4 Shiny Things

As Martin Luther famously wrote in his Larger Catechism, “That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your God” (p 24).

Ouch.

Idolatry may just be the sin that’s the hardest to escape. If you peel away the layers of your besetting sin (your “favorite” sin) and the shiny things that take your attention away from God, chances are you’ll find idolatry somewhere at the heart of what’s really going on.

“My sense is that we are more likely to be Judas than Peter. Peter denies God. Judas betrays him” (p 23).

Double ouch.

Using the story of Aaron, the Israelites, and the Golden Calf from Exodus 32:1-35, Kate and Jessica explain that idolatry is creating a false image of the true God (p 23). And while Christians are likely to avoid the big sins like murder and arson, we ARE prone to “take great comfort in our own version of God instead” (p 24).

Anne Lamotte – one of my favorite writers! – once said, “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” (Traveling Mercies)

After thinking about this for a moment or two, ask yourself: do I do this?

Does the God you worship always agree with you?

Who does your God say it’s OK not to love? Not to care for?

(“After all, what is idolatry except beautiful things that do not transform us?” p 25)

Or do you constantly find yourself challenged by what Jesus commands you to do and who Jesus commands you to love?

If you find yourself being challenged, something tells me that you are resisting the sin of idolatry. That’s good enough faith.

“O, how blessed are we who lay it all out before You, oh God, asking to be awakened to our lives as You see them. Asking for the inward renovation that will tear down anything false we worship, and for the outward turning that will make every aspect of our life point to You” (p 26).

Pastor Allison

 

I’m curious:

What do you think idolatry ("shiny things") looks like in your life? Probably not much like a golden calf! It's much sneakier than that! 

In the “A Good Enough Step” on page 27, the authors write: “What do your major life choices point toward? … What is the most beautiful thing you can say about your life when you look at the evidence? … What is a core truth of your life, the straightest arrow you can imagine finding there? Now ask yourself, is it aimed too low?"

Once again, these are pretty personal questions but I’d love to hear your thoughts on this chapter, perhaps in generalities instead of specifics. 

3.5 Mourning a Future Self

Friends, in case you don't see this in the comments on the previous post: 

If this chapter touched you or if your heart aches or resonates at the thought of simultaneous joy and longing, I hope you'll check out this podcast hosted by the author, Kate Bowler. 

Below is the info from Kate's website about the episode ... 

SURVIVAL OF THE KINDEST

How is it that joy and pain seem to coexist at once? Susan Cain (author of the bestseller Quiet) explores this question in her new book, Bittersweet. In this conversation, Kate and Susan discuss:

• How we are literally hardwired for compassion 
• Susan’s advice for pushing back against compassion fatigue
• How that feeling of longing isn’t something to be ashamed of but allows us to see things clearly—the beautiful and the terrible

If you ever feel like you didn’t have a word for the sweetness of longings (and why your compassionate heart is a gift), this conversation is for you.  

3 Mourning a Future Self

Well, this chapter just split my heart open. Did that happen to you too?

“What is it that you grieve,” Kate and Jessica ask on page 15. 

They’re asking specifically about grieving something that now never will come to pass: an “imagined future” or a future self that has died.

Surely, we’ve all suffered an unexpected loss of something we always had or expected or hoped would happen. We all know the ache they’re talking about – the “deep sadness that reverberates through our bones” (p 15).

A whole way of living died the day I had my first seizure. (That’s not a completely bad thing because I was living beyond my limits.) But I will never be able to live a life where I’m not measuring and tracking and evaluating something. Which can be exhausting. 

And I’m not sure I’ll ever drive a car again because I don’t know when a seizure is going to happen. That means I will always (one way or another) have to ask someone to take me somewhere. This loss of freedom and independence is something I deeply mourn – I mourn the loss of the life I used to live and even mourn the life I might HAVE to live from now on.

Thankfully, all is not lost. “Loss requires us to reimagine hope” (p 16). 

I can do hope; I am good at looking for hope. This new life I'm not sure I want can still be good enough. 

Even as I type these words, providentially, a friend texted me about an event, asking if I wanted to go and needed a ride. Reimagining hope for me is being grateful for dear friends who are looking out for me and trying to include me because they know I hate asking for help.

“Acknowledging ‘this will never be’ is the precursor to imagining what might happen next" (p 16). Because something always does happen next. Hope is always reimagined, if we have the eyes to see it. Why not name what will now never happen, so that we can prepare for what is yet to come?

Kate and Jessica encourage us to look into the painful emotions we all have – “When you cannot have the future you imagined, let the tears flow. Let yourself mourn. … Tell God the whole of it. Even if it hurts” (p 17).

“Blessed are you when mourning is the holy work of the moment, for it speaks of what is real” (p 18).

Pastor Allison

 

I’m curious: Did your heart split open when you read this chapter? Is there something you need to mourn but can’t face? Has this chapter changed your mind about anything? I don’t expect you to be specific in a public forum if you don’t want to, but I am curious to hear what you think if you can speak in generalities. (I’m still learning to mourn my imagined future.)  

What do you think of their suggestion of a ritual to mark a transition like mourning an imagined future? (p 19) 

Let me know in the comments! 

2 Buoyed by the Absurd

“Is it OK to laugh when sadness surrounds us?” (p 10) 

This is a question I’m guessing we’ve all wondered about at one point or another. I’m sure we could each name a contrasting set of circumstances like they do in the book, like Kate’s mom laughing at her “delicious frozen rocks” in the hospital as her mother was dying (pp 9-10).

The inescapable truth is, “Joy and sorrow simply coexist” (p 10).

Kate and Jessica recall the stories of Jesus’ first miracle of turning plain, old water into the finest Bordeaux at the wedding in Cana while under the thumb of the Romans (John 2:1-11). When he was surrounded by grumbling bellies, Jesus made sure there were leftovers (John 6:1-15, Matthew 14:13-21). And when he was resurrected from the dead, Jesus appeared to the disciples and asked for something to eat (Luke 24:30-32).

Even in difficult circumstances, Jesus was “a man who enjoyed a feast” (p 11). If it's good enough for Jesus, then can't it be good enough for us too? 

When things heated up between Russia and Ukraine and became a part of our daily living through the news and social media, I heard folks asking this same question: how can we rejoice about things in our lives when we can see the suffering of so many?

I love the simple acknowledgment that all kinds of emotions can coexist at the same time. You can be full of joy and full of sorrow. You can grieve and delight. (I’ve seen all of those happen at funerals – you grieve the loss but delight in the memories and the chance to gather with family and friends.) 

Romans 12:15 reminds us to “Rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.” Sometimes that means doing it at the same time, like when my friend had one daughter announce she was pregnant while the other whisper their second fertility treatment had failed at the same time. 

It’s an occupational hazard for pastors that we run into a lot of sorrow and grief. And sometimes it is the most absurd things that keep me afloat. (If only you could see the frivolous things I watch on YouTube or the podcasts I listen to when my soul is feeling heavy!)

They say in the book, “ … there is a discipline to this kind of joy, especially when we’re not feeling especially cheery” (p 14). 

I wonder what would happen if we could work a bit of joy or absurdity into our regula so that it’s already an ingrained discipline the next time we need it!

Perhaps my favorite part of this chapter is from “A Prayer for Finding Joy in Sorrow” on page 13. I’ve changed it from the singular to the plural: “God, [we] can’t deny it, the way that sorrow catches up with [us] and forces [us] to pay attention. There is so much to grieve, so much to lament in the world, in [our] life, in the lives of those [we] love. You have shown [us] again and again that I can look sorrow in the face, take its hand and talk things over, because it shows [us] what [we] love” (p 13).

I really love that last line, how looking sorrow in the face reveals what we love the most. That re-framing makes sorrow feel a little more bearable, don’t you think?

Pastor Allison

I’m curious: have you asked this question or has someone asked it of you? If so, how did you answer it?

When you find yourself in this kind of situation, what do you do? Do you give in to the sorrow and let it drown out the joy?

What sources of joy or absurdity (like the list on p 11) do you draw on in times like this?  

Let me know in the comments! Or, show us you did your regula by just saying, "I did it!" 

1 Regula

For a long time, I thought a “rule of life” was admirable and definitely something I should aspire to. So I did what pastors do when they want to learn something: I read some books about it!

I found several examples of classic versions of this rhythm with their emphasis (at least, in my perception) on doing the same thing at the same time, day after day. And that usually means following a prescribed set of Bible readings and prayers. 

Good and necessary stuff for a Christ-follower who wants to grow in their faith. We should all do something like this. 

Websites like the Daily Office and apps like YouVersion and the Presbyterian Church’s Daily Prayer app put things like this right at your fingertips, all planned out for you. Even this book, Good Enough, has everything right there for you in one place. And there are a million other daily devotionals available out there!

But I could never stick with one of those things.

I tried the Daily Office but lost interest after a while. I use the Daily Prayer app when I’m leading a group, but it doesn’t do much for me when I do it by myself. I’ll start a devotional book only to find that what I need to be studying and praying about has changed but part of the rule is finishing the book (so I thought), and I would get frustrated and quit.

And then I got really down on myself because I know this is something I should be doing, but I failed every time I tried, just like Kate and Jessica said sometimes happens (pp 4-5).

So it was as though the heavens opened when I read Kate and Jessica’s definition of “regula” – a regular pattern of activities that becomes more valuable over time because its structures creates a space for good things (p 3).  

I mistakenly thought a rule of life meant you needed to do the same thing at the same time every day again and again and again. But that’s not it at all. It’s so much more to it than that! So much more freedom and flexibility. 

They say, “ … a regula doesn’t have to be hard; it only has to be regular” (p 5). 

Here’s my regula now: since I am at my best in the morning, I wake up and do a head to toe body scan, first asking, “How am I feeling physically?” and then “What do I need spiritually?” (Often those two things are tied closely together.) Based on how I answer those questions, I make a plan. Sometimes it’s the same thing for a couple of days; sometimes it’s different every day for a week of days.

What’s important is that it’s becoming a sacred rhythm for me to ask myself those questions and then make time to spend with God in a way that feels right for me, that I look forward to, and that feels natural for me.

If you don’t have a regula, I hope you will work to develop one in the next 40ish days. Here’s a “good enough” way to create one:  

1. Figure out your best time of day: Are you an early bird? A night owl? Do you come alive in the afternoon? 
2. When you’re at your best, read the chapter from Good Enough and try the activities they suggest.
3. Then read my blog reflection.
4. Finally, leave a comment to show you followed your rule of life! (If nothing else, just post, “I did it!” and we’ll all know what you meant!)  

Ta-da! Now, you have a regula to experiment with! It’s nothing fancy, but it is good enough.

"Blessed are we who ask You to be the guide as we begin to build from here and create a stronger, more flexible rule of life." 

Pastor Allison 

Wait, before you go -- I'm curious! Do you already have a regula? Are you mostly able to follow it, or do you sometimes struggle with the discipline of doing it every day? 

What other sacred rhythms are most important to you? 

What difference does it make in your day when you’re able to follow those sacred rhythms as opposed to the days when you don’t? 

Leave a comment!