Read the Comment

Rich Wollan, a friend and fellow follower of Jesus, has posted a great response to my post on Christian Spirituality.  I post it here for your reading.  He puts flesh on my orignal post on Chriatian Spirituality. 
Let me also encourage you to check out Rich's writing at http://rcwollan.wordpress.com/
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In our time, "spirituality" is a notoriously nebulous word. This can cause many well meaning Christians to start down questionable paths because they have been informed by questionable sources (even if some of those sources include their churches and pastors). Too many church leaders have been educated in feel-good, warm-fuzzy, New Age sorts of spiritual practices with the goal being some form of self-actualization or internal peace rather than union with Christ. Thankfully, we have in recent decades had the likes of Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Henri Nouwen, and others who are helping post-moderns connect with a genuinely Christian spiritually that has its roots in the ancient church and biblical Judaism.


Jason you are "spot on" in identifying the goal of Christian spirituality: Holiness, union with God. So, spirituality is truly a very practical thing-- the "how to" of achieving that goal. Real Christian spritiuality can never be about some higher meditative plane or transcendental experience. Rather, it is annoyingly concrete and weaves itself into the very warp and woof of our daily routines. It is not magical or mystical (although there is great mystery how God uses such mundane practices to infuse His grace and very life into us) in the sense that we just need to stumble upon the right words or formula to gain access to God. Instead, it is as unexciting as choosing to set your alarm in order to get up before everyone else so that you can practice silence, solitude, and recite the daily office. It's not sexy, or wrought with mystical visions-- lightening bolts usually do not come flying out of your fingers, or out of a clear blue sky during, say, the reading of that day's Psalm!!


But I suppose the mundane, routine, daily-ness of it all is precisely the point. If the God of the universe cannot be united to us there, what value does He really have for us?


Christian spirituality is the practices handed down to us by our fathers and mothers in the faith that facilitate the inflow of God's grace and very life into our daily lives so that we may be transformed steadily into living icons of Christ.