sources for them in shared story.

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Noticing life

The second chapter of Brian McLaren's Finding Our Way Again is another one that I will have to re-read many times, not because it's complicated (it's not), but because in its very simplicity and directness, it reminds me of so many things that I tend to forget.

Every choice that we make changes us, even the smallest ones.  We worry about slimming our bodies when we should be thinking about developing a more "weighty" character (I particularly like that phrase).  We need to stop and notice the tiny, beautiful moments which remind us of the joy of life.  All these are obvious things that we've heard so often before, but we don't really pay attention. We need to pay attention.

As I deal with the problems and stresses of the moment, I need to remember that the essentials of life aren't the big showy things on the outside, but the journey toward peace and serenity on the inside.  Right now, at this very point in my life, is a perfect time to notice God working, and to appreciate what I see.

Fundy versus New Age

The first chapter of Brian McLaren's Finding Our Way Again, entitled "Searching for an Everyday Sacredness," talks about "the cold war between science and religion," and identifies three categories of spiritual stance:  scientific secularism, "hot and pushy fundamentalism" and "warm but mushy spirituality."  (I like the rhyming of "pushy" and "mushy.")  The spiritual exercises at the end of the chapter ask the readers to identify for themselves what their position has been on this spectrum, and how the conflict between the various camps has affected their lives.

The concept of the "everyday sacred" strongly appeals to me.  Among my many half-read books are Everyday Holiness: The Path of Mussar by Alan Morinis, and Spiritual Fitness: Everyday Exercises for Body and Soul by Doris Donnelly.  I say "half-read," because books like these are not truly read by a quick skim.  They need to be absorbed slowly.  Finding Our Way Again is clearly going to be one of these.

I have often been caught in an approach-avoidance, attraction-repulsion reaction with "hot and pushy fundamentalism."  I am personally unable to accept that any set of answers is ever final;  there are always more questions.  Still, for a person whose primary motto is "Question authority," I am surprisingly drawn to faith traditions like Roman Catholicism, the Baha'i Faith and some forms of evangelical Christianity, including so-called Messianic Judaism.

It would be more expected for me to be comfortable in the neo-pagan movement, or humanistic Judaism, or even a Quaker meeting. I have tried those, and I have found value in them, but not deep emotional satisfaction.

I call myself CatEcumen the Ecumenical Cat because I'm always on the journey from one faith tradition to another, never settling down, never truly "finished."  I hope that's OK with God.  I tell myself that this constantly questioning spirit is how God made me, so it must be OK.

And so we begin!

Ash Wednesday, the beginning of new Lenten practices (and maybe some of them will stay year-round), and the first of them will be "conscious" reading.  By that I mean something more than the skimming way that I read most novels.  I mean slow, careful reading of spiritually important works, including but not limited to the Bible - a new way of reading inspired by the tradition of lectio divina, taking my time to think about what I'm reading, and incorporating prayer and contemplation into my reading life.

I haven't had much of a prayer life lately, and despite my office lined with books, I haven't had as much of a reading life as I did in years past.  Maybe the belt-tightening circumstances of the moment are a way to shepherd me back to the riches of all these unread or partly-read books, just waiting for me.

The book I'm reading first is called Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices by the famous (and somewhat controversial)  Brian McLaren.  From the description I'd read, I thought that Phyllis Tickle was a co-author, but she merely wrote the Foreword.  And in that Foreword, she points out how the urge for something new, different, even revolutionary, something to awaken and revitalize the church, leads us circling back to the ways of those who came before us.  We are not so much discovering as rediscovering, but then again, isn't that always true?  I'm pretty sure that it's true of me, right now.

Things I will work on during Lent this year:

1. I'm going to work on "less complaining, more gratitude."
2. I'm going to do daily readings and write about them, in at least a somewhat disciplined way.  That includes reviewing the books from BookSneeze, beginning with "Finding Our Way Again."
3. I'm going to spend some time in prayer and meditation every day, at least a little, and if I can't think of anything to say in prayer, I'll just recite prayers until I can find my own words.  But I won't use lack of words as an excuse; I can always sit in silence and just listen.

First book from BookSneeze

I have signed up for my first book from BookSneeze. It will be "Finding Our Way Again:
The Return of the Ancient Practices," by Brian McLaren and Phyllis Tickle.

Lois loved books ....

Viral Bloggers?

I've been neglecting this blog again (too much time on Facebook!) but I'd like to give regular blogging another try. I'm going to sign up for the "viral bloggers" group from TheOOZE and try to get a copy of Jay Bakker's new book to review.

Still complaining

I'm not doing very well on the whole no-complaining thing so far. I've had to reset my Complaint Free widget every day, up through and including today. This really is hard!

As I begin my "complaint free" journey .....

I'm still reading "Complaint Free Relationships," and my first question to myself (this will take some time to answer) is: How would other people be damaged if I allowed myself to be happier?

Starting on the journey toward a complaint-free life

Today I start on the "complaint-free" life journey. Wish me luck - I am going to dare to wish luck to myself, as well!