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A number of significant Protestant voices since the Reformation have argued that the early Christian writers, under the dualizing influence of Hellenistic philosophy, made the contemplative life preferable to the life of charitable action. Documentation supporting this thesis was readily available, as in the following passage from John Cassian’s Conferences:

As for those works of piety and charity of which you speak, these are necessary in this present life for as long as inequality prevails. Their workings here would not be required were it not for the superabundant numbers of the poor, the needy, and the sick. Those are there because of the iniquity of men who have held for their own private use what the common Creator has made available to all. As long as this inequity rages in the world, these good works will be necessary and valuable to anyone practicing them and they shall yield the reward of an everlasting inheritance to the man of good heart and concerned will.

But all of this will cease in the time to come when equality shall reign, when there shall no longer be the injustice on account of which these good works must be undertaken, when from the multiplicity of what is done here and now everyone shall pass over to the love of God and to the contemplation of things divine. Men seized of the urge to have knowledge of God and to be pure in mind devote all their gathered energies to this one task. While they still live in the corruption of the flesh they give themselves to that service in which they will persevere when that corruption has been laid aside. And already they come in sight of what the Lord and Savior held out when He said, “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God”[1]

Cassian argues charitable action is desirable because of the inequality that exists in this life. In the future, though, inequality will not exist, and therefore charitable action will no longer be required.

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“Every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the things that disturb me most about the way we talk about spirituality and related themes in religious circles today is the way we often create false dichotomies between being and doing, prayer and action, contemplation and missional engagement with the world.

“Oh, she’s a contemplative,” we might say, while on the inside we might also be thinking, “so all she does is sit around and pray all day.”

Or, “He’s an activist… so that means he doesn’t pray very much.”

Or, “She’s a mystic… so that means she’s dangerous and theologically unsound.”

Or, “If we focus too much on spiritual formation, we will neglect evangelism and involvement with the needs of the world.”

“Soul stuff is soft stuff,” this line of thinking goes. “Let the contemplatives (or desert fathers) sit around and gaze at their navels while the activists fly over their heads and get the job done.”

I actually heard a statement like that made from the platform at a leadership conference, and for many reasons I have never forgotten it. First of all, it made me feel embarrassed about who I was—someone who was discovering the presence of God very powerfully in solitude, silence, and contemplation—and someone who was an activist and desperately did not want to believe that that meant “flying over the heads” of the desert mothers and fathers whom I had come to respect so deeply. I was frustrated that a respected leader would use his platform to further cement a false dichotomy that is rooted in so much fear and misunderstanding.

But the fear is real. The activists fear that if contemplatives emphasize prayer and the inner life too much, people will become self-focused and narcissistic and never get anything done. The contemplatives fear that activists don’t pray enough, that they are shallow, and that too much action causes people to become disconnected from the reality of God within. And then because we are afraid of falling into the excesses of one side of this polarity or the other, we subtly or not so subtly dismiss and diminish aspects of the spiritual life that must be held together in tension if our spirituality is to be healthy. 

It is time we get beyond this.

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After seven years of producing Conversations: A Forum for Authentic Transformation, the editors felt it was past time to devote an issue to, well, transformation.

Even after a couple of decades in the limelight, this topic remains relevant and controversial. Just yesterday I was sitting with a friend at a restaurant talking about everything from our families to the Atlanta Falcons. (Perhaps it was the Falcons that made me think about transformation.) When I mentioned how we change in the context of spiritual growth, my friend surprised me by stating flatly, “I don’t think that it [transformation] is possible.”

Now this was not an unplugged friend. He is well trained as a counseling psychologist and a practical theologian. He has pastored several churches, taught in a conservative seminary, and is a gifted teacher in the area of psychotherapy. So I asked him to repeat what he had said.

“I don’t think it is possible for people to transform, to actually become like Jesus. Sorry, but I don’t.”

Hmmm.

As my friend offered evidence for his point, I began to examine my own life. The lyrics to a song from the early days of Christian rock became the background music as he spoke: “If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” After his evidence, my personal examination, and the melody stopped, my left brain began to recount statistics. These statistics detail how Christians and non-Christians look so much alike in categories like divorce rates, domestic violence, charitable contributions, and pornography downloads.

It hit me that this friend and Dallas Willard may be singing a similar song (with slightly different endings). While Dallas strongly believes that real change does happen, they both have been struck by the fact that non-transformation is the elephant in the sanctuary.

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C. S. Lewis once compared world religions to soups—thick soups and clear soups. The “thick” soups bubbled with mystery, matter, and ritual (e.g., ancient mystery religions) while the “clear ” soups blended philosophy, thought, and ethics (e.g., Confucianism). The truest religion, Lewis believed, would be both thick and clear because neither alone could do justice to the fullness of reality. That’s why Lewis sought a religion of sacraments and dogma, body and soul, poetry and proposition.?

Lewis found all this in Christianity. What’s more, Lewis saw Christian transformation in “thick” and “clear” terms too. To “be saved” was something more than just an external pardon by God or an intellectual consent to an idea—what he might call a “clear” approach to this crucial reality. For Lewis, salvation was an inward process involving the transformation of the whole person by the Holy Spirit and leading to nothing less than mystical union with God. In other words, Lewis embraced the ancient Christian doctrine of deification (or theosis) much as it was taught by the likes of St. Basil the Great, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, and St. Maximus the Confessor, and which is still taught today in the Eastern Orthodox Church. This doctrine was neatly expressed by St. Basil in the fourth century when he said that man is nothing less than a creature who has received the order to become god (note the lowercase “g”). Similarly, Lewis asserts in Mere Christianity that the whole purpose of Christianity is to turn people into “new men,” “little Christs,” “sons of God”—even “gods and goddesses.”[1]

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For a few moments I drove alone in the car, heading south from the Benedictine monastery just outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba, where I was leading a retreat. I was on my way to purchase bread and wine for the next day’s Communion service while the retreatants were back at the monastery observing an afternoon of quiet reflection. Some were engaged in prayer walks while others were drawn to the chapel’s embracing silence, and a few strolled along the banks of the gently flowing river bordering the monastery grounds. In the quiet of the car, I began to reflect on what had brought us to this place four times over the past two years.

In part, we were here because of something I read by Sue Monk Kidd many years ago. “We seem to have focused so much on exuberant beginnings and victorious endings that we’ve forgotten about the slow, sometimes tortuous unraveling of God’s grace that takes place in the ‘middle places.’”[1] Those words were embedded in my memory from the first time I read them, yet it would be years before they would ring in my ears once again.

Several years ago, I began to feel a subtle dissatisfaction with the retreats I was leading. Dissatisfaction identified itself in questions: Had participants been able to integrate their spiritual practices with their daily lives? How had their experience affected their way of being with others? Were they aware of the Spirit’s part in life changing moments? Then Kidd’s words returned and gave new focus to my concern. I realized that a retreat leader must be careful not to play to a participant’s desire for exuberant beginnings and victorious endings. Such desire is insufficient at best and escapist at worst. I concluded that spiritual retreat must evoke a maturing spirituality that enables God’s people to live confidently in those “sometimes tortuous middle places,” but to do so means retreat leaders must be prepared to journey along with persons who have sought out the retreat experience.

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I’m rediscovering an old conviction. What I’ve believed for a long time is coming alive with fresh passion; it’s stirring a low-burning flame into a healthy fire. Paul told Timothy to “continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of…” (2 Tim. 3: 14; italics added).

I’ve been continuing, at times unsteadily, in what I learned as a child and have believed to be true for five decades. But only recently has a sincerely accepted belief become a meaningfully sustaining conviction.

From my earliest days, I’ve sensed that the book Søren Kierkegaard once referred to as sixty-six love letters from God is in a class by itself. More than once, my father would skip watching his favorite comedian, Red Skelton, on his weekly television show and spend the evening reading Leviticus. That made no sense to me as a ten-year old kid.

It does now. After 40 years of exploring the insides of people (including myself) to understand what’s going on that deforms us into self-centered, self-protective, self-enhancing bearers of God’s image, I’m coming to look at the Bible with passionately renewed interest. Here’s why. Here’s the old conviction that has recently come alive. Here’s what I see more clearly than ever before: God speaks into our deformed souls more deeply, with more transforming power, and with more lasting impact through the Bible than through any other means.

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Over the years, I’ve discovered something. Maybe you have too. It’s relatively easy (and somewhat enticing) to talk about spiritual formation—the hope of becoming more attuned to God’s work in and around us, the hope of shedding bad habits and self-serving attitudes like so many pounds after the holidays, the hope of experiencing even just a smidge of God’s ever-present, never-failing, nonstop love for us. Yes, it’s easy to talk about it. Just like it’s easy to talk about diets and exercise regimens, New Year’s resolutions, and the like. The hope of becoming something new—something better—is usually the silent driver behind marketing and advertising. Better abs, better hair, better tires, better life, better wife (yes, that’s what my husband asks for). It’s pretty easy to get us imagining our “better selves.” It’s easy to talk about spiritual formation, but it’s so much harder—so much more confusing, requiring so
much more hope—actually to hold myself open to change.

When we’re talking about the possibilities, especially if it relates to what other people should be doing—how they should be transforming—we can talk all day long.

But hope is the most dangerous thing in the world. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but here’s what I mean. I believe most people eventually give up hope. Somewhere along the way they resign themselves to “life as they know it.” Hoping for a better life, a better relationship, a better job, a better retirement, a better church, a better relationship with God has all fallen flat. The striving has stopped; the surviving has begun. Like a drowning victim exhausted from effort, they give up. They stop trying. They stop hoping. It’s just too painful. It never works. If their soul-injuries happened early enough in life, they stopped hoping long before they reached adulthood. They’ve learned better. They may be dutiful soldiers, hard workers, devoted spouses and parents and employees, but inside they do not hope. Their souls ache with the haunting words offered to an incognito Jesus on the road to Emmaus: “But we had hoped…”

Father, it happened again earlier this morning. Driving to my favorite coffee shop, I suddenly began talking out loud about Your love. Tears started rolling down my face, and I sang, “Jesus loves me, this I know,” over and over again. I couldn’t stop crying, and I couldn’t stop singing.
Father, what’s happening to me? What have you been asking Me for these past few weeks?

I’ve wanted to know, to really know that You love me. I believe it, but I long to experience Your love in a way I never have.

Don’t quench My Spirit. Receive Him. He’s offering you fellowship with My Son and Me.

Father, that’s what I want more than anything. But I don’t get it—how can I feel so spiritually in tune one moment, as I did this morning, and so out of tune the next? Yesterday morning I woke up feeling flat, utterly indifferent to the story You’re telling.

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It was a divine coincidence—one of those experiences in life that make you wonder if God likes to play pranks on his children, not to tease us, but to surprise and encourage us with his mysterious workings behind the scenes of our lives.

I received a phone call from a stranger who lived not far from me, telling me he thought he might have a Bible of mine. He said he was about to throw out some books he had kept for years and found my name in one that was an old King James Bible. I had lived in two different states for many years since growing up in Minnesota. And now as an adult I had returned to the area where I grew up, yet had no idea that I had lost the Bible and didn’t miss it. He brought it to me, saying, “I couldn’t throw out a book like the Bible, and something told me I should try to look up the name in the cover.”

Seeing it for the first time was surreal, like a trip back in time. It was my confirmation Bible. I couldn’t believe it. It had my name and the date, 1968, on the title page. It even had my scribbles on the pages where I had drawn during boring church services.

It was given to me in seventh grade, and at about that time I had made several recommitments of my life to Jesus my Savior with no idea of how to serve him as Lord. Looking at that Bible brought to mind my lifelong struggle to make sense of the passages for which my theology didn’t have room.

If you’d like to get in touch with Keith, you can reach him at www.keithmeyer.org. He’d love to hear from you.

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The Christian spiritual journey is a response to God’s invitation to allow grace to transform us. Following the way of Christ, we live the Christian mystery and increasingly reflect the image of God. In his book Surrender to Love, David Benner describes the beginning of this journey as “an encounter with the living God. This encounter may be gradual or it may be sudden. But it will always involve a turning and an awakening.” The Bible records many
conversions or awakenings where God is met in a spectacular way. Generally, however, most involve a non-dramatic first encounter and recurring acts of returning.

Turning toward God suggests that God is the one who has made the first move. It is God who always takes the initiative—who first notices us, lays eyes of love on us, calls us by name, and invites us to join in the unitive fellowship of the Trinity. Our response to this invitation will be but a first step on a lifelong transformational journey of awakening and coming to know God experientially. It is journey of becoming our true self-in-Christ—a journey toward union with God.

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