For the last few years I have been working through a mammoth
of a book called "Family Ministry" by Diana Garland. The book is very
thought-provoking and is 600 pages long.
In her book, Garland
stated that in Christendom past people began to consider the Monastic lifestyle
as spiritual. This lifestyle consisted of solitude, reading of scripture,
prayer, and a pulling way (from society, from our wants and needs, self-denial,
etc.). Garland
suggests that in our busy lifestyle, the church is doing a disservice to its members
when they make them feel guilty about their spirituality (or rather lack of “involvement”
in their spirituality or in the church).
I agree with Garland.
As a youth I was very involved in church but I did not have a lot on my plate,
but I find as I grow older I do not spend as much time in
intentional solitude, prayer, and scripture reading as I did in the past.
Garland
suggested that family life in and of itself is a spiritual discipline, because
one has to reorder their life, make sacrifices, all the while trying to become and
help others become more like Christ. Therefore, instead of growing and maturing
spiritually through solitude, families do it through their actions and interactions
with their families and with others.
I added the "with others" there. My one critique
of Garland is
that while she states between 25% to 33% of the church are single (in some
form); she still tends to uses the word family. This is not “bad”, but some,
like me, do not have a family of their own. They are the single. For them, friendships and
church becomes their family, not a replacement of their biological family (though that
may be) but a intermediary family when they are far from home or miss that
feeling of home.
I would counter that as much as family is a spiritual
disciple, so is being single. Though I desire to have a wife and kids, my
priority is Christ. I feel in many ways that while others learn and grow
spiritually in family, singles learn and grow in isolation, it makes us know
Christ in his own suffering of being single, having his disciples being his
community, his family away from his parents. It makes me think how others must have
thought of Jesus, a grown man with no wife or children of his own. What is
wrong with him? Why can't he find anyone?
I believe being single has made me in-tune with
those who are outcaste, not the norm, and instead of trying to change them, I
accept them. I want to know who they are, to be invited into their story, into their
life, with all its ebb and flow. I do not connect with them to suggest they
should be something else but rather to connect with them on a deeper level.
People suggest that only those who are married or have
children know unconditional love, but that is not true. I have friendships so deep I would lay down my life for them, I weep when they weep. I smile when
they smile. I feel them even when they are far away, even when we lose touch. I
have brothers and sisters in Christ, and no time or distance separates me from
them, for that bond is eternally unbreakable.
So my suggestion is that instead of family as a spiritual
discipline or single as a spiritual disciple, that we use the term community as
a spiritual discipline, for as we know one another, as we get close and
interact, as we cry, shedding tears or as we laugh, shedding smiles... we
mature and grow closer to Christ Jesus.
As iron sharpens iron,
So one person sharpens another.
-Proverbs 27:17
~ Daniel Brockhan
