Saturday, April 3, 2010 at 8:45 pm

Living in a Saturday World

Posted by Brian Willats | Comments (0) |

In the making of his monumental documentary on the Civil War, filmmaker Ken Burns relates a story surrounding the production's handling of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. As the editing crew put together the sound track to the portion of the film that described the events leading up to that fateful night in Ford's Theater, just as John Wilkes Booth was about to fire that fatal shot, Burns had the tape stopped. For several moments, the production team sat there, contemplating this moment before the course of history would be changed on the evening of Good Friday, April 14, 1865.

We sat there, tears streaming down, realizing that for a while, we could sit there and hold this moment; we could keep it from happening," Burns said. The moment couldn't last forever; work needed to resume. So, Burns said, "we went back to work, and we killed Lincoln, and we went on."

We are in the midst of Easter Weekend. Yesterday was Good Friday, the day of our Lord's death. Tomorrow is Sunday, Easter Sunday, the day of resurrection. It is easy to move from one day to the next. This side of history, we know that, as difficult and disheartening as Good Friday might have been, Sunday was a comin', and so was hope and resurrection.

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Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 10:56 pm

Good Things Running Wild

Posted by Brian Willats | Comments (2) |

G.K. Chesterton is, in a word, "the man." One of the most quoted literary figures in the English language, Chesterton's vast body of work contains numerous gems over which one can chew for quite a while. I've been chewing on this one for some time now. From his famous work Orthodoxy, Chesterton wrote:

And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.

As I think about the Christian life, about the life to which Christ invites us, and as I think about the venture in which many of us on this blog are engaged, the venture of spiritual formation and spiritual disciplines and the like, the quote from Chesterton reminds me again of the trajectory upon which spiritual formation and the disciplines should be set. Rather than discipline for discipline's sake, or an anemic legalism that drains the lifeblood from the faith, the rule and order of Christianity is established for life. The disciplines of the Christian life are established to provide both parameters and a conduit within which one finds life - true life, eternal life, abundant life. Or, as Jesus noted in the Gospels, "springs of living water."

Which leaves me with this question (among many): why don't good things run wilder in my life?

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Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 12:40 am

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Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 7:18 pm

The Spirituality of Descent

Posted by Brian Willats | Comments (2) |

Mike Regele wrote a book some years ago entitled The Death of the Church, an analysis of the contemporary Western church and its prospects for future survival. In the introduction to the book, Regele speaks of what he calls the "Frenchlick error." In the fall of 1979, Regele was invited by the late Dr. Ray Stedman, author and long-time pastor of Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, Calif., on a speaking trip to a conference in Frenchlick, Indiana. Dr. Stedman was one of several speakers at a conference for the staff and leaders of Christian conference centers around the country. One of the other speakers at the conference was a psychologist that Regele describes as "quite interesting and entertaining." Regele had the opportunity to hear this gentleman on several occasions; his messages offered "keys to living life to its fullest and being a truly happy Christian in successful ministry."

As interesting and entertaining as this speaker was, there was also something in his speeches that left Regele uncomfortable. Yet, try as he may, he found himself unable to pinpoint the source of the discomfort in this psychologist's message. He turned to Dr. Stedman for help to distill what was missing or wrong. Dr. Stedman agreed with Regele's observation, but told him to ruminate over the dilemma for a day and see if he could come with the answer on his own. A day of pondering the question produced no satisfactory answer, and Regele returned to Dr. Stedman hat in hand, still seeking an answer. Dr. Stedman finally resolved the quandry with a simple statement - "There is no death in his message."

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Friday, April 16, 2010 at 3:01 pm

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Tuesday, December 29, 2009 at 12:57 am

Home for the Holidays

Posted by Brian Willats | Comments (1) |

Christmas is the time of year when we all try to make it home. Home for the holidays. I can hear someone like Nat King Cole crooning it now: Oh there’s no place like home for the holidays. It is one of the few times of the year when you definitely want to be home. Over the hills and through the woods to Grandmother’s house we go.

The holidays are merely a snapshot of a far deeper longing that resides within each of us, the longing for home. That place where we can kick our feet up and really rest. That place where the contour of our surroundings matches the contour of our souls. Dorothy and Toto were right: there’s place like home.

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Friday, January 15, 2010 at 12:19 am

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 1:05 pm

Beauty and the Digital Age

Posted by Brian Willats | Comments (0) |

In my last post from over a week ago (my, how time flies during the holiday season), I mentioned a book by the late Irish philosopher and poet John O'Donohue, Beauty: Rediscovering the True Sources of Compassion, Serenity and Hope. I've only made it through the first chapter, but I'm already finding that I need to do a re-read before I launch into the next one. It is that rich.

O'Donohue talks about beauty and the spiritual journey and the challenges presented to both by our present digital age. I could summarize what he has said, but that wouldn't do his writing justice, so let me just quote at length:

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Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 3:50 pm

Beauty and the Spiritual Life

Posted by Brian Willats | Comments (2) |

Most of us who are blogging here at Metamorpha have been through the Institute for Spiritual Formation at Biola University in La Mirada, CA. For those of us who went through the practicum sequence to become spiritual directors, we became acquainted with what are known as "beauty projects," a type of spiritual discipline in which an individual engages with and becomes immersed in some form of beauty. That beauty may be in the form of the visual arts, poetry, film, architecture, or simply the beauty of God's creation. For my first beauty project, I visited the Getty Center for both the art, and for the architecture of the place, and Joshua Tree National Park. I never tire of beauty projects.

Frankly, beauty is one of the more ignored aspects of modern evangelical spirituality and worship. Being more "word-centered," we tend to focus on the importance and centrality of truth to the Christian faith. And indeed it is. But truth divorced from beauty might convince a person's mind, but it will never deeply move that person's heart.

The late John O'Donohue, an Irish poet and philosopher, wrote an exquisite book on beauty entitled simply Beauty: The Invisible Embrace. In it, he has this to say about beauty's impact on the human soul:

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Monday, May 10, 2010 at 8:30 pm

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Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 5:20 pm

Desire and Spiritual Formation

Posted by Brian Willats | Comments (4) |

I have some thoughts on the following question, and will post them eventually, but I wanted to throw out the following question to get your thoughts: what role does desire play in the spiritual journey and thus spiritual formation? Is it essential? Is it an impediment? Is it something that must eventually fade away? Perhaps this has already been discussed on this blog (I haven't read all of the past entries) but I would love to get folks' thoughts on this. So, on this edition of "Coffee Talk with Linda Richman" (old SNL Mike Myers sketch), "Discuss!"

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Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 1:09 am

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Friday, October 23, 2009 at 5:46 pm

The Path Before Us

Posted by Brian Willats | Comments (7) |

David Whyte might rival the Dos Equis guy as "the most interesting man in the world." At least he has one of the more interesting jobs around. David Whyte is a British poet who works with corporate America to bring creativity into matters of organizational development and to bring life to corporate types in matters of the soul. In 1994, Whyte published a work with one of the best subtitles in publishing history: The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America. Though not explicitly or even implicitly Christian, the book definitely contains Christian sympathies. At its core, the book offers a simple question and challenge: what do you do when you find that success, however you might define that, is not the balm for your soul that you thought it would be? It is a rich, inviting, insightful book, and I am sure, as I begin my blogging career here at Metamorpha, that I will be reaching into its treasures from time to time to examine another jewel for thought.

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Friday, April 16, 2010 at 2:47 pm

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