Unwinding

Few series have so impacted me as the one I am doing this summer on the spiritual disciplines.  Maybe it is the wide range of themes, from learning how to hear the voice of God to the practice of seizing the moments, to earth keeping, to learning to enter into the practice of celebration, to yesterday’s theme on fasting.  If there is a common thread, is that each spiritual practice is a call to live life wide awake.  There is so much to be alert to.

Two weeks ago, we headed to the Pend Oreille River up in northeast Washington for one last small vacation.  It is here, time stops for me, enabling me to more easily engage in the ancient practices I have been preaching, discerning what is around me.  The listening ear begins to take over the distancing eye, as I read through Ezra during the week.  He was by his own river, the Ahava River, where he humbled himself for his journey. 

You can’t get away from this book without sensing he was a man who heard God’s voice, and no matter what kings he interfaced with, he never lost sight of Who has the power.  It is God who enlarges nations, and it is God who disperses them.  As Job puts it, “He can grant men power to lead, or deprive them of their reason and send them wandering through a trackless waste.”  Getting away can renew one’s sense of the sovereignty of God.

Prayer took on undistracted focus, as I was able to more faithfully practice the discipline of praying through the structure of the Lord’s Prayer.  Nothing helps me pray well like the discipline of using the outline Jesus taught His disciples.  Walking each morning amidst deer and wild Turkey and cows, not to mention the wide range of birds, it was the perfect place to talk to God.  And thinking through earth keeping as a discipline this summer, one gets a better sense of creation’s longing when you are more fully engaged with it.  Even in this pristine place, you know that things are not right.  One of the take-aways from this summer series, I hope, is that we as a church  will become a voice, a model, of what it means to serve and protect the earth.

One day, we took our kayaks and paddled four hours from Metaline Falls to Boundary Dam, flowing with the river northward through a vast gorge that runs along the eastern side of the Selkerk Mountains. It was here I thought once again about another ancient discipline, the practice of seizing the moments God serves up.  New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman is currently writing of his experiences in Africa, and today he quoted from his guide:  “If you spend enough time in nature and allow yourself to slow down sufficiently to let your senses work, then through exposure and practice, you will start to sense the meanings in the sand, the grasses, the bushes, the trees, the movement of the breezes, the thickness of the air, the sounds of the creatures and the habits of the animals with which you are sharing that space.”  If we don’t spend the time, we lose this innate ability.  We miss the opportunity.  So I seized the moment to let my senses engage in what was around me, be it a sudden storm we faced, or an amazing lagoon we explored, that felt like being on another planet.  And here’s the meaning—Day to day creation pours forth speech, declaring that God has made everything for His glory (Ps 19).

I found new meaning in the practice of celebration, entering into the joy God serves up.  It would dishonor God to miss it.  C.S. Lewis is right—“Joy is the serious business of heaven.”  And all too many of us do not take His joy serious enough.  We can easily become joy impaired.  Get away, sit by the river with a simple sandwich, and I find myself agreeing with Solomon—“There is nothing better than to eat and drink and find pleasure in one’s work” (Ecc 2:24).  This has to be one of my most favorite spiritual disciplines.

On our last day, some of life’s harsher realities came home to me.  I went on a call with the husband of my cousin.  He is a retired firefighter, and in the years they have lived on the Pend Oreille, he has helped this little community ramp up and become better equipped to handle life’s emergencies.  Like many small towns miles away from anything, Ione has its share.  The long winters can take their toll.  Alcohol and other abuses can take hold.  Kids become bored.  Whether drinking had anything to do with it, we came upon the scene of an ugly accident.  A young man who lived up the road decided to push his car to the limits and failed to navigate a nearby curve.  His truck appeared to have launched like a missile, crashing through the trees and landing upside down.  Nearby was his lifeless body, obviously hurled out of the vehicle.  The town’s cadre of volunteers converged on the scene to help.  It all reminded me that even in an unspoiled forest, life can have its grief.

The practice of fasting is all about entering into what McKnight refers to as sacred, grievous moments.  Life has its share of them.  And in these moments, food would be sacrilegious.  After leaving the scene, I had little appetite.

Here’s what a few days away reminds me—a big part of life is living alert to what God is doing—entering into both the joys and the griefs that life serves up.  There is a time to mourn, a time to dance.  Avoiding both would be to live a deadened life.  To miss these, as well as the rest of the spiritual practices, as Paul reminds us, would be to miss the gymnasium God has for the soul, the place He works to conform us more and more to His likeness (I Tim 4:7).

Comments

[Brian Larson]

This series on spiritual diciplines was an eye opener for me. It solidified what God has been showing me for a while now. As John mentions above, we are called to live our lives wide awake (sober) and ready for what ever He dishes out. Like physical dicipline, it takes commitment and hard work. The more we "exercise" the more we can take on and the more that is expected of us. When it gets hard, it is easy to slack off or indulge in excessive pleasure as a distraction or coping mechanism. We need to cling even tighter to God in those times and go where the ride takes us. I am not much for roller coasters, but when I have ridden them, I found that resisting where the ride went just increased the level of discomfort. By going with the ride, it became "tollerable" :p. Just remember to keep your hands and feet inside the car until the ride comes to a complete stop!