Chapter 1 - The Spiritual Disciplines

Richard Foster closes the first chapter of Celebration of Discipline with this: "Our world is hungry for genuinely changed people. Leo Tolstoy observes, 'Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself'" (p. 11). This blog is my way of saying that I want to change. At school there is an important conversation about the phrasing of our mission statement. In part the statement says, "Our mission is to prepare young people to live fully for God...." And further on it says those young people will be prepared to "transform the world...." One discussion focuses on the word "fully." As Foster suggests, we ask, should it be our goal to "transform the world" and in that way "live fully," or should it be our goal to "transform ourselves" and in that way "live faithfully?"

Foster says, "... we must come to the place in our lives where we lay down the everlasting burden of always needing to manage others" (p. 10). Another group of men, with whom I meet regularly, is reading The Silence of Adam (1995) by Crabb, Hudson and Andrews. Crabb, et al. describe two spheres we tend to move in, the Sphere of Management and the Sphere of Mystery. In the Sphere of Management things are more or less predictable, and we can employ "recipe theology" in which we fulfil responsibilities and solve problems with easy formulas. In the Sphere of Mystery we seek a transcendent theology and trust in One whom we can never control. Transcendent theology, says Crabb, et al., empowers us to move into the darkness, where God does his deepest work. We must learn what it means to abandon ourselves to God..." (Crabb, et al., 1995, p. 58). This is what I understand Foster to be saying in Celebration.

Of course, how change comes about is a huge topic. Foster addresses the tension between "the heresy of moralism" and "the heresy of antinomianism." I don't think that Foster resolves this unsettled debate. But neither did Luther and Erasmus. So for now, I think I will walk on this path that Foster describes and "place [myself] before God so that he can change [me]" (p. 7).