Author: Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn

I keep throwing around a few cryptic terms when I discuss spirituality.  Here’s a few definitions: Askesis – Greek word, to do one’s best, to endeavor, to apply rigors to our living.  Discipline. Asceticism – the doctrine of askesis, that is, the study of spirituality.  It is interesting to me that though I ran across this word I was never taught much about asceticism.  I think this is because Evangelicals were so scared of its history since it comes from the desert fathers, monks and mystics. Also, Reformer Martin Luther and the other Reformers threw out the monasteries, and therefore most of the spirituality of asceticism and replaced it with information and doctrinal disciplines.  Martin Thornton called ascetical theology “the technique of loving God.” Exercitant – one who exercises spiritual disciplines.  (pronounce it by just ignoring the first “t” – X-er-sant) Contemplative – Eugene Peterson said that contemplation is imagination, and meditation is means study.  By “imagination” he means that we should pick up the Bible’s story and put ourselves into the story – the story continues with our lives.  To meditate means we study to find out what the text meant back then; but contemplation means we start the text’s story where history left off.  That’ll do for now – too many terms and we’ll choke our...

Several people at Lakeland decided to experiment with forming a Spiritual Order at Lakeland this Lent.  There are expectations… Lectio Divina at least once a week, celebrate the divine hours three times a day, make contemplative retreat three times a year; do some spiritual reading, pray for some area of the church, come to a Sunday-in-between-services Eucharist… and some more. How’s it going?  Comment below if you so desire. For me, I am getting into the Daily Office (divine hours).  I downloaded www.Universalis.com and set my phone alarm for 8:35am, 11:35am and 4:35pm.  The Hours show up on my phone.  I can read the Psalms and other prayers wherever I happen to be – provided I have the time and place (like NOT  driving). This whole Spiritual Order is a grand experiment.  (Hey my 11:35 alarm just went off – be back in a few minutes…  ….  …. …. Okay, I am back). The experimental theme has much to do with the complexities of a “check list” spirituality – will we get caught up in the “legalism” and performance of the Order’s demands?  We decided to error on the side of the check list this time around because most Protestants are so averse to a “works mentality” that they actually just don’t have any rigorous spirituality, no habit, no spiritual rhythm, no expectations.  And then they sit around a...

Fifteen of us just returned Sunday afternoon after a two-night contemplative retreat at Conception Abbey, Conception, Missouri.  We did not make retreat to “do our spirituality on retreat” and then return to “normal living” back home.  No, we made retreat to re-learn how to be present to g-d AT HOME.  Retreat is simply an exercise room – a place to learn new ways of listening to the voice of g-d, and a new way of loving others.  To make retreat just for our own selfish introspection is the exact opposite reason why anyone would follow Jesus:  “Follow me and I will make you fish for others.” To seek union with God that would imply complete separation (from others) would be to a Christian saint not only absurd but the very opposite of sanctity. – Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, p.17 The reason we make retreat is to go home.  Home is where the fruit of the Spirit is eaten:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  No one needs these virtues while on retreat (though I’d find it very difficult to be in solitude, silence and prayer without some patience and self-control!)  But to go home – now we will need kindness, patience, self-control, etc. We went on retreat to face our sin and demons.  We made retreat to stand up to our self...

I remember sitting in my counselor’s office a few years ago and he told me, “Sex is biological.”  He meant ‘sex is a natural function and urge.’  Sex is not a habit or an emotion.  It is biological.  But like all biological urges sex is within the control of the will.  Sex is not evil or bad, no more than hunger is evil or bad. “All of the seven deadly sins are rooted in the flesh. But unlike Buddhism, which sees desire itself as the root of all evil, Christianity has never identified desire itself as sin.  It is inordinate and excessive desire expressing itself compulsively that is seen as sinful.  Natural pleasures like food and sex, being part of our true humanity, are good.” – Simon Chan, Spiritual Theology, p66 [Seven deadly sins: vainglory, envy, anger, melancholy, greed, gluttony and lust – John Cassian (360-435)] Augustine described the cardinal virtues as directed towards the world – prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance (as opposed to the theological virtues – faith, hope and love, which direct us to g-d).  He states… prudence is “love making a right distinction between what helps it toward God and what might hinder it.” (Chan, p92)  Temperance and its Chastity are related to the disciplines of abstinence, because they “manage” the will, they control the temptations of the flesh – in our case lust. The...