pat loughery

There’s a really good converation happening over at Jesus Creed about spiritual formation (and especially Eastern influences in spiritual formation). I linked to it in yesterday’s link fest, but the ongoing conversation turned up some good nuggets.

When people think of ‘spiritual formation’ they think of a variety of things, usually from some very specific practices – perhaps contemplative prayer, perhaps lectio divina, or spiritual direction.

Here’s what T Freeman says in a comment on that discussion:

We are spiritual beings, and we all get formed a little every day. Everything we do, everything we see, all our experiences and decisions help to form us into what we become. You could also substitute “people” or “a book” or “an idea” for “God” in the above statement and it would also be true. Christian spiritual formation efforts are built on the premise that if we want to be formed over time into people that resemble Christ, we’re going to have to take sensical, pro-active steps (of varioius kinds) to make space for his influence, to practice his way of thinking and acting, and to resist counter-influences without and within. We’re all getting a spiritual formation; it’s just a question of what we’re being formed into. Jesus just doesn’t tend to be as pushy as other influences.

Community, solitude, reading, thinking, eating, fasting, rest, meditation, plain old work, driving–these can all be done so as to pull us further from or in deeper union with Christ. Unfortunately, formation away from Christlikeness will happen rather naturally and without thought or intention, whereas being formed toward Christlikeness usually takes some long-term intentionality, thinking and some effort.

That’s a great summary in my viewpoint.  The thing is, spiritual formation is seen today as ‘optional’, or only for the (super spiritual | new agey | Catholic) types.  But we’re always being formed spiritually, physically, emotionally.  We can choose how we’re formed to a great extent.

The question for spiritual formation is, ‘Do you want to be formed by Oprah, or by punk rock, or by the power of positive thinking, or by Ten Steps groups, or by ESPN’s Baseball tonight, or by keeping up with the Joneses, or by Apple’s commercials on TV, or…’.  What do you want to be formed by?  Why?