Skip to main content

Reverence

When I teach my class on spiritual disciplines, I usually feel renewed in my life.  When I do that, I realize how significant discipline is for many different human endeavors.  I certainly knew the value of discipline in my more active sports’ life.  I suppose as I get older, it still takes a little discipline to keep up some form of exercise.  While I miss those days of long runs or the competitiveness of a basketball game, I still find joy in a walk through the Metroparks.  Discipline with respect to eating and so many other areas of life would likely make us all healthier and saner.  It is no different when it comes to our spiritual life.
   
As I have taught spiritual disciplines over the years, I have to think about books I want students to read.  As you can imagine, there are a host of books about spiritual disciplines.  Of course, the real trick is actually to get students---and myself---doing disciplines, rather than just reading about them.  For example, prayer is just an idea until you actually pray.  And meditation is a nice idea, but it becomes real when you set aside some time and begin to meditate.  Our initial experience with disciplines typically is to find it not quite as easy as the books indicate and more difficult to sustain, which books usually tells us might be the case, but we don’t believe that part until we take on a discipline.
   
A fairly recent book I have added to my class reading is Barbara Brown Taylor’s book, An Altar in the World.  Taylor’s approach is fresh and offers us some nice ways to engage the old idea of discipline.  She picks up some themes that might not be considered discipline and develops those themes in ways that really can alter one’s life.  An example of this comes with an early chapter about reverence.
   
I doubt that many students think much about reverence.  Often they struggle to define it.  Students, like so many of us, rarely experience reverence in their lives.  Or with Taylor I would say, reverence is there all along; they simply don’t see it or pay attention.  And that is the trick, really: to pay attention.  Let’s join Taylor to see how she defines and describes reverence.  And then we can learn from her how we might actually practice reverence and begin to discipline ourselves to live reverently.
   
Taylor said her father taught her about reverence.  That is an interesting way to begin, namely, by thinking about who teaches reverence to us.  The first glimpse of a definition comes with Taylor’s words:  “…it required close attention to the way things worked…” She gets closer to a precise definition when she quotes Paul Woodruff, who says “reverence is the virtue that keeps people from trying to act like gods.” She quotes him further.  “To forget that you are human…to think you can act like a god---this is the opposite of reverence.”
   
She adds one more piece that is crucial to our understanding of reverence.  “By definition…reverence is the recognition of something greater than the self---something that is beyond human creation or control, that transcends full human understanding.”  Then Taylor introduces the element of awe, which I consider to be central.  “Reverence stands in awe of something---something that dwarfs the self, that allows human beings to sense the full extent of our limits…”  If you want to experience reverence, you might be well to think about what creates awe for you?  Awe is the experience---really a response---to that something bigger or more beautiful than we imagined. 
   
A couple of things Taylor says we need in order to experience reverence are time and paying attention.  If we live our lives too quickly or too superficially, surely we will never experience reverence.  Slow down and pay attention is the best way to form a sense of reverence in our soul.  It is not instant.  As Taylor notes, “The practice of paying attention really does take time.”  And here it is that we have a discipline: the art of paying attention. 
   
When you ponder the culture in which so many of us live, we realize the culture is designed to erode attention.  If you watch someone on their cell phone, it is easy to conclude they are quite active, but not attentive.  They may be on Facebook or some other social media.  Furiously, their thumbs are scrolling and the phone screen is moving rapidly as eyes dart here and there, trying to capture a fleeting image.  
   
Contrast this with someone in prayer or meditation.  I think about my own Quaker heritage.  Here is a person sitting quietly waiting…  This takes some discipline.  Most of us are not programmed to wait on anything!  God is not found while scrolling through Twitter.  God’s presence is not programmable into sound bites.  God is not on call nor can we fast forward to another, better dose of divine presence.
   
When we deal with divinity, it is not our timing.  We have to wait and watch and be ready.  This takes some discipline.  But when we are given the gift of presence, we will be in awe.  We will begin to recognize our rightful place in the universe.  If we do this well, we can say thank you and Amen. 
   

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I-Thou Relationships

Those of us who have read theology or, perhaps, those who are people of faith and are old enough might well recognize this title as a reminder of the late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Martin Buber.   I remember reading Buber’s book, I and Thou , when I was in college in the 1960s.   It was already a famous book by then.   I am not sure I fully understood it, but that would not be the last time I read it.   It has been a while since I looked at the book.             Buber came up in a conversation with a friend who asked if I had seen the recent article by David Brooks?   I had not seen it, but when I was told about it, I knew I would quickly locate and read that piece.   I very much like what Brooks decides to write about and what he contributes to societal conversation.   I wish more people read him and took him seriously.             Brooks’ article focused on the 2016 contentious election.   He provocatively suggests, “Read Buber, Not the Polls!”   I think Brooks puts

Spiritual Commitment

I was reading along in a very nice little book and hit these lines about commitment.   The author, Mitch Albom, uses the voice of one of the main characters of his nonfiction book about faith to reflect on commitment.   The voice belongs to Albom’s old rabbi of the Jewish synagogue where he went until his college days.   The old rabbi, Albert Lewis, says “the word ‘commitment’ has lost its meaning.”    The rabbi continues in a way that surely would have many people saying, “Amen!”   About commitment he says, “I’m old enough when it used to be a positive.   A committed person was someone to be admired.   He was loyal and steady.   Now a commitment is something you avoid.   You don’t want to tie yourself down.”   I also think I am old enough to know that commitment was usually a positive word.   I can think of a range of situations in which commitment would have been seen to be positive.   For example, growing up was full of sports for me.   Commitment would have been presupposed t

Inward Journey and Outward Pilgrimage

There are so many different ways to think about the spiritual life.   And of course, in our country there are so many different variations of religious experiences.   There are liberals and conservatives.   There are fundamentalists and Pentecostals.   Besides the dizzying variety of Christian traditions, there are many different non-Christian traditions.   There are the major traditions, such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and so on.   There are the slightly more obscure traditions, such as Sikhism, Jainism, etc.   And then there are more fringe groups and, even, pseudo-religions.   There are defining doctrines and religious practices.   Some of these are specific to a particular tradition or a few traditions, such as the koan , which is used in Zen Buddhism for example.   Other defining doctrines or practices are common across the religious board.   Something like meditation would be a good example.   Christians meditate; Buddhists meditate.   And other groups practice this spiri