Your Practice is not Limited to You

Someone practice baking and gave me the possibility of experience these divine pies.

It is unlikely that a person can deliver a brilliant sermon without practice, but practice does not guarantee a brilliant sermon. Practice does not make perfect but practice does make possible. 

In preaching, sports, music entertainment, parenting or any other field we practice, we think about the possibility that practice can offer. We might think about the glory we may gain if we practice and 'nail it' when it comes time to deliver. We think of the personal sanctification we might get if we get the results we worked hard to obtain. However, we may forget that our practice may lead to another's possibility.

Each week, choirs around the church world practice singing their praise songs and hymns. When it comes time to offer those songs in worship, the practice of the choir offers a possibility for the choir to have a level of fulfillment to be sure. However their practice also offers a possibility to those in the congregation: the possibility of being reconnected to the transcendence of God and that which is beyond. 

Your spiritual practices also make it possible that you may encounter the divine, but more often than not, your spiritual practice creates the possibility of others to encounter the divine through you. 

The possibilities of practice do not end with you. 

What bees can teach us: Self care is different from caring about yourself

St. John Chrysostom once said in his 12th homily, “The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others.” It is a simple idea, one that we were taught while in kindergarten - the value of serving others. 

While the beehive is not a common image used in relation to the Church, it does make it's appearance in the Latter Day Saints community as well as a connection to St Ambrose, St Bartholomew, St Kharlamii, and St. Gobnait (aka Abigail) to name a few. Beekeeping and the monastic life have long been intertwined. 

I trust that you can discover many layers in the metaphor of bees and the Christian life but I wanted to highlight one specific aspect about bees and the Christian life. That is the work of self care. 

Sometimes we are prone to think that the bee is working to pollinate the other flowers that it comes across and this is what the bee is setting out to do. However, this is not what the bee is doing. The bee, as you know, is looking for nectar and it goes from flower to flower doing so. To put it another less poetic way, the bee is taking care of itself in a way that benefits the world around it. This reflective of what self care is within the Christian tradition. 

Christians are called to tend to our own souls but in a particular and specif way: our self care benefits those around us. Too often self care is thought of as something that one does in order to get away from people and the larger world. Ironically, self care cannot end with the self. Self care means we act in ways renew us while also pollinating the world. More inward forms of renewal is not self care, it is just caring about ourselves.

Light switches and spirituality

He is 17 months old and deeply fascinated with light switches. His name is Evan and he is my youngest son and like other children, Evan is learning about the world through repetition. Performing the same action over and over. 

And over and over and over and over and over. Ad nauseum. 

Evan will walk up to me with his little arms stretched out displaying the universal signal understood by all people everywhere: "Pick me up." Then, using a series of grunts and finger signals, we walk over to the nearest light switch. With his eyes wide and big smile Evan proceeds to flip the light switch up and down each time looking for which lights turn on and which ones turn off.

This exercise brings him joy like few other activities. Which is unfortunate for my arms because I have the load carrying capacity of a table waiter on their first day. But I stand there for as long as I can to watch something beautiful in the eyes of my boy: his first spiritual practice. 

Spiritual practices are those things that humans embark on that brings a sense of wonder in the life of the practitioner. And there may be nothing more wonder-inducing to a child than pondering how it is that a switch is connected to the light. You can see that the more Evan flips the switch the greater his fascination. The greater the sense of wonder. The greater understanding that his small actions are connected to something beyond himself. The greater the awareness that he and the light are somehow intertwined. And, paradoxically, the more he practices this the more he wants to continue to practice it.

Evan is not at that stage where we adults tend to remain where if we do not understand what we are doing and how it all "works" then we will not continue to practice. On the contrary, it is the sense of not-knowing that drives Evan to practice even more. 

He may not understand electricity or currents or breakers or switches, but he is beginning to understand that there is great joy in just practicing turning the Light on. 

The problem with "fruitfulness"

Many UMC members and leaders these days are using the buzzword of fruitfulness. For a number of reasons fruitfulness is attractive language to a church that is in numeric decline. It also has strong biblical support, it is said that we should bear fruit. 

The problem with the emphasis of fruitfulness is that it is results oriented. If we have a tree in the back yard that is not bearing fruit, then we cut the thing down. Because what good is a fruit bearing tree if it bears no fruit?

Likewise, the assumption goes, what good is a fruit bearing church that bears no fruit?

Rather than having an emphasis on fruitfulness, perhaps we could have an emphasis on faithfulness. 

Sometimes a tree will not bear fruit because it is barren. This does not mean the tree is unfaithful (see the story of Sarah who was barren but faithful).

Focusing on faithfulness also is supported in the scriptures. In fact, we are called to be faithful and it is God through the power of the Holy Spirit produces fruit. If we are focused on bearing fruit than are we taking the role of the Holy Spirit? 

Finally, fruitfulness is another word that I tend to associate with the extrovert in all of us. The past two posts has touched on the need to bring balance to the over-valuing being extroverted in our understanding of our faith. I tend to assume that the image of bearing fruit (fruitfulness) is a verb associated with being extroverted. I mean fruit is an outward appearance on the tree.

No one can see the roots that provide for the fruit. Roots are not sexy. Roots are not fun to talk about. Roots are dirty and roots are unseen. Yet, the introvert side of us all might rather talk about the quality of our roots rather than the production of fruit. 

If we tend to our roots we may not be fruitful, but we are faithful.