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“You always take the long way.” My mom.
With Mothers’ Day a few days away I am reminded of what my mom (and my wife still tells me), I don’t do things the ‘normal’ way.
It use to be that secretly I would regret not doing things the normal way but at this point in my life, if I do things differently, or see things
differently, that is where I am currently at and so.be.it (This does not preclude being respectful and appropriate when I need to.)
A few weeks ago I commented on a book by Mark Buchanan that I am almost finished with about the seasons of life and how Christ is with us in all of them (http://jimkane.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/thursday-thoughts-a-faith-in-and-for-all-seasons/ ) and previous to that I illustrated my history of thinking about adulthood as it related to the seasons of life. (http://jimkane.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/thursday-thoughts-adulthood-and-seasons-of-life/)
In the course of pondering, reading, and even praying about all of this, I have come to a point where I am thinking differently (the long way) about adult life and Christian discipleship and spiritual formation. To be honest I have been thinking about this for several years but Buchanan’s work and, the work of Bruce Miller (Your Church in Rhythm) have brought it into clear focus.
Buchanan gives a great illustration of the relationship between balance and rhythm (and balance does have a place) when he says “I seek balance when I stand up in a kayak. Staying in the boat depends on it. But I seek rhythm when I paddle the kayak. Getting anywhere depends on it. There’s balance needed, too, but a balance that flows out of the rhythm, and often enough the rhythm forces me to extremes, a steep leaning one way or another, so as to keep balance.”
Basically my contrarian attitude and perspective is this: our faith and life must become one of rhythm and not balance. Balance has it’s place to be sure but life and faith has a rhythm (to everything there is a time and season) that must get us ‘somewhere’ which is the place, I assume, where God wants us to go. Life has ebbs and flows and faith, to become a mature faith, must be formed in the rhythm of life – winter, spring, summer, and fall. Christ is present in all of those seasons.
These are my Thursday thoughts.
