Imagine your favorite game show. The contestants are all vying for the prize – a large some of cash, a dream vacation, or a car, perhaps. They’ve all given time and effort towards this pursuit, and now their efforts in training are being put the test. Will they reach their goal? Will they get the thing they are aiming for?
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.
You Get a Spiritual Formation