Celebration of Discipline book review

Celebration of Discipline

The Book by Richard J. Foster

A Book Review

By Dan McDonald

 

 

 

            Many years ago, friend and former pastor John Boonzaaijer recommended that I read Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster. At the time I put reading the book on a mental “to do” list. A couple of weeks ago I had finished watching a movie, and as I pulled from the mall noticed a Barnes and Noble bookstore across the street. I thought of a couple of things I needed and then spent a few minutes browsing the books and saw Celebration of Discipline and remembered having so many years ago promised myself I would read it. I took it home and began reading it.

            It was different than what I had imagined. I have lived most of my life alone and have never been as disciplined as I ought to be. I imagined that the reason the book was recommended to me was to see how horrible it was that I was undisciplined and this was the book that would help straighten me out. It didn’t take long once I actually started reading it to realize I had completely misunderstood what Foster’s Celebration of Discipline was seeking to encourage. It was not a book about gritting your teeth and using your will power to live a better Christian life. Foster, instead was telling us about the disciplines of a Christian spiritual life. The early church had described those aspects in which one meets with God and is able to pursue intimacy with God as “the disciplines.” It was these areas of life where the Christian can invest him or herself into pursuing growth into a lively spiritual life for which Foster sought to use his pen to encourage us. Far from being a book about overcoming weakness with willpower, it was a book accentuating how it is only as we sense that God is with us and is gracious to us that we begin to pursue him with the joy and vigor likely to make strides in grace. He seeks to promote a pursuit of God based not on willpower but on our understanding that God is with us and is inviting us to participate in his goodness and lovingkindness.

            What are the disciplines? A photograph of the table of contents of Foster’s work shows us that a list of the disciplines he wished to encourage us in using to pursue our knowledge of and friendship with God. He writes of disciplines that mostly take place within us, and then of disciplines that we do but in which we relate to the world around us, and finally he discusses how there are disciplines we do in company with others and in dependence upon others. You may see his table and contents and begin to imagine the scope of his work regarding the spiritual disciplines.

            Foster writes with the wisdom that only comes from handling the subject first hand. He is writing about something he had pursued carefully. As you read the pages you know the author has struggled to learn to do the things he is telling us we need to learn to do others. Foster also has studied writers of several traditions including a wide variety of Protestant perspectives, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox writers on the Christian life. He had read works and draws from their wisdom spanning the modern, medieval, and ancient encouragers regarding “the disciplines”. His work is written with insights that have been shaped both his active pursuit of seeking God through the disciplines and his desire to learn from those who have been recognized through the centuries as insightful guides to those wishing to pursue God through the disciplines..

            In the introduction Foster describes how one of his mentors, Elton Trueblood, had encouraged Foster to write in a way that led readers to know they wanted and needed to read the next chapter. He succeeded in following Trueblood’s advice. There is beauty, practicality, insight, and wisdom distributed to the reader in every chapter. Foster follows Trueblood’s advice and takes it one important step further. When I finished reading Celebration of Discipline I felt as if I had been given a vision of how to pursue living in God’s presence, and that I had been furthermore given the tools to do so. As I finished the final chapter it was if there was yet one more chapter. This one more chapter was the chapter that would be written in my life. What will I do with the tools I have been given? What will I do now that I have been given a vision of what is possible if we give ourselves to knowing God through the disciplines made available to us in the Christian life. The other day I was seeing on Twitter a conversation about how one of the ancient traditions wanted to settle for nothing less in the spiritual life than to pray without ceasing. That may seem beyond us. But I am convinced that Foster’s work sheds light on some of the important ways we can step closer towards the goal of living in fellowship with God, following him, hearing his voice, participating in life in His presence. Not only does this book teach us about some of the ways we can pursue God, this is a work in which the grace of God is so central that we can begin to feel that our God is quietly calling us to come, to hear, to listen, to taste, and to enjoy. We finish the last chapter yearning to now enter the chapter where we take what we have learned and begin to seek God with a greater hope of finding him and of being transformed by him than maybe we ever before dared believe was possible. At least that has been my experience.

Honoring journalists

In Honor of Journalists

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            It is the political season, when political candidates and commenters representing the thoughts of right and left will declare how biased the journalists are. Remember the political candidates are doing that to give incentive to their base and gain more of a hearing from people who haven’t begun listening to their message. In the reality of things, every politician is trying to get the journalist biased for him or her, because they know they need the journalist to spread the news that they are courting the voter with a message and a plan. I happen to think that journalists, like welders, bricklayers, farmers, teachers, and cooks are important to modern life. I advocate getting a local newspaper thrown into your yard like this one I got tossed into my yard today.

My local newspaper – helps me keep informed though I only read a fraction of it

 

            I am indebted to a former journalism student for helping me to gain an appreciation and respect for journalists. He isn’t in journalism now but when I think of journalists I think of him. My life was changed a few years ago, because we shared a common love – ale. We’d get together at a nice pub downtown and have ale and talk about politics and life. We were in different places in life. I was an older guy, the sort who probably did not have many more upwards moves in my career. He was the young guy starting out that wasn’t sure if he would get the upwards moves in life. In those days I was a Libertarian with thoughts, and opinions, but somewhat short on actual facts. I soon realized that although he viewed life from a moderately or sometimes more complete liberal perspective, he was the one who took care to be informed. I began to realize that he was the sort of person who would make a wonderful journalist. As we conversed over our pints of ale, he was one of the most careful listeners with whom I had ever conversed. I found that my tendencies to get fired up and opinionated dissolved whether it was the hops in the fine ale or the friendship offered in one who was as careful to listen as he was to speak. My life began to change because we got together in those days for ale and conversation.

 

Our old hangout – 1^st Street in Tulsa - not far from the center window on the left.

 

            I began to realize that whether life had prepared him to have been able to become a good journalist, if he had so chosen; or if training for journalism had influenced his life – that he had what it took to make a good journalist. That changed how I thought about journalists. I am now not so easily dismayed at journalists. I refuse to believe that most journalists are truth twisters. I am sure, like all of us they have their biases and blind spots as individuals. That is a given I take for all of us. But what’s it take to be a good journalist?

            It takes someone who wants to get the story. Years ago I loved a television show called “Early Edition” about a guy who got tomorrow’s newspaper today from a cat. It was late 90’s fare. O’ I was upset when it was taken off the air. During one stretch, Gary Hobson, the guy that got the newspaper had the beginnings of a promising relationship with a news reporter. The problem was she couldn’t help herself around the paper. She wanted to get the inside scoop, whereas Gary used it to help people in need. As they went their separate ways she said in regards to her own life, “once a news hound; always a news hound.” That is a good reporter. They want to get the news, the scoop, and the story. They want to dig into the soil to discover the buried treasure.

            How does a journalist get the story? As often as not, it is through building relationships. People trust them or imagine they can use them. Sometimes, when a politician says the media is against him, he is looking for a journalist he can shame into carrying his or her water. But in the long run, the politician learns he can’t trust the reporter he can shame because remorse is a fickle friend that easily becomes a resolute enemy. So he learns the best reporter for him to give the news is someone he believes has integrity to handle the story. I follow a few reporters on Twitter, who are embedded with specific candidates. It is interesting to watch how they try to maintain enough distance to not be cheerleaders, while cultivating enough closeness to get the story. In the long run the way they maintain the respect of the audience and the respect of the people from whom they are trying to get the story – in a single word is “integrity.”

            I understand some reporters are better at doing their work with integrity than others. The same is true of farmers, welders, and bricklayers. But I think that a lot of journalists understand that the way they will best build their careers is to cultivate integrity as the medium that stands between the sources for their story and the markets for their stories. Integrity is the only enduring quality that allows a journalist to do their job honestly and faithfully. I hope most journalists agree, and I hope this word of support will encourage them to stand resolute in what they already know.