This is a mislabeled photo of the Berry Brothers – Warren and Ananias, who were considered one of the foremost flash acts in the tap dance world of their time. Flash acts, different than other acts, were known for their acrobatic feats – flips, splits, and leaps, all beyond the imagination of the normal human being.

Case in point:

I distinctly remember my own reaction when I first saw this clip. My entire mental model of what was possible had to shift to accommodate the Berry Brothers.

A mislabeling of a single photo from a google search might seem innocuous. Search a little more and you’ll realize that it’s a mistake. But who has the time? Attention is traded at a premium. Good enough is good enough. If it isn’t important or completely failing, there isn’t enough time to make sure it’s right. What is right, anyway?

In some circles, what is right is getting the outcome you want, without any further consideration. In the tech world, a common ethic has been to move fast and break things. That’s all well and good when you’re the one building the replacement or owning the platform, but would you like that ethic in a house guest, moving fast and breaking the things in your home? I don’t think so.

The bull in a China shop is an old analogy, but applicable here. It doesn’t just apply to the systems we use to work, communicate, travel, or trade. It applies to the ways those systems and our part in them affect the development of individual and communal character. The fragility of the ways we relate, and how that very fragility shapes our formation, is worth considering.

Trust is fragile. Without trustworthy relationships the way we relate to the world shifts dramatically. Distrust is a breeding ground for contempt and anger.

If you think that every rich person must be evil, than anyone blessed with riches becomes suspect. If you think you can’t be honest and be in politics, than our entire political system is undermined. Of course, the stereotypes of the evil corporate titan or the slithering political operative come from real experience – but they can’t be the totality of reality.

Good business people who have achieved a semblance of financial success must exist. Honest politicians, who say what they mean and do what they say must exist. If they didn’t the world would be in a worst place than it is.

The ways we interact with information shapes the way with think about information. Information that is necessary for the development of knowledge, for confidence in choices, and ultimately for peace. After all, we make choices based on what we know, and those choices affect our lives. Consider the person that pursues a particular career or relationship only to find out that what they based their choices on were lies – guarantees of employment, who the other person said they were.

It's one thing to make the wrong assumption. It is a completely different thing to be lied to or manipulated.

From a formation standpoint, systems are organized ways that people have chosen to relate. The choices that set the system in motion may not yet be evident, but someone somewhere, at some point in time, decided that this (whatever this is) should be the way. And, notably, others agreed and repeated the pattern until it wasn’t questioned anymore. That is, until one day, someone years removed from the initial setting of the pattern decided to ask, and maybe act differently. In this view, every individual in the system is like a node – a point of interaction in the system – and they have the power to affect the system on the whole.

The affect may not be seen immediately, nor may it propagate through the system quickly, but a single change at one node cannot help but affect the rest of the system. Nodes react to other nodes, people react to other people. These reactions are the effect of change.

So, how do we build trust in an information sharing environment in which speed is more valuable than engendering trust? Where expressing one’s opinion matters more than the ability to clearly articulate the values upon which those opinions are based? Where winning the argument is more important than establishing trustworthy relationship?

Oral traditions have something to say about this.

During my TED Residency (you can see my talk here), I was charged with articulating how oral traditions function. Using tap dance as the model, I learned about some specific rules that governed the way students and teachers would have to interact for the tradition to work. That is, for an oral tradition to form individuals and groups into the kinds of people who exuded particular values, teachers and students had to interact in particular ways. Here are three:

No Rumors, No Gossip

Imagine a community in which rumors and gossip could not live. I was sitting in the faculty room of a prominent dance studio when a colleague of mine entered the room and said, “Did you hear? Bunny Briggs passed away!” My heart sunk and I was struck with severe cognitive dissonance. I was personally in touch with Bunny, had his phone number, and had recently talked to him. Of course I would know if he had passed away or not. I picked up the phone and called Bunny. Right there and then. He answered. I said, “Hello!” He responded. I told him about the rumor. It was actually the second time he had had to deal with someone thinking he had passed away. We ended our conversation and the rumor was quashed. Right then. Right there.

Every rumor or piece of gossip establishes doubt which breads mistrust in the lines of communication that are designed to do the opposite. We are supposed to communicate truth, what is real, what might be beneficial for others to know, so that their choices can be beneficial to them and others. That is how a thriving community actually functions, and that can’t happen with rumors or gossip in the system.

Only Share What You Know

One of the cornerstone rules in oral histories is to only share what you know. None of this, “I think this is what happened.” Either you know, and you can defend how you know, or you don’t. Defending how you know is like providing your credentials. Being able to say, “I was there,” is a high credential. Being able to say, “I was standing right next to the cat,” or “I was the one they said that to,” is equally as high.

Stories about experiences get told and retold all the time. People remember things differently. If we hold ourselves to the standard of memory in community, we’ll have a pretty good shot of holding a story together. We can check one another for the sake of the how the story shapes the community.

Eliminate Hurry

Lastly, I’ll offer this. Ruthlessly eliminate hurry. There is no need, nor possibility I think, of eliminating speed. But speed itself need not cause so many problems. It is the desire to be faster than we are, or can be, at any situation that causes the most trouble. We can act with speed and without hurry rather than acting under the pressure of speed with hurry. Coming from a place of fulfillment, ease, and comfort allows this shift.

Without a core experience of “okayness” hurry can be the natural output. Rushing to finish the thing that actually needs time is a disaster. Reorganizing your life so that hurry isn’t the normal output is key.

Reorganization might look like intentionally carving out time for doing nothing. Learning that your world will survive without you doing everything to hold it up. Encountering the reality that rest is function of what you rest upon as much as it is a function of the stopping of work.

Finishing the Work

There are more practices, of course, but the core is important. Do we care enough about the things we share to get them right? We won’t always get everything right, but when we do, we can apologize and correct ourselves. There is a pathway toward redemption and reconciliation even when trust is breached.

However, the way we approach the smallest endeavor is a witness to the way we will approach the larger ones. Something as small as the mislabeling of a photo says volumes. It goes the other way, too. If you have taken care to notice the details and work them out, you will be in a good place when the larger responsibilities come. You will be more likely to carry them without haste, with confidence in what you know, and with the ability to avoid destructive patterns.

So much of life is unknown, even unknowable. The current day is not guaranteed, let alone the next day. We plan, set things in motion, and yet have no way of enforcing outcomes. There is a gap between the thing that we desire and it coming to pass. That gap gets filled with effort on our part. But effort alone does not guarantee outcomes. There are simply too many variables at play to be able to guarantee anything.

This is reality, and the reason why pursuits which ensure particular outcomes can devolve into authoritarian or oppressive experiences. Ensuring a particular outcome requires a limiting of possibilities. A limiting of possibilities requires a limiting of choice. A limiting of choice requires internal or external factors that limit those choices.

In this landscape it is a wonder that anyone can develop assurance. Yet, as we come to the close of Psalm 23 – we’re at the last line – we find the writer exuding confidence.

We have journeyed with the writer of Pslam 23 for a number of weeks now. We have experienced a little of the world that he describes. He has described the context of his life – the relationship he has with his Lord, his quality of life, and how things play out in the harder times. This is where he lands.

The two halves of this profound final statement are of course related. Having lived through everything he has described earlier in the psalm, he states his vote of confidence. He is confident of two things specifically – what will be with him where ever he goes, and his position in the cosmic order.

Surely

Imagine for a moment being presented with a question. Something like, “What will happen if you travel toward the north?” Maybe traveling toward the north is known to be a harrowing journey. Your response? Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me as I travel toward to the north.

“Surely” is on the opposite side of the spectrum from “I don’t know.” It is more complete than “I hope.” It is a position of confidence that comes from experience. It is not promissory as much as it is a description of reality.

The goodness and mercy that is being described here are not abstractions. They are gifts that come from a person. The same personal Lord – the good shepherd – that the writer has been journeying with throughout the psalm shows up here. It is the same good shepherd that lead the writer to rest and refreshment; walked with the writer through the valley of the shadow of death; that set the table for the writer and anointed their head with oil. They have history together. They know one another. It is precisely from this position that the writer can say, “Surely…”

The other thing to notice here is that the person of action shifts. Instead of being lead (as with the green pasture or still waters), or seemingly walking alone (as with the valley of the shadow of death), now the writer is being followed. They are living out their days while goodness and mercy are following them. Here is the completion of trust. Having experienced the assurance of relationship with the good shepherd, we can know that the goodness and mercy of the shepherd will follow us as we go.

For Ever

But surely there is a time limit to all of this. There must be an end. All good things come to an end, after all, right? Not for our writer. He says that goodness and mercy will follow him all the days of his life. How many days does that leave out? None. No days. There won’t be a day in which goodness and mercy are not following our writer. Goodness and mercy will never be found distracted in their following, unable to follow, or somehow impeded in their following of our writer.

If that weren’t enough, our writer is so sure of his relational position with his Lord that he closes his discourse with this: That he will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. There are at least two ways to think about this statement. One is material, while the other is relational.

Living in a house brings with it some very real material gains. There is shelter from the elements, protection from outside forces. While your door may be wide open, you can count on the roof and walls of your house to provide the necessary security for the family to thrive. You can always close the door when necessary.

There is a significant relational component to living in someone’s house. In the old sense of the word, you become part of their family. This is still evident in the Arabic language – which I grew up hearing, and have some functional experience with. In at least the Lebanese dialect of Arabic, if you are to ask someone for their last name, you could either ask, “Whose house are you from?” or “What is your family’s name?” The two are interchangeable.

So, to dwell in the house of the Lord is to live as a member of the family of the Lord. There are very real things that come with being a part of a particular family. Not only would you receive access to the material resources of the family – the house. But you would also receive access to the material resources of the family members of that house. Their personal protection, care, encouragement, and most importantly, love. You might find yourself taking on the personality and ways of the most prominent figures of that family. With the experience of intimacy and proximity as is found living in the same house with the same people this taking on is hard to avoid.

What about us?

It should be noted that our personal experience of being in certain houses might not lead us to an easy vision of what the house of the Lord would be like. The gap between our lived reality and the proposed reality of the writer of Psalm 23 is something we all must contend with. Yet, the proposition stands. Here is someone saying that this kind of life exists, that this is their lived experience, that they would want nothing more than to live in the house of the Lord forever.

The proposition is not in conflict with our realities, but rather stands as an invitation. Would we be willing to consider what it might be like to live in the world that the writer of Psalm 23 describes? Might we be willing to let go of our expectations, given our past experiences, for the sake of such a life? If we are, then the possibility of something new – something really new – is there for us.

This is what being engaged in our own spiritual formation looks like.

As we turn, and begin to work out what having a Lord as a shepherd might look like for us, or what being led to lie down in green pastures might be like, our lives will begin to reshape themselves. Our choices will change, our thinking will change, and in time what naturally comes out of us will change. Our words, actions, desires, hopes and dreams, will all transform as we transition from a life organized by the physical world around us to a life organized by the world of the shepherd as described by the writer in Psalm 23.

I have experienced a lot of truth to the power of perspective. Not in the way that I can willfully shift my perspective to experience a new life, but in experiencing a perspective shift and the consequential new life that comes from it.

While the actual shift in perspective isn’t something I can necessarily control, something that I have found to be within my control is my focus. What are the kinds of thoughts that I give attention to? I’ve found that if I focus on the negative aspects of a situation they will seem to grow. The hardness gets harder, the weightiness gets heavier, and feeling of being stuck grows. Things bind up. However, if I focus on the positive aspects of a situation, even a challenging situation, those positive aspects will seem to grow. The hardness gets softer, the weightiness gets lighter, and I feel a little more mobile. Things loosen up. Not that the reality of the situation has necessarily changed, but how I am in it has.

Notably this is aligned with the desire, which I have, to know the truth of the situation. What is really happening here? I want to know. I don’t want to blind myself with contrived positivity, nor flagrant catastrophizing. I want to know what is really going on.

This is an important idea when thinking about the next proposition of Psalm 23.

We’re back to hearing from writer about the things that his Lord, the good shepherd does for him. Two of the lines have to do with receiving – and receiving something good and profound. And the last line has to do with the state that naturally flows from that experience. Let us take each line, one at a time.

A Table

First, the table. Have you ever felt you had to wait before receiving something good. Before I can rest, I have to finish this work. Before I can eat, I have to complete a task. Before I can be at ease, I need the danger I’m experiencing to subside. Before I can experience a life of plenty, or even enough, I need the source of this point of stress to go away.

The real or perceived threats to our lives can have the same effect – that is they prevent us from communing with the good shepherd and experiencing the life that he might have for us. The fear of what is, or what might be, keeps us from seeing another reality. It might be true that war is surrounding us, and there is a tangible threat to our life. It might also be true that there is an opportunity to be a beacon of peace in the midst of that threat – that you might recognize, rejoice in, and leverage for the sake of good, the provisions of life that you maintain for every day you are not taken as a target. The opportunity, recognition, rejoicing, and leverage would be beyond us if we were consumed with the real threat that stood before us.

Before My Enemies

What would it look like to be invited for dinner while all your enemies were present? Could you enjoy the meal? Again, it isn’t the expectation that you will host yourself for dinner, but rather that you are on the receiving end of this invitation. The thing that is striking here is that the invitation doesn’t wait for the enemies to be away. On the contrary, the table is set in the presence of your enemies. Can you imagine if you take an invitation to dine and in the same place – although maybe not at the same table – was everyone who ever betrayed you, treated you with malice or contempt, or wished or caused you pain? Oof, now that’s a guest list.

My first inclination would be to run away. I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with any of those cats – except maybe for my host. My host could convince me, that if I kept my attention on him, I could actually enjoy the meal and his company.

Anointing

Anointing is an old word. It speaks to being set apart, chosen, in particular religious contexts explicitly for God’s purposes. The anointing of one’s head is symbolic not only of the purpose but is part of the preparation for the purpose. If you have been chosen for a particular journey – a new job, project, or role in life (like parent or caretaker), perhaps – there is preparation to get you ready for the new role. Some of that happens on the job so to speak. The anointing of one’s head would be the thing that happens before the gig even starts.

Notably, here we see again that this isn’t something that we are to do ourselves. It is done to us. We are chosen by a chooser. We are set apart by someone who draws us apart from everything else that is going on.

My Cup Runs Over

Sitting at a table, ready to eat, being chosen and set apart from everyone and everything else for the sake of the One who is love – this is the scene. It’s deeply personal and quite intimate. It’s about you. Not the cat next to you one way or the other. If we can bear with this intimacy and the love that flows through it, the vision that is presented is a cup that is running over. Plainly, we don’t have enough space in us to contain the amount of love that comes with this relationship.

Here’s another thing to consider. A cup that overflows as it is continually being filled, naturally causes a mess. The water goes everywhere. It surely doesn’t stay in the cup. It is not a tidy or controlled situation. It is an overflow. We might think that receiving love as this activity that must be done just so, but this is not the case here. The receipt of love, in this case at least, is an overflow – an unending pouring into, until what is being poured in has nowhere to go but out again, spilling over into every situation, activity, and relationship we might find ourselves in.

I guess the question is, can we bear to sit at this table and have that cup?

As we continue this journey through Psalm 23, it strikes me that the next line plunges us into the reality of living in this kind of world.

We have crossed the halfway point of this psalm (at least according to the traditional verse numbering) and we see a shift in focus. The writer brings into the field of view the world around them. All this relationship, resting, restoring, and leading doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens in a world – one generally organized against the very things the writer is describing as possible.

There are four parts to this verse, and each brings a particular reality to life.

The valley of the shadow of death is an image that seems to linger in popular culture. It speaks to the trials and tribulations that can come upon any individual. With some similarity to the dark night of the soul, walking through the valley of the shadow of death is something like remaining alive but experiencing something close to death. You are still walking, after all, albeit in death’s shadow. The valley is often presented in opposition to the mountain top. While the mountain top is the high place, where your vision is clear, and the light of the sun always hits you, the valley is the low place, where you are surrounded, and cast in darkness. There might be loss that brings about grief, darkness that clouds or restricts vision, or pain that compounds the agony of isolation.

There is plenty of evil to fear while walking the valley of the shadow of death. What evil is lurking, unseen in the darkness? What pain could we be susceptible to? What loss may be around the corner?

Yet, the writer unequivocally states that they will fear no evil. Saying something like that requires some backup. Having walked through a few valleys myself, I imagine myself asking this writer, “No evil? Really? Why? Why will you fear no evil?”

In my own life, evil isn’t only personal. It seems to come by extension through relationships, too. I’m fine but my friend is going through it. That means I’m going through it. I’m okay, but three communities I’m connected to are suffering. Well, then I’m suffering, too. Of course, my experience does not have the same degree that the individuals directly affected are experiencing in whatever they are going through. But it is enough. It is enough to know the fear that comes in back of the suffering – even anticipated. It is enough to wonder at a reality in which fear of evil doesn’t exist, especially in the valley of the shadow of death. So, I might ask again, “How?”

The writer doubles back to the central tenant of his experience of the world he is describing. His Lord, the good shepherd, is with him.

“Okay,” we might say, “we get that you dig this cat. You’ve gotten some good things from Him – a life of plenty, rest, restoration, and training in the ways of righteousness. But you also got this journey through the valley of the shadow of death. Surely your good shepherd can’t be that good?”

I imagine the writer slowly looking at me after I present this question, as if to say, “You really don’t know, do you?” Not with any condescension or malice, but with a curious sense of pity. Of course, I would hold no pity for myself, thinking I know better. Yet, I am still curious about what they might say.

“Let me tell you why this cat puts all my fears to bed,” the writer might respond. “He’s got two things that he carries that give me comfort. He’s got a rod and a staff.”

Before I go any further it should be mentioned that I’ve had a hard time with this line for most of my life because of a simple framing that is actually incorrect. It goes something like this. Rods and staffs are tools of correction and God corrects those in His care. Correction by a rod or staff sounds like it would hurt. Therefor correction hurts. Therefor God’s correction hurts. But the writer in Psalm 23 said that they are comforted by God’s rod and staff, so I must be comforted by this kind of corrective pain. I must be comfortable with pain.

While I have some thoughts as to why such a teaching may be popularized and become pervasive, I won’t venture to conjecture here. It is enough to say that this is simply a wrong teaching.

Instead, the rod and staff were real tools of shepherds from the time of the writer. The rod was a short blunt instrument used by a shepherd to protect sheep from violent predators. It was effectively a weapon to fend of wolves and other such evils from defenseless sheep. Protection can bring comfort. Knowing someone is willing and able to use the force necessary to protect you, especially when evil abounds and you feel defenseless, is comforting.

The complimentary staff was a longer, often thinner wooden instrument that the shepherd used to guide their sheep. Sheep have a reputation of being simple creatures, often getting themselves lost or in precarious situations when left to their own devices. The staff is guidance – notably not violent or painful correction. Guidance can bring comfort. Knowing that someone knows the way and is willing to nudge us in the right direction, especially in the darkness of the valley, is comforting.

The valley of the shadow of death is a reality. It shows up differently for different folks, but always presents similar challenges. In this way it does less to compare the severity of individual valleys, than acknowledge their vast variety. Through acknowledgment we can begin to experiment with navigating such valleys. Does having experienced a life a plenty change our disposition while in a valley? Yes. Does having rested and been restored change how we experience a valley? Yes. Does having had training in the paths of righteousness change the way we might approach the valley? Yes. Does who we are with in our valleys actually make a difference? Yes.

And this is the key. It’s not that the valley of the shadow of death doesn’t exist or shall not come upon those who find themselves with the good shepherd. Such is the reality of living in a world which is organized towards evil in some very specific and hard-to-change ways. Rather, those who find themselves in the company of the good shepherd have a categorically different experience of this world and its valleys.

Happen upon one of these cats and you might find yourself asking them, “How?”

Are you one of the many who are living lives of lack? There is too little time. There isn’t enough provision, even for what we might consider basic needs. There is loneliness from too few meaningful relationships.

These are sides of the same coin. They both send us into a mode of existence that requires interruption. That interruption normally comes in the form of ceasing. Just stop.

Think for moment about what is leading you. What are you following?

What kind of life might it lead you into?

Does the order look something like what the writer of the 23^rd Psalm describes?

Does your shepherd take you into a life without lack? Do they guide you into rest in the midst of plenty, then refreshment and restoration?

These are important things to ponder. The vision of a particular kind of life is important in answering some of these important questions.

Life after all is what we are talking about. That is the totality of you. Your complete experiences, the beliefs you are willing to act on as true – even without all the evidence or facts – your interactions with others and your environment is just the start. There are the goals you extend and work towards achieving. There are the ways in which you pursue those goals. There are the affect and consequences of choices that you make along the way. There are the joys and challenges you face when other’s choices affect you. This all begins to paint a picture of what a life is.

As we begin to dig into the meat of Psalm 23 we find that the writer has spent the opening few lines setting the scene. The writer hasn’t gotten to any real action yet. We know they have a shepherd and we know who the shepherd is. We know that they are experiencing a particular kind of life and we know what some of that looks like. We have come to know that along this journey it is the writer’s shepherd who has restored their soul.

The writer is describing a kind of complete restoration. This is not just physical, mental, relational, or even strictly spiritual restoration. Since it would be possible to have a willing spirit and an unwilling body. I keep coming back to the idea of the soul as the wrapper of the person thanks to Dallas Willard. The soul is a part in and of itself and the wrapper that encompasses every other part of the person. When the soul is restored it speaks to the restoration of every other part as well.

Well, what then? Celebration? Skipping off into the sunset? Maybe, there would enough cause for both. But the writer of this psalm has a different idea. The writer describes the way he will now go, and for what purpose.

Again we have leading. The writer is not doing the leading, finding, or otherwise way making on this path. Rather he is allowing himself to be led by the trustworthy shepherd in the paths of righteousness.

Righteousness is one of those foundational words that gets defined with itself sometimes. I like the Merriam Webster Dictionary definition. It says that righteousness is acting in accord with divine or moral law: free from guilt or sin. Another way to say it is that righteousness is having good standing with God.

The writer of the psalm doesn’t get into what this looks like – the “how” of it all. In a sense the Bible might be described in its totality as an unfolding answering of the question of how we might live a righteous life. Here we get one clue – we are led.

The other side of the coin is the ultimate purpose of such a life. While I happen to believe that a righteous life – a life with God – is the best possible life one can have, it might be jarring to hear the writer say that he is being led in righteous paths for the sake of his shepherd’s name.

This brings up the relationship between what we follow and how we show up in the world. Whether we like it or not, we are representatives of what we follow. We represent what we follow in two primary ways.

One is words. Many of us do a lot of talking or writing, or sharing of posts online. These are mostly word-based. Through words we share our specific beliefs, desires, preferences, what we are thinking about, and the vision of life we are working towards.

The other way is through physical actions. Through actions we work to bring about the reality we envision for ourselves. We work towards experiencing loving relationships, a fulfilling job, and a pleasant home for example. These all take action to come about. If we follow a more material vision of life, our life will reflect that. If we follow a more human-centric vision of life, our life will reflect that.

What, or who, we are following shows up in our words and actions. The more we are immersed in the reality of what or who we are following, the more that reality will come out through us. It is inevitable. Ultimately we might imagine becoming the kind of person for whom our reality and the reality of what or who we are following is exactly the same. So immersed in their world are we that when someone else comes into our world, they will end up encountering the reality of what or who we follow.

This immersion obviously changes us as well.

This is precisely what the writer of Psalm 23 is envisioning. That our own change is representative of the reality expressed by the shepherd we are following. That change is also a data point for others of the reality in question. Both our own change and the public expression of our new life has direct impact on the reputation of the shepherd for others.

After all, some of the most profound learning happening through modeling, and some of the most profound questions have to do with the reputation of unseen things.

“Is God good?” For example, is a question that can be asked because of a questionable reputation. Alternatively, “Can you show me what God can do?” Is a question that desires visible modeling as to the reality of God. While, “I’ll believe it when I see it,” is the expression of a desire that’s a little more dug in.

We might say that this is all well and good. But our imagination might be hard stretched to think of a shepherd who is trustworthy enough that their idea of righteousness, their leading, and their name’s sake can somehow be best for us as well.

Journeying with a shepherd outside of the context of love will indeed lead to a multitude of evils. However, the opposite is equally true. Journeying with a God who is love, will lead to a multitude of good – living in the paths of righteousness and a life reflective of the name of God.

I grew up in a culture that was performance oriented, to the exclusion of the person. I burnt out attempting to conform to the values and organization of that culture. It didn’t really matter who you were, you could be disregarded or discarded. The way to over come that threat was to become the “best.” But “the best” was a moving target.

It took me years of heartache to realize that very few people could define what the best was, and I had given up my own definition to others. My burnout was the opportunity I needed to interrogate my personal definition – what I wanted my life to be organized around, and how to do that.

The 23^rd Psalm had something to say about this.

The formation of a spirit is a kind of compounding thing. It comes from training – the process of shaping and reshaping. In his book on praying, Richard Foster proposes the idea that if we haven’t practiced a particular kind of prayer in the small things, it will be difficult for us to know what to do when bigger things are on the line. The bigger things being the times when we may more clearly realize we need someone else’s help…even God’s.

Small things first. Then, big things. This echoes the idea of Jesus when he says, “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.” (Luke 16:10 KJV). Small things matter.

Let me propose to you then, that the one who has found a way to reconcile their desires to something beyond their desires will experience rest differently than the one whose life is wrapped up in the fulfillment of their desires.

It makes sense then that Psalm 23 introduces the relationship that governs the experience of rest first, that of the good shepherd. This is what the individual’s desires are being reconciled to. It then describes what happens to the desires – they are fulfilled in a life without lack. Well, what happens next?

Rest.

The experience of rest that is described in the second line of Psalm 23 is not only the ceasing of work. It is that, but is also more than that. It is the kind of rest that comes when there is no pull on the heart of the person. Consider this:

A sheep that is hungry, if found in a green pasture, will likely be found eating, not lying down.

The kind of rest we might envision is the kind of rest we experience when we are full. Full of whatever we might have been needing. Full from food and drink. Full from friendship. Full from shelter and clothing. Full from a loving family. Full from completing a task. Full from completing a journey. Full.

This kind of fullness releases us from having to be primed for action. Particularly action that is poised to fulfill our desires. We can stop. We can rest. Even when surrounded by temptations of fulfillment – food, connection, protection – none of these evil in and of themselves – we need not be pulled by them, organized around them, or eventually consumed by them.

Let’s return to the idea that formation happens in a kind of order – even if it is cyclical. Who we follow leads to a particular experience of life. Following the good shepherd leads to a life without lack. That life plays itself out in other areas. A life without lack transforms our ability to rest.

Wait, I missed something important.

You may have missed it, too. The writer of Psalm 23 doubles down on the shepherd idea in this second line. They don’t say, “I have this life without lack, now I can chill.” They say, in my experience of this life, I am led to chill by my shepherd – and chill in the middle of a field of plenty.

There is an aspect of teaching in the experience of rest that is important to acknowledge. So immersed has humanity been in the idea that we must do things to survive, that a ceasing from that doing is comparable to abdicating our responsibility. How could you rest when we don’t have enough to survive? How could you rest when the world is crumbling around you? How could you really rest when you have to act for anything to happen?

The idea of rest that is proposed here is profound, counter intuitive for most, and most clearly expressed in Jesus Christ’s invitation to His easy yoke. In this invitation, Jesus says something like, “Come and learn from me how to have a life without a heavy burden.”

How do we get there?

The things that happen in the process of teaching are personal to each individual. After all, we all have different things that we need to learn to move from where we are and into a greater experience of the kind of life that is being proposed here. For me, it was a complete renovation of my relationship to achievement. For someone else, it might be an experience of stopping work without guilt. Still, for others it might be a lifting of the responsibility of the world from their shoulders.

These experiences have a greater possibility of occurring when we begin to engage in the process of our formation consciously. In this process we can interrogate who we have been shepherded by. We can consider the amount of trust we have with the current shepherd we’ve given our lives to. We can purposefully engage with conversations and activities for the sake of the person we are aiming to become.

Instead of getting bounced around by the drama of life, the drama of life can be the natural outcome of attempting to live a particular life. If that life is worthwhile as a goal, so too will be the drama. Who knows? We might be so inspired as to willingly bring the drama upon ourselves because the alternative would be the abdication of our vision of the life we could have.

That life is one in which we are with someone who cares deeply for our person (a good shepherd); one in which we don’t experience lack (thanks to reconciled wants); one in which we are led to lay down and experience rest (even in the midst of plenty).

And if you can believe it, there is more to come.

Desire is a motivating energy that drives action toward a particular outcome. To desire something is to want it to come about for you.

Desire is related to the part of the person we call the will. The human will is the seat of our desires. The will is the part of the person that energizes action. To will a particular outcome is to consciously direct your energies toward – or sometimes feel directed towards – that outcome.

Some propositions of life see desires in a negative light. To want is in a way fundamentally wrong, selfish, self-centered, and the cause of much of the destruction in the world. These same propositions work towards the elimination of desire in the person.

Other propositions of life see desires as the natural makeup of the human. Our desires are the things we should aim to fulfill. They are the most authentic expression of the self and so denial of desire is a denial of the self. These propositions aim to provide tools to the person for the fulfillment of their desires.

Whether inherently good, inherently evil, or something else, how we think about our desires is foundational to our lives.

My Journey

I’ve had my own journey through a few different propositions and am writing this week to share that journey. Maybe some of it will resonate.

In the Bible there are a few chunks of text that seem to be over-arching, almost summary texts, of the proposition of life that is being presented. They answer the question, “What is life in the Kingdom of God really like?” The portion commonly referred to as the Sermon on the Mount in the book of Matthew is one of them. The 23^rd Psalm is another one.

The first line of the 23^rd Psalm seems to address the issue of want when it says,

I’ve known and carried this line with me for a long time. When I first began to work through what it meant, I always took the first half of the line for granted. I considered myself a follower of The LORD in question, so, no need to dig further. It was the idea of not wanting that caught my attention.

Pursuing a life in the performing arts is filled with potential wants. There is want for the next gig, the next paycheck, the love of the audience, the critic’s favor, and the respect of your fellow performers, for example. You might have heard some performers deal with these wants in various ways by saying, “I’m an artist, I don’t care what the audience thinks,” or “I don’t read what the critics say about my work.”

When I first encountered these wants – and they were intense for me – I went to the 23^rd Psalm for guidance. As I read it, I thought it was saying something like, “I should be okay if I don’t get the things I want.” So, I tried to take my failures, my lack of achievement, with some kind of “keep calm and carry on” attitude. I often would not give myself space to fully express the depth of the desire nor the pain of the failure in question. After all, I should be okay even if I don’t get what I want, right?

You can imagine what I looked like after years of this. There was so much that I had glossed over and didn’t really work through, I finally gave in to a different interpretation. If I couldn’t get what I wanted – it wasn’t happening after all – maybe I should eliminate want altogether. I didn’t think there was anything particularly immoral in wanting a successful career or a family for example, but I was at a loss. I was done trying to express any personal wants, thinking that they simply lead to the pain of failure. I didn’t want to want anymore. I found justification in the 23^rd Psalm – the older version hits more forcefully saying, “Thou shalt not want.”

Okay, great, I won’t want. Oh, but I did, and had wants. I had preferences, and desires, both in the short and long term. I had cultivated the muscle of specifically discerning and expressing wants in my craft as a choreographer and director. I didn’t understand how a life could work if I didn’t put effort towards the things that were set upon my heart. I hoped for particular outcomes. If I didn’t at least express my personal desires, I would inevitably succumb to the wills of those around me. I learned that, too, through experience, and I didn’t want that.

There was someone I was willing to succumb to – God. And so for a few years I could be found saying, “I only want what God wants.” In every situation, in every aspect of my life, especially the hard ones, I gave up my own will to the attempt to discern God’s in the moment. If pushed I would say something like, “I don’t want anything. I just want what God wants.”

This was okay, and seemed to work for a while. It was like stepping back and resting my wanter for a moment. Life felt a little lighter. I didn’t feel burdened by my own desires or trying to bring them to life. But there was something missing. The engagement of my own will was missing. My will was directed in the right direction, but not specific. This was good, but incomplete. For every opportunity to engage my will, I would say, “I don’t know, let’s see what happens.” I abdicated my responsibility. I needed specificity. After all, it is in the small things, the particulars, that an idea actually takes shape.

My Discovery

The reconciliation came when I learned two things. First, I couldn’t take the first half of Psalm 23 for granted. The relational nature of the proposition is key to the entire thing. Second, that a clearer meaning of the second half of the line in the Psalm had to do with the connection between want and lack.

I should not want, turns into I will not be found wanting, turns into I will not experience want, turns into I will not experience lack. Without lack, I will have no reason to want. How can this happen? It happens in the context of my relationship with The LORD. The context is my life being shepherded by The LORD.

Are there other options? Of course there are. My life could be shepherded by whatever desires I have. My life could be shepherded by the things that I want to get out of this life. Of course, every life is in some ways shepherded by these things.

However, a life shepherded solely by individual desire has the potential to be hurtful because of its self-centered focus. Imagine someone bent on loving you, without any consideration for your person in the matter. Love? Good. No consideration for you? Not good.

In contrast, a life shepherded by another life is fundamentally relational. It says that the relationship is what matters first. Activities and outcomes are secondary to what is happening between the people in the relationship. Given that I am a person who is sensitive to their own desires living in a world that often requires particular activities and outcomes this is a massive paradigm shift. What kind of relationship can set the tone for this shift?

The relationship must be based on an expectation of fulfillment. I am being led by someone for whom my person, my life, and who I become is more important than any single activity or outcome. In being led by such a person I can expect to live a life in which I do not experience lack. The activities and outcomes reconcile themselves to the vision of my life in the eyes of the person shepherding me – not my own.

In this context the trust I have of the shepherd is key. In the context of high trust, it will be easy for me to entrust the desires that I sense active in my will to the shepherd. I entrust the process to a person that I trust – not a set of rules, values, or principles.

Who is this shepherd that I feel so comfortable entrusting my life to? Are they the kind of shepherd that leaves their sheep for wolves? Are they the kind of shepherd that doesn’t know how to care for their sheep? Or are they the kind of shepherd that protects and guides, whose voice is clear to me, and who is good and trustworthy?

Our conception of these things will dramatically alter the shape of our lives. A fulfilling life is not about denying our own desires or achieving them. Rather, it is reconciling them to the process of formation in the context of relationship. It is setting who you become above any particular desire, and the person guiding you above yourself. Whether to want or not to want isn’t actually the question. It is, rather, who can you entrust your wants to?

Imaging for a moment you are in a room. The room is an unequivocable mess. Everything is everywhere. You decide in a particular moment of unrest that you must organize this room. In the midst of organizing some things are thrown away, some things are moved around, and some things are put away in a place out of your eye’s immediate view. Consider what it might be like to revisit this room a few months later. I propose that of all the things that have been put away, their pull on you would be diminished. You might not even remember them all.

Imagine for a moment that you are in training. You have decided to honor a deep desire to become an archer – one of considerable skill, say with a prospect of becoming an Olympian. This is an arduous process. You aren’t at your goal yet – far from it – but you are working towards it. There are specific things that you are focusing on in training. There are a few things that you know you will have to attend to even after what you are working on now is part of your skill set. You will have to wait for that time to come around. It feels like a never-ending journey. Learn this, then there is something else to learn. Yet, over time you can see your strength, stability, aim, and ability to hit the target where you want all increase.

These three analogies all aim to bring to light a part of some of what happens in the process of formation. There is the moment of being captured by a vision to such a degree that you simply leave what you have behind. There is the intentional reorganization of one’s life for the sake of a particular vision. There is the process of training to become a different kind of person. These aren’t everything, but they are a part of it. Of these analogies the one that we will explore here is the idea of putting things away.

I first encountered this idea while reading the letter to the Ephesians, in the Bible, the writing of which is attributed to Paul of Tarsus. While talking about what it is like to be transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ – a basic proposition of transformation for Paul – Paul writes, “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”

Bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking are not easy things to step away from, especially if they have been cultivated, practiced, or normalized. And yet, this is the advice. Let these things be put away from you. Allow these things to be placed away from you. Put them in a drawer, behind a door, in the tiny compartment under the desk. Put them in a place that minimizes their pull on you – away from you. And, stay away from them.

Paul goes further, as if to say putting something away is not enough. We need things – ideas, ways, visions – that we can put in place of all the things that we have put away. Here are the replacements then: be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving. Paul doubles down on the topic of forgiving, as if to know that the practice of forgiveness requires a model. How forgiving must we be? In the same manner and to the same extent that God has forgiven you. That is, of course, a phenomenal standard to aim towards, and does its own work within the person who is disposed to take it on as such an aim.

What does this actually look like in real life?

It is important to have a vision for the “how” of all of this. In your own life, for your own person, what does putting something away look like? It might look like avoiding something by literally moving yourself away from it – a conversation, a place, even a person. It might look like turning and walking in a different direction – from a particular situation or aim. It might look like allowing a thought to pass through one’s mind without holding it for contemplation – allowing a particular cultivated thought life to be put away. There are so many “how’s” that most processes feel abstract when described.

Abstract ideas like putting something away from you are meant to become concrete on the individual level. What does putting something away look like for you? This is the reason trustworthy guides, teachers, coaches, and fellow travelers are so important. When trying to implement an idea, the details have to correspond to the unique person that is doing the implementation.

Guides, teachers, and coaches all serve different roles as people who have wisdom through knowledge. They have gone before, and may be able to impart some direction that helps us avoid particular mistakes common to the pursuit we are on.

Fellow travelers can also impart direction, but from a position of comparing notes. All we need is a little experience to be able to compare notes. Maybe we’ve tried putting things away and have some knowledge that we can share. We may not have years behind us, multiple cases, or even some recognized authority. But our personal experience may be of value to our friends – and vice versa. This kind of sharing apart from the individual benefit actually builds a friendship.

Whether we’re pursuing this work with guides, teachers, coaches, or friends the idea that your application of the idea will look like what it needs to look like for you is important. Ultimately it is the work that you do to bring an idea to life in your own life that matters the most. It is this work that is key to the process of transformation. Without it putting something away from you has no power. It will forever remain a nice idea – a theory of change – without actual teeth. For the sake of the possibility of change, I hope that isn’t the case.

A framework like this, while not complete – the expressed embodiment of tap dance is always more than the theory of a framework – is important for many reasons. It offers opportunity for educators to understand the multiple points of entry into Tap Dance Land – there are at least five. These points of entry can translate into inspiration for students with different learning styles or predispositions. For example, if a student hears melodies more quickly than recognizes movement, it would be better to sing the step to them first, instead of continually repeating the names of the movements expecting the student to lock in. These areas of knowledge can help bring to the surface stumbling blocks in learning as students advance. For example, as rhythms become more complex, a lack of knowledge of how rhythm works generally will prevent the student of progressing, regardless of their proficiency in other areas of knowledge in Tap Dance Land.

These are just a few examples of how defining areas of knowledge directly translate into real life experience. Have knowledge? Your ability to teach clearly, concisely, and with authority is evident. Lack knowledge? Your ability to teach clearly, concisely, and with authority will be sorely undermined regardless of your desire to do so.

Before saying anymore, I must remind myself of the definition of knowledge that I carry. Knowledge is interactive relationship. With a thing, it is working out, through action, how that thing works. It is experimenting to understand how the thing changes under different circumstances. With a person, it is being with them, interacting with them, collaborating with them, such that you begin to know the person. In both cases, we begin to learn of a kind of essence the thing or person. We might call this their character.

In order to progress in any pursuit, we must have this kind of knowledge. However, there are areas of pursuit that have been pursued with a lack of knowledge. The output of such pursuits is nothing short of distortion.

While in the tap dance company TiDii, every member was given a homework assignment by Savion Glover to talk to a tap dancer about a classic step by Jimmy Slyde. I thought the smartest thing to do was call up Jimmy Slyde and talk to him. It was his step after all. Slyde wasn’t the easiest to get a hold of, but I made the call and he answered. When I asked about how he thought about his step, he didn’t have much to say. There was no technical trick, conceptual insight, or other nugget of wisdom. It was the only time in my life that Slyde, an otherwise endless well of wisdom, didn’t come through with something I could chew on. When reporting back, everybody else in the company had some profound insight from there conversation. Here I was, having talked to the cat himself, with nothing.

I recount that story to say that there are different ways for persons to interact, and therefore develop knowledge. There is also the separate skill of translating between those different ways for the sake of teaching and learning. The dancer who has embodied a particular way through a craft will not be required to explain themselves having proven their knowledge in performance. While the history professor, for example, will be required to explain themselves continually because their interaction is more often with the written word than a physical expression of it. However, if there are two history professors with a speciality in the weapons of the American civil war, for instance, the one who had interacted with the weaponry in real life – knowledge – would be in a dramatically different position as a teacher than the one who hadn’t. Jimmy Slyde had all the physical interaction with the craft he needed to create a relationship with an audience and express his artistic statements through tap dance. That was enough for him – and me, too.

If Slyde didn’t have that knowledge a number of things could happen. The lack of knowledge can lead to a stagnation of ability, an inability to hang (as they say), and potentially a strategy of success that is based on something other than knowledge – like leverage perhaps.

This idea of centering interactive relationship spills over into the area of spiritual formation in a number of ways. When it comes to the reality of the world, our aims, and how we intend to get there, what is it that we really know?

Our ability to intentionally gain knowledge is tied to our ability to realistically see ourselves and the chasm between where we are and where we want to go. Once we become aware of this gap, who we trust and what we are willing to experiment with begin to clarify. Without knowledge of the gap from a personal or communal formation standpoint, there will be no need for pursuit. Without specificity around who (or what) we trust and what we are willing to experiment with, we will be flailing in the joys and trials of life.

What is it that you are willing to act on as if it were true? That is what you believe, specifically and with detail. What are you willing to experiment with? That is what you are willing to put on the line for the sake of the thing that you believe. For example, say that someone says they want to practice generosity, but are not willing to risk much in the way of giving. This person will not learn much in their journey for an unwillingness to experiment. Alternatively, say that someone is not very specific about what they believe, but are willing to make big choices and changes in the direction of their general beliefs. This person will not learn much for lack of specificity.

Specificity and willingness are both required to gain knowledge. Without specificity you won’t know what you are trying to work out. Without willingness everything will remain theory for there will be no place to work it out. Without both you may find yourself experiencing the same kinds of things repeatedly, and notably, experiencing them in the same way. Change will be hard to come by. Transformation will feel unreachable.

The real point here is that knowledge is actually attainable. Wherever you are starting from you can start with this: Take a particular claim that you say you believe in. Observe your actions. Are they reflective of that stated belief? If yes, move on to the next one. Once you find a stated belief that your actions don’t reflect, you have identified your starting point. No need to condemn yourself for the hypocrisy. You are on the journey toward knowledge. Hypocrisy, generally missing the mark in some cases, is bound to be found. If we didn’t expect this, we would need to consider ourselves already perfect – definitely not the case for me.

This is the start of the process for gaining knowledge. The alternative is to remain disengaged from the process, remaining in whatever state of knowledge one is in and dealing with the world from that position. While change provides its own set of challenges to our person, it is no more or less challenging than holding a particular position and battling reality from there.

I only can hope that the pursuit of knowledge is one that you might find inspiring. Speaking from personal experience, the alternative is neither easier nor more effective, and ultimately lands you in a state of lack. Lacking the knowledge you might need to work through what is before you.

I’m not happy. This was a time in my life that things weren’t going the way I thought they should have been going. There was grief in the loss of friendships – the pain and confusion that comes along with such things, and yes, anger. I was wanting for someone to hear me – to know that my voice in all this mattered, too. My world had been turned upside down, and I was not happy about it.

There was a particular energy that came along with all this. It was new to me at the time. It came from way down deep. It was a lot. I decided to put it towards my dancing. It became the fuel of the expression I found in tap dance during that time.

Anger. Take that energy and pound it into the floor.

Anger. Take that feeling and use it to move your body.

Anger. Take that fuel and dance until you’re too tired to be angry anymore.

Given the context, dancing it out was not a bad idea. If I hurt anyone, it would be me. That felt safer than expressing the anger I had more publicly. It would be more than 20 years later before I would share these stories publicly in the award-winning documentary short film Identity, and the live show Rising to the Tap (upon which the short film is based). Anger doesn’t naturally rise up in me when I re-tell the stories – that’s a telling sign.

Anger is…

My experience of anger is tiring. It’s almost like a sugar high. A flood of energy comes from down deep, flows through the entire body – every inch of it – and then dissipates, leaving the body to rest and recuperate.

I don’t know the actual chemical reaction that happens in the body – be it adrenaline or cortisol or some other chemical. I do know that it can be quick, blinding, and leaves one to put the pieces back together on their own.

The blinding nature of anger is interesting. Fits of rage, folks saying, “I don’t know what came over me,” and the like, indicate anger’s ability to go from the spirit of a person directly to the body, skipping the mind, or any other faculty in the person that would prevent its expression. While it may be possible to remain aware of one’s words and actions while angry it seems to be the less likely scenario.

It is this same characteristic that begs the question, “Do I trust myself to be angry?” That is, do I trust myself to still do what is good and right while fueled by anger? An important question, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I had been able to channel my pain and anger into my dancing. This, one might say, is one way art makes hard things bearable, even good. But I was hurting myself in the meantime. The power with which I would hit the floor, the kind of energy that pulsed through my body, both wore me down. Beautiful? Maybe. Good? Definitely not.

But it was easy. What else was I going to do with all this stuff that was inside me? Expressing how I felt was the easiest thing. There was too much to sit and work through. There was too much to piece apart. Just get it out. Use the fuel. Just try to do good with it. Thank God I had a form of practice in which I could take it and make something of it.

But there was a problem. Being a one-trick wonder wasn’t where I was aiming as a dancer. I am an artist after all, and part of being an artist is having a voice that doesn’t only say one thing. Imagine coming to show and performance after performance is an expression of anger. Maybe that works for some, but not for me. I got tired of being angry. I didn’t want that to be the only fuel I could tap into. Yet, having made of habit of going there – remembering the pain, grief, and confusion – it was hard to go anywhere else.

The amount of time and concerted effort it took for me to learn to attach to other emotions like joy was comical. Joy felt categorically different. Instead of this intense and overwhelming energy there was calm. Instead of a mandate towards action there was an invitation. Instead of blinding focus required for safety there was the opportunity of stillness and a broader vision. I didn’t know what to do with any of these at first. It was all foreign.

An Invitation to Ease

One of the biggest lessons happened during a practice session in Boston. I was in the back room of a local dance studio working on a step. The step had all the attributes of an angry step – lots of sounds, plenty of motion, flurries of notes, dynamics on the loud side. But as I practiced, it felt easy. There wasn’t the fuel like before. Nothing was welling up inside of me that required expression in the step, and yet the step was happening. I was confused. It doesn’t work this way. This shouldn’t be happening.

One of the ways I used to measure the value of a set was the amount of energy it took to bring to life. And anger was the quickest fuel for that energy. It felt like this one wasn’t taking any energy, and yet showed up without a problem.

My confusion was set to rest when I heard a deep, booming voice, come from behind me saying, “Yeah…easy…” It was Jimmy Slyde. The wise grandfather of the tap dance community had heard me and walked in. The studio was a local haunt of his and he was known to make seemingly random visits. But as with most things Jimmy Slyde, the randomness of it all was more timed than one would realize, and the timing seemed to always be good.

“Yeah…easy…”

I stopped, and turned, saying, “Is that right? It feels too easy.”

“That’s the point,” he replied, “it’s supposed to be easy.”

In an instant I had permission to chase a new feeling. Instead of pointing towards resistance and leaning on anger as the fuel to get me through, I could discover another way.

This of course would require a kind of reorganization of my practice – the way I approached steps, technique, what I practiced, and even the music I listened to would all have to change. It required me to decide to put away anger, too. Not that it couldn’t show up now and then…but it was not the mode which would undergird my practice, craft, or expressions. If the feeling I had while practicing that step in that back room in Boston was possible everywhere else, I wanted that. If a practice filled with ease was possible, I would be willing to put away anger.

I had stumbled upon the knowledge that a practice of ease was indeed possible, but doubted. It was confirmed by someone I knew and trusted. Now it was up to me to continue to pursue it.

You know we’re not just talking about tap dancing, right?

The only way this was possible for me was because I had a personal connection with a generation of tap dancers that practiced before the advent of digital markets and platforms. The greatest shift and challenge to the tap dancers I learned from was from stage to television and film. Some made the shift well, others did not.

The tap dancers I learned from had an experience of music, performance, the market, and the craft that were all categorically different than mine. Their experience would be completely foreign to the generation of dancers that have come after me.

Imagine a time when every music venue played jazz. Imagine every live concert including a big band, singer, comic, and tap dance act. Post Modern Jukebox is the closest thing we have today, and they’re missing the comic.

But that’s the thing. I suspect there is 1% of the people who would see a PMJ concert and miss the comic. The only reason I would miss it, is because I knew folks who told me what the experience could have been. They new what had been lost and gave me a vision for it. I in turn have had the responsibility to do what I can to reimagine that vision and bring it to life. But that’s just tap dancing.

What about culture in general. Whenever I teach my oral tradition workshop, I talk about the intergenerational tension that arises when teenagers begin to listen to different kinds of music than their parents. The change in musical preferences is not simply aesthetic. It is a signal that the teenager is differentiating themselves. I’m no longer like you. I’m like me. Their musical tastes normally coincide with connecting with a particular friend group, fashion choices, and new language.

In a market culture that serves up new music and fashion faster than a new generation can be born it’s easy for the teen to disregard their parent’s music, fashion, and language. Add the ideal of self-expression, and the impact of parents on their children, other than to facilitate their self-expression, is diminished. Gained in this is potential of the child – experimentation, discovery, wonder. Lost in this are the ways in which families grow intergenerationally. The teen throws out their parents influence while differentiating, never to reconnect. The parents feel no responsibility to the teen once the teen “grows up.”

Without a sense of what could be a different way, this disconnection between generations becomes the norm. It becomes reinforced in any systematized teaching on parental expectations, teen life studies, and more. It is what people expect to happen, prepare for, and ultimately become a part of creating.

What is lost?

What is lost is a pattern of life in which the teen is supported through the differentiating process but their parents. What is lost is an organization of the family in which the teen always feels safe to return home. What is lost is an organization in which whole families interact as deeply connected units supporting the mutual growth of their children.

I know the example of a family is not always the best, as not everyone comes from families of origin that are models of loving environments. But just because our initial model had flaws (some severe), don’t mean we break the mechanism. In fact, where the family is disregarded, there is a loss of one of the best mechanisms for the sharing, learning, and experiencing of intimate, personal, charitable, love. Where the idea of a family is regarded, albeit not present, there is a way of working towards re-instituting the kind of good relationships found in families – with considerable benefit.

There are two considerations here. First is for the person, like me in Tap Dance Land, who has experienced the shift and knows what has been lost. Second is for the person who hasn’t experienced the shift, but has a sense of something missing. Those who are captured by the current climate will likely remain captured until one of the two considerations cross their path.

For the person who knows that something has been lost, I offer you an opportunity. You have been gifted with a jewel – a way of life that you know is possible and have seen to be good. The jewel – a pearl of great price, maybe – is now yours to share with others. Do not give it away right away. Rather, share it generously and observe the response of others. Some will walk by this glorious jewel and not understand the excitement you have in holding it and sharing it. Others will take some curiosity, but eventually consider the jewel out of their own reach, saying, “Not for me.” Still others will ask question after question. Where did you find it? How did you polish it? What does it feel like to carry it? How much does it weigh?

For each question that is asked and answered, the curious person is given a clearer vision of what they are bearing witness to, what it might be like to have it themselves, and how they might get a jewel of their own. This is what it is like to plant a vision in the heart of another soul. To shape the pursuit of that person towards a different kind of life – one that isn’t visible to them. You get to do this.

For the person who has a sense that something is missing, you get to journey. I beg you, do not settle. Contend with the disturbance in your heart that says, “Something isn’t quite right here.” Maybe it’s obvious. Maybe it’s quirky. Maybe it only shows up in particular scenarios. Do not give up on the gift of the question. Your seeking will reap great rewards. You may happen upon someone who knows what has been lost. You may be the one to discover that a simple shift in one direction or another is all that may be needed to completely transform your life.

In your seeking, you might discover fellow seekers. There will be others who are carrying similar questions. Those who in their daily lives are also seeking for that something they feel is missing. Generously compare notes. Encourage one another. The journey of a seeker can be lonesome – your question is yours after all. But I can promise you that the experience of discovery that is awaiting you if you endure is like nothing you will ever have experienced before. It will be akin to a naked encounter with reality – enlivening, paradigm-shifting, life changing.

In every generation there is a particular thing that feels lost. In every generation there is a particular challenge to the cosmic good that requires expression through humanity for life. If we know or are seeking to find what this is, we are working towards the good. We are doing what we can to bring the hidden nature of love to the forefront.

To be spiritual…

Let’s explore spirituality first. In Dallas Willard’s parts of the person, the center of a person is their spirit. Willard also defines “spirit” as unbodily personal power. These two ideas are key in beginning to contemplate propositions of the spiritual world. Every person has a spirit. It is central to their being. It is personal to them. It is the power that initiates action in particular directions. The shape of their spirit when taken as a whole might be considered the person’s character.

We might say of someone that their actions or reactions are characteristic of them or maybe someone else. I have some characteristics that remind folk of my father, for example. I have others that that remind folk of my mother.

To be spiritual is an aspect of being human. However, because the spiritual life is unseen, it can be hidden. Instead of seeing the spiritual landscape we are more easily confronted with the physical or material world. We attempt to frame problems and solutions with material things. A focus on the body or even the mind as the center of the person undermines our ability to engage in our formation in a fundamental manner. Disregarding our own spirit is something we do to our own detriment. In doing so we might find ourselves continually battling particular characteristics or desires (the shape of our spirit) without knowing how to change them, or believing that their change is even possible.

If we acknowledge that we do indeed have a spirit, separate from yet integrated with our minds and our bodies, then we can ask, “What is the best shape of my spirit?” Another way to ask this question is, “How might I live?”

This question sets a particular pursuit in motion. This is the greatest pursuit anyone can undertake – the seeking and discovery of reality and the possibility of life. This is what all the religions, propositions of faith, cultural norms, scientific discoveries, even governments, have all attempted solve.

If we undertake life as a problem to solve, we will find that it is a multivariable – complex – problem. For all our abilities to see and know, there remains quite a bit that is unobservable and unknowable. We don’t have enough time to know everything. Our field of view isn’t wide enough to see everything. The wisdom of the generations is required to help us. With wisdom that has stood the test of time we need not start from scratch with every generation. Rather we can build upon the experience of the generation before. But this only works if the wisdom we are passing on is specific.

To be Religious

Being religious is to subscribe to a set of specific propositions that define reality, the good life, the character of a good person, and ways and means to achieve that character and life. Being religious is to organize your life around these propositions for the sake of the experiencing them as your personal reality. It is sad that the term “religion” seems to have come to only refer to organized religion. That is religion that has a book (or record), institutions, and even some kind of public power associated with it.

There is plenty of disorganized religion that is ascribed to. In fact, the religion of Christianity began as a disorganized religion. One person, doing supernatural things, teaching clearly about how those things were more evident of reality than the normal organization of life, and empowering a small band to experience this reality, was how it all started. Jesus built his teaching on prior revelations of God and fulfilled those revelations. His death on the cross was proof of a life of love. His resurrection was proof that everything he had shared about his Father, his own position, and the Kingdom of Heaven was true. To follow Jesus was an invitation, not an imposition.

The current mix of disorganized religions look similar. There are individuals doing seemingly supernatural things – even if that supernatural thing is simply explaining what is happening in our world. They are teaching about how they are able to do the things they can do. Their propositions are built upon the mix of beliefs that the common culture has swam in.

Followers of such leaders – even followers that piece together their own religion of sorts – subscribe to a definition of good and evil. They have strong convictions about what is right or wrong. They have ways of organizing their life for the sake of experiencing the propositions of the belief system they are following. Be it a path toward enlightenment, or a particular social justice, they have all the attributes of religion without the book (prior record), institution, or public power being associated with them.

It should be noted that while religion catches much warranted blame for violence over human history. These disorganized religions also show expressions of violence when their belief system is contested.

Since much of what is disorganized religion today is nascent, there is less common language – although you may find pockets where shared language is being formed. There is less common vision – although pockets of common vision and a sense of intersectionality across these religions is part of what seems to be forming.

There is one key distinction between those who subscribe to a particular religious tradition and those who find themselves taking on aspects of the disorganized religions that fill the void. Those who ascribe themselves to a particular religion contend with the connection between their life and the propositions of the religion they are following. Those who do not subscribe to a particular religion seem to feel free from that kind of contention.

In reality there is no freedom from what we believe. Whether organized or disorganized, what we think about the world, our own pursuits, and the ways and means of achievement, deeply form the life we live. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be what we believe. We would have no willingness to act on them as if they were true, and so they would carry no power to affect our life. What we believe is integral to our life, so there is no escaping it.

Part of this integration is what we believe about the unseen aspects of life – the spiritual. If we acknowledge the existence of unbodily personal power, then we must contend with what shape this power takes. If we come to desire the change of the shape we currently have, we must contend with the propositions of transformation. If we contend with propositions, we must contend with the specificity of things. In the end it is the differences between the propositions that give them their shape rather than the similarities.

I’m standing by the wall when another tap dancer comes up to me and asks, “So, Andrew, are you a tap dancer or a hoofer?” Consider this analogous question: Are you a Christian or disciple of Jesus? In each case, the two terms mean the same thing. But they have come to mean different things to different people in different places. So now there is a hair to split, and a line to be drawn. Which one are you? The more general and commonly referenced, or the more specific, inside lingo, and intense?

To describe the number of thoughts that went through my mind at the posing of this question would take an immersion in tap dance history, the local New York tap dance community, and me revealing the tap dancer’s name – none of which I intend to do here. I share this anecdote only as an example of how charged the question of who we are can be.

The question of identity – how we describe who we are – has been at the heart of my journey. I talk about it and teach about it. Having grown up in a Lebanese family, in Canada and the United States, with feet in the commercial dance studio culture and the tap dance community, singular defining terms often used to describe identity never quite worked for me.

I’ve already shared about how labels are shortcuts to trust or distrust, a way to impose social pressure, and may not be as helpful as we think when it comes to change. This is especially true if we have decided to engage with our own spiritual formation journey. The focus of a journey of spiritual formation are the things that are changing, the context in which this change happens, and who we are with when changing, rather than the identities that we have held on to to know who we are. Along the journey, we will find that the labels are simply buckets, holding a number of characteristics, some of which we will want to retain, and some of which we will want to be rid of.

Instead of focusing on the labels (a function of history, lineage, or pursuit), we might focus on some other aspect of our lives to find out who we are. A fairly obvious one might our actions. If we turn our attention here, we have to contend with this statement: “You are what you do.” This holds a fair amount of truth in that our actions – whatever we do – bear witness to the inner world from which they come.

If our actions are one window into our inner life it would be good to have a way to visualize the connection between these visible actions and the landscape of our inner being. What I’ve found to be most helpful, I first discovered in Dallas Willard’s book, Renovation of the Heart. It is derived from a teaching of Jesus Christ found in the book of Matthew. I teach a more complete version of this in the Spiritual Formation for Artists Course and The Easy Yoke. It is the basis of how I think about my own spiritual formation and the clearest model I’ve found to visual the inner landscape of the person.

Here we go.

Consider a series of concentric circles. Each circle holds a particular aspect of the person. An action originates at the center of the circles and works itself through every part of the person before emerging in the physical world. We don’t have the same amount or kind of access to what is in every circle.

In the innermost circle is your spirit. Will or heart may be used as well. The three terms are effectively interchangeable. They all represent the same thing – the energy that initiates action. The direction of this initiating energy is described as desire – not in a negative or positive sense, but simply in a sense of wanting. In a profound sense, our actions are initiated in a direction towards our wants. Notably and most importantly, we do not have direct access to our spirit.

In the second circle is our mind. Here we find our thoughts and emotions. Thoughts and emotions are found together because they are profoundly linked. How we think affect our emotions, and our emotions often come with a few thoughts behind them. We do have direct access to our mind, which means that we can observe and engage directly in the manipulation of our thoughts and emotions. We can think about our thinking and begin to think differently. We can experiment here and in experimenting, we find one doorway into our inner world.

The third circle is our body. Our bodies are the mechanism by which our inner landscape becomes manifest in the physical world. Movement and language all express through our bodies. Our bodies also carry things. They carry the physical responses to past experiences. They carry the habitual activities that they have taken on over the years. Notable in this circle is the ability for an action to originate in the center of our person, skip our mind, and work its way to our body, in an instant. This is the beauty of the power of the body – to execute based on our organization without the requirement of conscious oversight.

The fourth circle is our soul. The soul is a profound part of the person, the topic of writing across the millennia. In this model the soul is also considered the wrapper. It is what holds all the parts of the person together. Notably, social relationships are found inside this circle – a visualization of the profound impact our social relationships have on the person we are.

From the center, then through each concentric circle, the energy which initiates an action navigates the inner landscape of the person before coming into physical reality – a witness of the landscape it has just traversed.

This landscape exists inside every one of us. In each of us, it has been formed in unique and particular ways. When we engage in our own spiritual formation, we accept an invitation to explore our inner landscape. This exploration is the stuff of adventure – harrowing, calling for bravery and endurance, full of wonder and challenge. This is the journey of spiritual formation.

When I say that spiritual formation is all about you, this is the you that I’m talking about.

On final thought. When we consider the journey of formation of a person it may be easy to get wrapped up in one aspect of the person. Maybe we lean too heavily on the the formation of our minds or bodies – aspects of our person to which we have more direct access. It is important to consider the person – your person – as a whole, when considering your journey. The model is here to provide a kind of map, with doors of entry for engagement and directions to find certain things. But the unit of measurement is the whole person. You are the whole you, not any singular part.

Only children have a reputation. It is said that they think that everything revolves around them. The reputation, or rather stereotype has a bit of truth in it. That truth is born out of the reality that, in the best of cases, only children get more attention than kids with siblings. This attention can cause at least two things to begin to form. They operate in an environment in which they know that what they do matters. Their actions bring immediate responses from the family (positive or negative), and there isn’t anyone else to ease the responsibility. There are no siblings to blame.

Take an only child and put them in a group and they might expect similar dynamics. Might.

This expectation has colored the reputation of only children often as a negative. They are selfish, or worse self-centered. It took me a while to piece apart the difference between being selfish and being self-centered. I even wrote about it in a Note last season. I bring this up because, if thinking about ourselves, or working on ourselves are seen as selfish acts, and selfishness is bad, then we may run into some issues when it comes to spiritual formation. Especially when a major part of spiritual formation is the matter of considering ourselves.

Spiritual formation is about you. It is you that gets one. You don’t get someone else’s, and someone else won’t get yours – although there is plenty of interaction and influence between folk. At the end of the day, you have your spiritual formation and that is the person you have become. There isn’t any getting around that. You are the central character, you have the leading role, and you are on the hero’s journey. Your spiritual formation is all about you.

This is the other side of the coin. No one lives outside of relationship. Whether with others, their environment, even with ourselves, relationship is at the heart of our individual lives. Now, it might sound like we have a problem. “Spiritual formation is all about the individual (you),” and “Relationship (that is interacting with someone or something) is at the heart of an individual’s life,” sound like mutually exclusive statements. If spiritual formation is all about me, shouldn’t that lead to self-centeredness? If relationship is at the heart of my life, how can spiritual formation be all about me?

Reconciliation here is found in two ideas. The first is that individuals require feedback. Self reflection only gets us so far in our consideration of ourselves. Here are a few examples from my own life:

• A few years ago, I asked a group of friends to send me three words that came to mind when they thought of me. I still return to that list sometimes when I have days when I feel cloudy.

• I have a dear friend who I call up every now and again to ask, is this true about me? In a world that consistently trying to tell us things about ourselves without consideration for us, this friend is a God-send (they know who they are).

• The more intimate the relationship, the more that is true about us comes out. Every close relationship I have ever had has revealed things about me that I hadn’t realized before. The closer the relationship the deeper the thing is that is revealed.

With this in mind, there is a question about the kind of relationship that is conducive to the journey of spiritual formation. Given the ways and aims proposed by Jesus Christ (as I mentioned in last week’s note, ways and aims diverge depending on who you follow) that relationship can be summed up in one word: love. That is, the will to good for the beloved. It doesn’t matter whether we look at the individual (someone who gives and receives love easily) or the relationship (the expression of the easily given and received love), love is central to the kind of spiritual transformation I am describing here.

Spiritual formation acknowledges that at the center of the person is a spirit. You and I have a spirit. The Dallas Willard definition of spirit is unbodily personal power. This power is the part of us that enlivens us to action. It has a particular shape. It has been formed over the course of our lives, and therefore enlivens us to particular kinds of action. Whether directed towards goodness or evil, our spirit is what (literally at the heart of the matter) propels us into the world in a particular kind of way.

Here, the proposition of spiritual transformation – literally the changing of our spirit – is that how we show up, what we would want to do, what we ultimately do, and even how we leave any particular situation could change. If we look around the world, even our own corner of the world, we may find that there are quite a few things we might want to change. The process of spiritual transformation is different than other propositions. It is hyper local – you change, nothing else, really, until you think about everything that would change if you really changed. It is foundational – it is not behavior modification, something that always runs the risk of reverting. Because of love, it is not an imposition, unlike social pressure or legislation. Much good can come from the protection afforded through legislation and the changes made through behavior modification, but spiritual transformation is different.

One of the quirks of spiritual formation is that it may not be attempted directly and be successful. I will not get far waking up one day and saying, “I’m going to be more generous,” and expect a change in my disposition just from affirming my desire. I cannot change my will by force of will. I may give a little more in certain areas, maybe while still feeling resistant. After some time, I might snap back to being tight-fisted with my provision – a loss of will power will likely be to blame. It will take a deeper shift to make generosity an easy act – something I don’t think about.

Indirectly, becoming more generous might have something to do with feeling cared for, experiencing a sense of abundance, having more than one needs, or being relieved of the worry for provision. These may be addressed more specifically – addressing the development of generosity as a character trait indirectly. But how? There are four key relationships.

• Teacher – those in our lives who guide us in a particular way of seeing, hearing, moving, touching, thinking, or believing. We take the role of the student and learn from them.

• Friendship – those in our lives with whom we share a common vision and care for one another. We take the role of fellow practitioners in our endeavors of life, comparing notes, sharing resources, and encouraging one another.

• Family – those we feel connected to particularly across generations. Our families are the ones who have played an intimate role in our earliest formation, and we may do likewise for those in our care. We take the role of shaper tasked with receiving wisdom from past generations and gifting those in our care with the revelations we’ve also been given and experienced throughout our own lives – all to the best of our abilities.

• God/Reality – the underlying, absolute, and consistent nature of reality. We take on the role of explorer, seeking to know, and discovering bits of reality along the way – as they are revealed to us.

These are all formative relationships that shape us in ways much more profoundly than we might expect. The one that I’m going to focus on today is that of a teacher. The most intimate teaching context is that of an apprenticeship. It is just you and your teacher. They get to know you and you get to know them. We might assume this is a learning context for the sake of skill – as in, I apprentice with a blacksmith to learn how to blacksmith – but there is so much more. In learning the trade of blacksmithing we will also have to learn about the reality of the how metal works, the power of heat, what can and can’t happen to different metals at different temperatures. We may also have to learn about how to deal with clients, negotiating, how honesty works in the marketplace, and what it means to have a reputation (whatever that reputation might be). We might find ourselves in a community of blacksmiths who have a common view of the craft, and how it informs reality. We might even have come from or establish a family line of blacksmiths.

In this approach to learning we find a recognizable truth. The practice is inseparable from the people involved, who are inseparable from they’re spiritual formation. Change one’s spiritual formation and the entirety of the organization of life around which this craft exists, and even the craft itself, all shift. Infused with love both individually and relationally and the entire ecosystem becomes fundamentally different – and here the ecosystem is simply a group of individuals relating to one another.

The impact of a shift in a single person’s spiritual formation is immeasurable. It isn’t just around measurable metrics like number of times I did or did not do a particular thing. Rather it is about the kind of shift that shows up in one’s ability to endure, fortitude of thought, what they contend for and how, discernment in times of confusion, and effectively in their choices about the organization of their life.

No one else can live out such things other than the person being transformed. No one can engage in the process of transformation other than the person who wants to be transformed. No one can have the impact that such a transformation provides other than the person being transformed. It really is all about you.

As if in a movie, the game play is interrupted just as the winners are to be discovered. Oprah walks onto the stage and begins one of her signature inspirational speeches. You know the ones. There is something about every contestant being a winner for just getting this far. There is something about honoring the time and effort each contestant has spent. There is even something about how hard it must have been to get as far as they’ve gotten. Then there is a turn.

“Instead of announcing the winners,” Oprah begins, “we are going to award everyone here a prize.” She continues, “Not just the contestants, but the audience members, too. Even you,” as she looks directly into the camera, “watching on television or online. You all get a prize.”

The confusion and suspense builds. Oprah is known for these kinds of seemingly outrageous moments of giving, but this seems different.

She sets the stage, “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” the crowd replies.

Turning and pointing as to make it even more personal Oprah begins to say excitedly, “You get a spiritual formation! You get a spiritual formation! You get a spiritual formation!”

Can you imagine the scene. After all the things we chase after have been chased; after all the possible achievements have been achieved or not; even in the observing of others with proximity or from a distance; there is still something that we all get. And we get this thing no matter who we are, nor the circumstance, scenario, or context we might find ourselves in.

We all get a spiritual formation. Immediately, especially if the language is new, there will be a question here. What, exactly, is a spiritual formation? A spiritual formation is both an outcome and a process. It is the final outcome of a person’s life – who they ultimately become. It is also the thing that is happening throughout the life of a person. In every moment, every individual person is becoming a particular kind of person. All their parts – personality, environment, beliefs, desires, social relationships, mind, body, and spirit – are continually interacting and forming. All the part ultimately become a particular kind of person – notably measured at the level of the whole person. This is a person’s spiritual formation.

Well then, where does it happen? Spiritual formation happens in the entirety of our lives. It happens in our thinking and our doing. It happens in our being. Spiritual formation happens in the context of our lives, whatever that context might be. Wherever we might be (whenever it may be), and whatever we may be doing, our person is being formed. Every conversation, assigned task – menial or otherwise, project, or obligation we set ourselves to, for example, is a part of our spiritual formation. Every piece of media that we take in, digest, and respond to is part of our spiritual formation. Even doing nothing is part of our spiritual formation. This is to say little of how what believe to be true about reality deeply affects who we become.

Our ideas about what is real and how the world works underpin how we attempt to navigate the world we are in. Expectations and assumptions allow particular actions to be easily set into motion. We aim for certain things expecting them to be good aims. We act in certain ways to circumstances anticipating, actually assuming, other’s responses to our actions. When we come to a moment in which deeper knowledge is required, part of the journey is an inquiry into our own deeply held beliefs. We may ask ourselves some of the following questions. If what I’ve been assuming is not to be assumed, what can I act on as if it were true? Can I test these new ideas? How much risk do I have to take on to see if these new ideas are true? All good and important questions.

Now, if we are continually in process, and everything we do and believe to be true has a part in who we become, then it would make sense to try to find some answers around how this all works. After all, just because we are becoming a particular kind of person doesn’t mean we have articulated the kind of person we want to become, nor that we know the way to get there.

This is where knowledge in the area of spiritual formation greatly diverges. For the final area of inquiry with regards to spiritual formation has to do with aim. We’ve considered where and when it happens. We’ve considered what is being formed. These hold general answers like everywhere, always, and all of you. Now the consideration must be, “To what end?” After all, in the process of formation the aim, or vision of the end, is what sets direction, allows for navigation and course correction along the way, and continues to inspire. The great thinkers and doers in cultures around the world have had their minds and hands mixed up in this question for ages. In fact, we all carry an answer to the question, “What kind of person am I to become?”

Whether articulated or not, our pursuits will organize themselves around the kind of life we want to have and person we aim to be. We might have an idea of the person we want to become, or think we should become. We might also have an idea of the kind of life we might have for ourselves if we indeed become that kind of person. We might also be experimenting with different ways to get there. If we haven’t specifically articulated this, there isn’t a shortage of people offering up answers.

The propositions are endless. Every online influencer, celebrity, religious leader, pop psychologist, and salesperson is baiting attraction to a particular kind of life. The onslaught of slick one-liners, downloadable ebooks, real and audio books, videos, and podcasts is almost too much to take in. They are not all saying the same thing. Many of them aren’t saying much specifically at all. But each is indeed imaging a proposition of a particular kind of life. You should want this. You shouldn’t want this. This is healthy. This isn’t. If you’re doing this it isn’t going to be good for you. Do this instead. Maybe it’s a life of ease, of influence, of power, or of wisdom that is being proposed.

For the sake of our own spiritual formation it is imperative that we come to some specificity here. As I’ve expressed elsewhere my own specificity is found in the person, life, and propositions of Jesus Christ. The level of specificity with which we come to address our own spiritual formation offers some practical advantages.

First, specificity allows for experimentation and creativity. Imagine a science experiment that is filled with generalities. Imagine a book that is abstracted from its intended topic. Neither of these endeavors would lead to compelling results. Instead, if our experiment, perhaps around the way we navigate anger or contempt in our day, is highly specific – regarding particular interactions or even people – then we might discover something new. The same is with a creative endeavor. If we are trying out new kinds of choices in the course of our day, the more specific we make the new choice the more we can attend to the outcomes.

This is what we get. The outcomes of our accumulated choices, predispositions, environment, social relationships is our spiritual formation. Whether we engage with the process or not, this is what we get. How we get involved and to what end are the stuff of individual endeavor and the specific propositions of life we are following. For you and I, my hope is that we can sift through all the stuff to encounter the clearest representations of reality, the really good life, the really good person, and the way through it all.

For years I operated with an “always on” mentality. Need a dancer last-minute? I’m ready. I always had my tap shoes close by if not in the bag I was actually carrying. This mentality carried over into the way my work organized itself. September thru June often felt like a natural season of teaching and performance. Then again, I expected – even needed – the work to continue in July and August. If July and August felt light, I didn’t take advantage of it. Instead I felt that I had done something wrong, being somehow unable to get the work I expected, wanted, and needed in those summer months.

Even though there was a natural outline for my work season, there was never a sense of an off-season.

This year will be different.

One of the most powerful practices in the journey of spiritual formation is that of the interruption. If the way that we’ve always done something has lead to a particular organization of thought of action, and we want something different, the current patterns require interrupting.

Well, here it is. Instead of blazing through July, I will be taking the month off. I intend to use the time to reflect on all the wonderful work that I’ve been a part of this past season, and prepare for a return to work in August. This is all that I will not be doing:

• Posting any new Notes.

• Being active on the socials.

• Weekly writing for The Notes.

• Recording new tap dance steps and tutorials for The Notes.

Here are some of the things I will look forward to doing:

• Doing nothing.

• Reading.

• Writing for reflection and contemplation.

• Dancing for fun.

• Sharing time with friends and family.

• Organizing my work space and processes for a return to work in August return.

If you’re seeing this as a new or recent subscriber, HELLO! You might want to take advantage of my time away to explore the entire archive of The Notes.

Thank you, each and everyone of you, for your support and encouragement. The Notes would not be possible without you.

This one was from John Maxwell, a well-respected teacher in the business leadership space. I mentioned the clip in another Note a while back as it is a concise description of when people change. But the 17 second clip is part of a much larger talk.

Like many successful coaches Maxwell is very good at presenting a framework for change. This talk, given at a church, unveils more of his underlying belief than some of his other pieces. He begins by sharing some of his personal testimony – how he had been changed by encountering God. He then references the book of Matthew to share a general proposition of individual purpose, even life. He continues by presenting a vision for the process of change. He is clear in his presentation and stands on a reputation of being trustworthy and delivering results. However, after talking about the challenge of one’s comfort zone, the benefit of adversity, the seasons that catalyze change, unconditional love, trust, and influence, Maxwell lands on a final note. Sharing good values is what provides transformation.

He is not wrong.

Good values are a wonderful thing to share and adopt. They can guide action, aid in the renewing of the mind, and are an essential part of the process of transformation. In my own experience following personal moments of transformation, I can often look back and say I used to value this, but now I value this. But I disagree with the premise that sharing good values is what does the transformation.

My Personal Bias

I have a personal bias against the word “value.” It is rooted in the transactional nature of the market and not in love. For over 30 years I worked in an industry in which the value of a person was their actual person. The performing arts conflate individuals with their ability to literally perform. During my time immersed in that space, I witnessed the distortion of life that many tried to navigate. I was personally caught up in it, too. Don’t perform and you are unfriended. Everyone is scrambling, positioning, and pursuing their dreams, with little time left over for someone in their midst that isn’t running at the same pace or playing the same game. Value is not the metric, love is.

Love is personal, not impersonal. With this, the stoics – and anyone saying to not take things personally – get it wrong. Institute a pattern of never taking anything personally and we miss out on the transformational power of love. Love happens through relationship, and relationships are formed by connecting with others. That means connections are inherently personal. The detachment that is recommended to prevent the pain that comes when relationships inevitably fail (in the multitude of little and big ways they do fail), is an attempt to treat the symptom (the pain experienced when connections fail) and not the cause (a failure of being able to relate with love).

Of course, there are complete books written about navigating relationships, so I won’t go into it here other than to say two things. First, I’m not only talking about a romantic relationship here, but rather any connection with another person. They are all opportunities for willing the good of the other. And, given that, it should be noted that relationships develop over time, and differently depending on the people involved. They are complex – like the meeting of two worlds – and I don’t mean to minimize the complexity of all this by focusing on the personal connection as a key.

However, in an impersonal world it is worth focusing on the personal connection and what mediates those connections if we are to actually find solutions to the challenges we face. My own solution came like a flash when I was listening to Dallas Willard’s Spirit of the Disciplines. In the book Dallas proposed that discipleship to Jesus Christ – the mechanism of transformation that Jesus himself proposes – is akin to an apprenticeship, with Jesus as the master teacher.

Apprenticeship

I had a visceral reaction to this proposition on account of my own apprenticeship in Tap Dance Land. My body understood what this was about. I reflected on my own transformation as a dancer. I have no dancers in my family line. I am not part of the community of origin for the dance that I practice. I wasn’t even athletically predisposed in the early years of my apprenticeship. Yet, in the context of loving relationships, with trust, vision, and desire, I turned into the tap dancer that I am today.

Undoubtedly, my desire to become like Savion Glover and Gregory Hines was an outlandish dream at the age of 10 years old. But it fueled my commitment to practicing tap dance, and with their encouragement, opened me up to the possibility of dramatic change in my own life. I contend that without a connection to the people, it wouldn’t have worked. I wouldn’t have turned out to be the kind of tap dancer that I am. I could have studied all the steps I could get my hands (or feet) on, read all the books, listened to all the music, but without personal interactive relationship, I would not have seen the models, been around the personas, and danced with the dancers, that I would have to embody to get on the inside of the craft.

We can practice all the spiritual disciplines, read all the books, watch all the videos, even go to all the events, but without personal interactive relationship with the person I want to become, it will be a great challenge to get on the inside of the life I’m aiming for.

Interpersonal Relationship

Relationship with a person establishes trust and allows for love to be experienced and personalized guidance to be given. When it comes to spiritual transformation these are required. Trustworthiness comes from a recognition of the position of authority of the teacher and our personal experience in journeying with them. Love is experienced through our interactions with our teacher. Personalized guidance can come from our teacher because they know us. Here it should be noted that the personalized guidance of a teacher in an apprenticeship is not simply the stating of what I should be learning, but a modeling of how I will learn it.

A set of rules, principles, or values may be found to be trustworthy in that what they recommend, or dictate, is good. However, they cannot love, nor can they in and of themselves give personalized guidance. Values don’t express the why or the how of the journey. If we pursue the adoption of a set of principles, we do not have the model of the expression of those principles to mimic – mimicry being one of the first stages of learning. If we pursue a set of values, we do not have the experience of love nor personalized guidance in the midst of the pursuit. We can feel left to ourselves to figure out our own transformation, turning to seek supernatural help only when we recognize the lack of our own abilities.

If, however, we pursue a person, we may find trustworthiness, love, and personalized guidance. If, you, like me, have been betrayed in your life, you may be asking, “Who can I entrust my life to, experience love with, and be given personalized guidance because of their intimate knowledge of who I am?” I only know of one answer: Jesus Christ.

I simply don’t know anyone else.

It was a section of a larger commencement speech.

The larger speech is filled with the usual life inspiring and directive kind of language that commencement speeches often have.

It is telling that the smaller section is what caught fire on the socials. You can find multiple YouTube videos entitled “How to spot an idiot,” quoting the opening line of the clip and sharing Governor Pritzker’s concise formula.

The formula presented is simple. The idiot is the mean person who is unkind and not compassionate. They are they ones that come with fear or judgment. Governor Pritzker goes so far as to describe kindness and compassion as evolved states of being.

At the surface this proposition seems to make a lot of sense. It is easy to see why such a simple formula would become popular. Who doesn’t believe that being mean, unkind, or lacking compassion are negative characteristics. Said another way, it is very easy to want oneself to be on the side of kindness and compassion. Cheer for the evolved state. Boo at the mean-spirited among us. Call those on the other side of this, “idiots.”

Wait, isn’t that mean? To call someone a name? Contempt is super sneaky, and that’s what I’m exploring this week. I don’t know Governor Pritzker and know nothing of his politics. I’m only picking up on what he said, and the social response to it, because it is a concise example of how sneaky contempt is in our current cultural moment.

In a world that seems to be fighting over what is right, good, beautiful, even true, it is really easy to begin to use language to leverage one position over another. This kind of fight isn’t new. The methods being employed today to fight for a variety of positions are old, too. The thing that strikes me is that few people are talking about the dangers of the methods from a formative standpoint. Who do we become if we resort to using language for leverage over our fellow person?

Governor Pritzker’s framework resonates. Mean people are not good. People who are afraid of change go against the high cultural ideal of innovation. Folks who are unkind aren’t fun to be around. We also seem to agree that compassion is necessary for the world to be good. We should find a way to identify these people that we dislike, and aren’t good for our continued progress. We will call them, “idiots.” But why? Why call the folks you dislike, disagree with, or want to change, idiots? Are we so much better than the next person that we should publicly ostracize them?

Language is a powerful means of applying social pressure. It always has been and has only gained more traction with the amplification of language that social media provides. Campaigns of all sorts know the power of language. Writers of all kinds know the power of language. Whether writing talks, or shows, the amount of time that I spend over word-choice, word-order, and the rhythm of the line, is more than one might expect.

Even deeper, the language that we use – that comes out of us naturally, and that we are okay with writing and repeating – is a reflection of our interior landscape. Someone acts without compassion, and we are okay with condemning them to the position of idiot. We name them, and so they are. Of course, we might say that they don’t have to take on that name. We might even say that someone who resorts to calling us names is an idiot. But now we are caught inside a never-ending loop. We might think we can say whatever we like – target someone with our language – and our target should be strong enough to take it or reject it. But, if they retaliate, they are now confirming their idiocy by being mean to us. But who made us judge and jury?

Contempt is the simple position of considering someone else lower than ourselves. To have contempt for another is to think less of them – not in time but in stature. Dumb, stupid…idiot, are all good words used to demean someone. Bestowing this kind of name upon someone makes them “less than.” When the name is adopted and used by the entire community the person in question is ostracized. Or, worse, it becomes acceptable to blame that person for the ills of life that we may experience, even to take our anger out on them. Why? Because they are the idiot. Apply this dynamic on the abstraction of an entire people group and you have a recipe for disaster.

Two Quick Things

Calling someone an idiot is an attack on their intellect. Since when did intellect become the cornerstone of character development? Being smart does not ensure that someone is honest, gentle, or loving, for example. This is extremely important in a culture that celebrates invention. Just because someone can create, market, and acquire wealth or notoriety does not mean that they have a character that is pervaded by love. Notably, creating, marketing, and acquiring wealth and notoriety are powerful skills to have, and not inherently evil in any way. They simply aren’t reflective of one’s character. What is reflective of one’s character is how they might create, market, acquire wealth or notoriety.

Secondly, calling someone an idiot is very different than making a judgement call about their action. Thinking that what someone is doing is dangerous, problematic, or even evil, is a necessary (might I even say advanced) state of being. To have good judgment is the gift of good teaching, learning and experience in life. To act on that good judgment is to have an integrated person.

It is imperative, especially as we yearn for a kinder more compassionate world, that condemnation and judgement are not conflated. Condemnation is a final judgment – with no possibility of reversal, redemption, or reconciliation – often towards a negative end. You’d rarely hear someone say that they had been condemned to spend the rest of their days in paradise. Judgment alternatively, is the ability to discern, to make a call, as to what something is – the reality of a situation, action, even person. We can aspire towards good judgement without becoming the kind of person that condemns others.

Moving Away From Contempt

If we believe that contempt creates dangerous social dynamics that can open the door towards violence, then we may want to explore ways to move away from any pattern that encourages it.

If we find the pattern within our selves, practices of interruption can be helpful. Once we find ourselves slipping into the pattern, just change the subject. Walk away from the engagement. It’s okay to be the interruption – even beneficial for anyone else involved. At the same time, finding a way of thinking about our fellow persons such that the glory that they carry is amplified is helpful.

Moving away from contempt is not a solution to all the challenges of the world. The fact that we desire things to be different and also often resist change may remain. The fact that we will see others as blocks to our own journeys may remain. There will be mourning for the reality of the world – with all its evil. There will be sadness at the resistance to change. There will also be the realization that everything our eyes are open to externally is operative internally. We all carry the same stuff.

That’s where the real journey begins. Try to become the kind of person for whom contempt is not a natural response (towards ourselves or others), and we will have engaged in our own spiritual formation. On the way, we will have to contend for what we believe is true about how people change, what change is good to aim for, and what has to be true about the world for any of it to work.

This is the greatest work anyone can commit themselves to, for in the end, the greatest gift we can give to the world is the person we become. Our gift would be lesser if our person was full of contempt.

This is an experiment, so if you like the unscripted format, and extra content, let…

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