Stages of growth

Kevin wrote an interesting post on morality, drawing from the work of Lawrence Kohlberg. I came across something similar from a more religious or spiritual angle. Wilkie and Noreen Cannon Au, in there fabulous book called The Discerning Heart describe Friedrich von Hugel's three stages of integrated growth which were published in The Mystical Element of Religion in 1908. The three stages are as follows:

1 - The institutional phase: We believe because we are taught to by those we trust. We draw from tradition, authority and the wisdom of a faith community.

2 - The critical phase: We begin to question through reasoning and argument and want to find out what it really true.

3 - The mystical phase: We believe because of what we have experienced. 'Religion is felt rather than seen or reasoned about, is loved and lived rather than analyzed, is action and power rather than external fact or intellectual verification'.

With Kohlberg's stages, we move from relying on external authority to guide our moral behaviour to critically engaging this authority by the use of reason and come to a place where we behave morally not because someone told us to but because we have deeply internalised what it means to be human together (I'm paraphrasing a bit here!). Similarly, in terms of our faith, we believe because we rely on external authority. But as we grow, we move beyond this, through a phase a questioning and critiquing what we have been told, to a place of deeply internalizing our faith through unique encounters and experiences.

According to Wilkie and Noreen Au, all three of these phases need to be engaged simultaneously in our faith journey. We need to draw from tradition, we need to crititcally engage this tradition and we need to be sensitive to what our own experience of the faith is saying.

Understanding these phases helps us not to be threatened when someone begins to question and critique their faith. This is a crucial part of the faith journey and shouldn't be pushed aside because it's uncomfortable. It seems to be a crucial step towards coming to a place of owning one's faith for oneself.

Haiti and helplessness

I've been shockingly out of touch with the disaster in Haiti. What perhaps woke me up to it was the link on Dan's blog to an article that suggests that this is an opportunity for the US and Canada to stage a military take-over under the guise of aid. Here an extract from the article: "In effect, the U.S. has staged an invasion of Haiti, under the pretext of providing security for humanitarian aid, and in doing so has prevented the delivery of humanitarian aid."

Only time will tell if this is an accurate assessment of the situation, but as I per chance am also reading Arhundathi Roy's The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire I'm finding myself increasingly sceptical of anything the US is involved in. I should be quoting from Roy's book on my blog in the near future.

These things leave me feeling endlessly helpless, but as Roy so aptly states, on confronting 'The Empire': "We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them".

The Sout Project

Nic Paton sent an alert out to some of us who have been involved with the Emerging conversation in South Africa that a new CD called Story was coming out from something called The Sout Project. I checked it out on-line and was very excited by the blurb: “This fresh expression of "world emergent" music has been conceived and recorded in Cape Town, South Africa. While deeply engaged in diverse musical traditions, and oozing creative musicality, "Story" is more than just an album: it represents a vision, woven into song. Eclectic and ecumenical, the music emerges from a spiritual journey which is being shared by many others across the world.”

When I started playing the CD I was initially disappointed. I didn’t resonate with the opening song which used the melody of the old hymn Be thou my vision with a sort of techno make-over. But from there on, I began to be drawn in, particularly with songs like Vine, Aumen and In All Things which included Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans and Sanskrit text and a diverse variety of instruments.

Story asks the question, “Why does the world not change? Why do we keep living by destructive stories?” Its songs call towards unity and reconciliation; a transcendence of all those things that divide us and keep us apart. It’s inclusiveness in terms of both its language use as well as bringing together a diversity of spiritualities inspires thinking beyond the differences towards our common desire for wholeness.

As is spoken in the opening of the CD, “Everything can change. If we learn and live by a new story, beginning today, beginning now, beginning with you and me”. This project may come to play a significant role in contemplative worship experiences which seek to bring together people from across the spectrum towards a God who calls us to an abundance of love and life.

Holiday reading

In South Africa, everything comes to a standstill between the 16th of December and the 5th of January as we enjoy our summer break. A great exodus takes place as thousands of people from Pretoria and Joburg trek down to the South Coast amongst other destinations. Kevin and I annually join this great trek south, to holiday with my family in Port Edward.

Even more than spending time on the beach, a priority during this time is working through a pile of books. My holiday reading started with Ernest Hemmingway’s Islands in the Stream. Although I am barely interested in the themes he writes about and find nothing in common between myself and his characters, I find myself inexplicably drawn into his stories and the lives of the people he creates. I found myself riveted by the 30-odd page description of Thomas Hudson’s young son, David, trying to catch a fish when I don’t like fishing. I was held by the conversations between the down-and-out artist, Thomas Hudson and the prostitute, Honest Lil, in Cuba, even though they made pitiful characters. And the hours of waiting and slow conversation on the ship as Thomas Hudson and his crew pursue the Germans became compelling reading.

I was excited to dip into Rob Bell’s Sex God with the subtitle Exploring the endless connections between sexuality and spirituality. I found the first half really exciting, introducing some new ways of thinking and talking about sexuality. But it seemed to me that from chapter five onwards he fell into rather traditional, stereotypical ideas that I’ve read a thousand times before, and that Bell failed to integrate his new insights in the abstract with the practicalities of lived relationships and human interactions. I’d like to read it again and write a more detailed blog post on where I felt a disconnect occurred between what he was suggesting in the first half of the book and what conclusions he came to in the second half.

I also started Jack Bowen’s The Dream Weaver in which a young boy explores philosophy with the help of a guide. It has a bit of a Sophie’s World feel to it although Bowen unpacks more of the philosophical questions. It’s a great introduction to some hundreds of philosophers from 500BC until today.

Amidst this more thought-provoking reading, I also enjoyed an Agatha Christie and have started on my first of the No. 1 Ladies Detective series by Alexander McCall which describes everyday life in Botswana through the ideas of a lady detective by the name of Mma Ramotswe.

What have you been reading?

2010: Freedom

In a wonderful book by Elizabeth Canham titled A Table of Delight, she writes about how she always felt resistant to the idea of a 'rule of life' or spiritual disciplines. But then she discovered that the word 'rule' comes from the Greek root 'trellis'.

"A trellis provides necessary support for the plant but does not determine the direction it should go. The plant has freedom to grow and, at the same time, the structure it needs to move in a healthy direction".

I loved this as so often rules and discipline are constrictive and directive. I love the idea of a rule acting as a trellis which supports a plant but doesn't control it or tell it where and how it should grow.

I'm beginning to realise there is more freedom in Christ than we can possibly begin to imagine. 2010 is a year in which I hope to embrace this freedom. Happy new year to all my blog readers!

Harrowing

I'm copying this straight over from the Pangani blog where Chris Kamalski has written something that best describes my own year. I hope you don't mind, Chris, but this articulates things better than I ever could!

Chris starts by quoting a poem from Let Your Life Speak, by Parker Palmer.

HARROWING

The plow has savaged this sweet field
Misshapen clods of earth kicked up
Rocks and twisted roots exposed to view
Last year’s growth demolished by the blade.
I have plowed my life this way
Turned over a whole history
Looking for the roots of what went wrong
Until my face is ravaged, furrowed, scarred.

Enough. The job is done.
Whatever’s been uprooted, let it be
Seedbed for the growing that’s to come.
I plowed to unearth last year’s reasons–
The farmer plants to plant a greening season.

Chris then writes:

So much has changed in the past 9 months of growth. I am uprooted in ways beyond my intellectual, emotional, even guttural ability to understand. I am becoming a different sort of person: richer, fuller, clarified. Paradoxically however, the seeds of this growth have happened through confusion, isolation as I am confronted with my cultural perspectives, and a gentle uncovering of my hypocrisy as I live within the mirror that is intentional community.

Although I wasn't living in the same intensity of community as Chris, these words could have been my own. As I read his post I think of how much courage it takes to live through this kind of shift of self, how frightening it can be, but also how liberating and powerful, leading to things beyond our imaginings.

A hat that fits me

I recently came across the most wonderful children's book: Max Lucado's A Hat for Ivan. This book is about ten-year-old Ivan who lives in a village where everyone wears hats that reflect what they are best at. Ivan's father is the hat maker and he makes the perfect hat to fit each person uniquely.

As Ivan approaches the day on which he is to receive his hat, many of his friends give him hats to wear. His music teacher, who has a hat made of paino notes and guitar strings, gives him a music hat. But it looks silly on him. His fireman friend, who wears a big, heavy fire hose hat, gives him a similar one to wear but when Ivan puts it on he falls right over. His friend the baker wears a lovely white bakers hat and gives one to Ivan, but it slips right over his face and while wearing it, Ivan keeps bumping into things. But he feels he must wear these hats so as not to hurt his friends feelings. But he has to keep switching hats as quickly as he can depending on which friend is with him.

Eventually his father finds him in an exhausted heap amongst a pile of hats. His father says to him how wearing other people's hats is tiring, awkward and sometimes they just make you fall over. Then he says, and this is the crux of the book for me:

"Just because someone gives you their hat that doesn't mean you are supposed to wear it. They mean well but they don't know you.

The job of the hat maker is to give you a hat that fits you. Get your hat from the hat maker who will ask, 'What do you really love to do?'"

At the age of thirty I am just beginning to realise that I don't have to wear the hats that everyone gives me. They are well meaning, but they don't know me. Wearing everyone else's hats in order to please them or not to hurt their feelings is tiring, awkward and sometimes I fall over because of it. I'm starting to learn what it means to take off other people's hats and put on my own.