U Turn

I started in Richard Foster's book "The Celebration of Discipline" and realized I needed to set the book aside. I had a difficult time connecting with Foster. Things got off to an amazing start. I appreciated the sentiments Foster captured through words such as, "We have only one thing to do, namely, to experience a life of relationship and intimacy with God" (4). In fact, he went so far as to note that the spiritual disciples "are central to experiential Christianity" (1). Given my passion for creating experiential, participatory worship experiences this seemed right up my alley. I was even transfixed with many of Foster's words in his second chapter on meditation. "In meditation," Foster noted, "we are sinking down into the light and life of Christ and becoming comfortable in that position" (19). That image worked for me given my interest in centering prayer. By the third chapter on prayer, Foster had largely lost me. He admittedly defined prayer one-dimensionally. He only discused intercessory prayer. As a panentheist, I also had difficulty connecting with Foster's transcendant theology. He also used evaluative words that judged certainly expressions of prayer. While Foster began positively by stating "God always meets us where we are and slowly moves us along into deeper things", just 2 paragraphs later Foster is establishing a standard for "correct prayers" when he noted, "certain things will happen in history f we pray rightly" (35). He later asserted that "real prayer is something we learn" (36). Much of this approach seems to negate the honest and passionate cries of the soul that are not "learned" but rather felt. In his section titled "Learning to Pray", he added, "I saw that when praying for others there was evidently no room for indecisive, tentative, half-hoping, 'If it be thy will' prayers'" (37). While I can on some level appreciate what he was trying to get at (i.e. enter confidently into God's presence with the Spirit's leading), I felt like Foster's approach was one that could actually backfire and discourage folks from developing their prayer life out of a fear of "not doing it right". I may come back to Foster's work at a later time, but for now it was clear that his book was not the place for me at this juncture in my spiritual journey. On a side note, after not having a spiritual director for the past 3 1/2 years, today I finally found a wonderful spiritual director with whom I'll work (Thanks Joanne for the wonderful recommendation). It seems as if my new spiritual director is a God send as she (Sharon) also shares a passion for the mystics. I also have a heart-felt desire to spend the next month delving deeper into my practices of centering prayer and the lectio divina. I feel good about the directions the spirit is leading me as I tend to my own spiritual state. Tomorrow, I'll begin to explore Doug Pagitt's book "Preaching Re-Imaged" which I ordered a few weeks ago. It finally arrived! I know this will take me off on a slight tangent from my recent explorations of spiritual formation. It will be exciting to explore yet another dimension of the worship from an emergent perspective. Til next time...