Invitation to flourishing blog
Welcome to the Invitation to Flourishing blog, a space for exploring spiritual formation, Christian growth, and encountering Jesus. Here, you'll find reflections and insights to inspire Christian flourishing. Join us on a journey of peace, stability, and an apprenticeship to Jesus as we delve into topics that nurture your faith and deepen your connection with the Trinity.
Spiritual formation
In Essentials – Curiosity
Lately the saying, “In essentials unity, in non-essentials charity and in all things Jesus Christ” has been on my mind. I’m guessing this is because I’ve run into several conversations with people and ‘self-conversations’ (so I says to myself, “hey self”) that make me wonder what is essential and what is pithy judgement or messed up proclivity.
I wonder how many times I’ve built a narrative in my mind about me or about you and I make that an essential, the gospel truth. Other times I’ve taken a simple action and built a whole narrative or story around it to characterize a person or just sit in self-judgment.
I remember a long time ago going to a museum that touted that they had evidence of many transitional creatures that were millions of years old. As a kid I was dumbfounded that they would have one simple bone, connected to a complex design or a complex diagram of a huge animal. They claimed that this bone belonged to the transitional creature. A huge intricate drawing from a simple bone. That bone didn’t look a whole lot different than what my pet dog dug up in the backyard. Quite a big narrative from such a small bone.
How’s this for curiosity?
Seems to me that Jesus would like us to be curious. Curious with others, with the Trinity and with ourselves. That doesn’t mean we don’t have convictions, but it probably means that we should think about what hill to die on before we end up friendless. Scripture seems chock- full of God or Jesus asking questions to give people an opportunity for contemplation or truth telling for that matter. Maybe, just maybe that’s one of the angles that the Apostle Paul meant when he said, ‘Make the most of every opportunity.” (Eph. 5:16).
Some of the ways that we can combat making preferences into convictions would be to:
- Take a deep breath before we speak – let your first conversation be a deep breath (Jefferson Fisher’s The Next Conversation) – it’s helpful to dip into your parasympathetic before you come across as pathetic.
- Be curious and ask yourself or even ask the person that you’re struggling with what they meant. This must be done while suspending judgment.
- Choose to tell yourself a good story. I’m often baffled how easy it is to make our default mode one of catastrophe or demonizing a situation or person. What would happen if we chose to tell ourselves a different story?
- Take some time to evaluate what is your own personal preference while trying to understand the preference of another. Is it really a conviction? (check out Winsome Conviction by Langer and Muehlhoff; FYI…I’m biting my tongue to stop from mocking the Book Title)
Let’s try curiosity. Let’s make it essential before we judge ourselves or another.
Stories and Remembering
Who doesn’t love a good story? If you think about it, a lot of our community or friendships are often formed or nurtured through the recollection of stories and shared experiences.
In fact, true story, my wife and I have made a conscious decision to incorporate adventures and opportunities for family experiences with the hope of continued attachment for our family. This is one of the pillars of our family that we guard, no matter the squeezing of our budget.
I now live about a 24-hour drive from the Hamlet that I grew up in. It was surrounded by the sprawling prairies. Many times, when I get to visit my childhood friends, the food and the stories flow. To be honest stories often become better, bigger, more descriptive and interesting over the years. No matter the grandiose retelling of stories, I always go away with a warmth, a recentering and thanksgiving. The love and laughter really is a form of therapy.
“It is sad and hard for us to watch our friends suffer and lose their precious memories. Even more tragic is when our churches or communities forget their loved ones that have shifted to a retirement or care home.”
It struck me lately that stories are in danger of extinction. Or maybe more accurately, audiences to our stories are in danger of extinction. As I age and now turn my gaze toward beautiful people in my life that are in their twilight years, it is not lost on me that it is easy for me to forget the old friends in a nursing home. It’s sadly easy to misplace the memory of childhood buddies or high school pals.
Several years ago I was honoured to conduct a celebration of life with a Chaplain as we remembered a beautiful soul that regularly made homemade Borscht. Her delivery of Borscht was one of my favorite days. She was a woman of thanksgiving and depth having lived through World War II. She lived a simple life having a keen ownership of gratitude and joy.
There was a curious statement the chaplain made that day about our mutual friend who lived her last years with a dementia diagnosis. She said something along these lines. “It is sad and hard for us to watch our friends suffer and lose their precious memories. Even more tragic is when our churches or communities forget their loved ones that have shifted to a retirement or care home.”
That one line landed for me. How many folks have I forgotten about as I serve at the altar of ambition, busyness, promotion and distraction? These are all things that our culture seems to not only overlook but seem to promote.
How many people have I forgotten because of my undiagnosed dementia of busyness? Has their story stopped with me? Is there more to a story that begs to be written? Is there a chance that me visiting an old friend may be another chapter to their biography?
The writer of Hebrews says, “Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.” (13:3).
We know that this verse from the Good Book is referring to those persecuted for their faith, but could we let it also influence our thinking here? Are not people diagnosed with dementia caught in their own prison? Their ideas and stories under lock and key? Those stories could also very much form me and another and another.
Lord help us to take a deep breath and slow down. Remind us of old friends. Motivate us to be present to them with an open heart and pen and paper in hand.
Anxious Minions
In my ponderings as of late I have become introspective at the possibility that in our deep desire to connect people with God we do so with an edge of anxiety. Sometimes that anxiety comes because we’re not too sure if God even likes us; sometimes it comes because of our perceived deep need for the other person to experience “conversion,” or our drive to see a person connect with God! That’s just one area that Christ ones have displayed anxiety. There are many. This seems a bit antithetical to introducing other humans to the God of Shalom. The God of human flourishing.
As Jack Shitama says in, Anxious Church, Anxious People, “Rather than acting as the leaven of hope in an anxious culture, we Christians have allowed the age of anxiety to overtake the church.”
A while ago I was given the privilege to experience service in the Kingdom of God with people of different backgrounds. It was so sweet.
One day I was given the opportunity to serve communion alongside a Lutheran. Folks came forward to receive the elements or sacrament of the bread and cup while leaning in to hear the words of blessing given by the servers. By me.
Soon thereafter I was honored to offer a blessing or a ‘word from the Lord’ to people that needed a fresh touch from God. Trepidatiously, because of the honour of the assignment, I stood beside a seasoned, godly Presbyterian and offered to be a conduit of blessing to folks that would approach.
Imagine if you and I would be curious and connect deeply to the relationship offered by the God of the Universe, and while This God holds our hand, we get to hold the hand of another. Without anxiety. Trusting God. Trusting folks. Maintaining safety.
When I returned to my office I was so delighted to have a meaningful conversation with somebody from a Pentecostal or charismatic background. We held concerns in common and we were able to pray together to the God of the Lutherans, the Mennonites, the Pentecostals, the Presbyterians, the Baptists and the Evangelicals. Got me thinking about one aspect of the journey of faith.
As C.S. Lewis writes, in his introduction to Mere Christianity:
“Mere Christianity” is like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals.
The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in… It is true that some people may find they have to wait in the hall for a considerable time, while others feel certain almost at
once which door they must knock at. I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait.
When you do get into your room you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise. But you must regard it as waiting, not as camping. You must keep on praying for light: and, of course, even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the
rules which are common to the whole house.
And above all you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and paneling. In plain language, the question should never be: “Do I like that kind of service?” but “Are these doctrines true: Is holiness here? Does my conscience move me towards this? Is my reluctance to knock at this door due to my pride, or my mere taste, or my personal dislike of this particular door-keeper?”
When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house.”
That makes a lot of sense to me. Where do I sense is the most congruent place for me to deepen my relationship with God? No room or church will be perfect. But where it my best chance, your best chance to flourish and help others flourish?
Jack Shitama is an expert in Family Systems Theory and I think we could continue to apply some of his wisdom on this idea. He says, “And what’s best for the system is for you to know who you are, what you believe and to express this in healthy ways. That’s leadership.”
Imagine if you and I would be curious and connect deeply to the relationship offered by the God of the Universe, and while This God holds our hand, we get to hold the hand of another. Without anxiety. Trusting God. Trusting folks. Maintaining safety.
I think it’s a big deal to know who you are. What characterizes your relationship with God. To do the work and know your identity before we help create another anxious minion of a god of your making.
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