First Writing Week

So first of all I have a Dissertation Office. It is a dedicated space separate from my Pastoral office, or the office I keep in the parsonage. I asked my leadership for the use of a small unused office tucked away in the basement of the church building. It is lovely.

I set it up over the course of the Summer. It has all the books and articles I have collected from my research. It has a tea kettle a selection of teas, some snacks. It also has plants and art. It brings me joy. I can hole up in here, play music and write.

I love it.

 I have already taken a couple of writing days in it and truly is a writers retreat. 

For my dissertation I am using Kosuke Koyama's Water Buffalo Theology as a lens to examine what it means to be fully embodied persons as opposed to being divided person as we in the west often think of ourselves. I am looking at the ways in which the assumption of a unified person influences his writing and then seeking to see how understanding ourselves as whole person changes how we see spiritual formation and discipleship in the West.

I posit that divided people, live divided lives, form divided institutions (congregations and denominations) and ultimately have created a divided Church. Coming to a more unified understanding of ourselves could possibly allow us to mend the division we have created and continue to create. I am also beginning to wonder what ways we can live into fully embodied discipleship and spiritual formation.

I think about this especially since most of our discipleship is education of the mind. It is almost as if our minds, our inner selves, our "spirits" are the only aspect of our humanity which can connect to the Divine. If we truly are unified beings, created by God as unified beings, then discipleship and spiritual formation must engage our whole beings. Discipleship for the disciples surely did not happen in a Sunday School classroom, around a table with books and learning materials. Jesus disciples by living and doing, as well as teaching.   

When it comes to spiritual formation. The term is truly misleading. I am sure none who study or write in this field think the of the “spirit/soul” as something separated from the rest of a person, much less think of the “spirit/soul” as the only part which can truly connect with God. But oftentimes we act as if this is the case; as if our soul/spirit or mind are the part of us in relationship with our savior. We call it "spiritual formation" after all. And yet, we enter into relationship with God with our whole beings; our inner most, as well as our outer most selves. But this not because all “parts” of the human are equally able to connect with the Divine, but because we are unified beings. We cannot think of being shaped and formed our in our spirits or souls. We are not formed in in the ways of God, unless we are wholly formed, fully and completely shaped, changed and transformed by our creator. We must come to think about formation of the Christian person, Christian Formation if you will.

 

I come into this first week with my first and third chapters well underway, my second chapter, my lit review, already complete, having done it as the semester project for my final Spring semester.

This week I spend much time reading editing, changing, moving paragraphs and reorganizing my first and third chapters. I envisioned a world in which each of the five chapters would be about 10,000s words. I knew chapter two what a bit shorter than this, but figured that gave me some wiggle room in my other chapters.

As I have come to end of this first week I have about 5,000 words in chapter 1, and well over 11,000 words in chapter three, in total I currently have nearly 23,000 words, which puts me not quite at halfway. I don’t know how many of those words are actually usable, but I firmly believe in the work I have done to get them all written.

This first week does bring me to some thoughts. I am writing a D Min and I have struggled throughout my research to see the firm practical conclusion my dissertation needs. My program encourages an artifact but it is not required, but a D Min does need to conclude in concrete practicality. I thought about creating a podcast to inform and teach, but my advisor has continually steered me away from that idea, for very practical reasons. As I have been working on things over the course of the Summer, I have thought about writing a devotional. I have in fact been writing down devotional ideas as I have been re-reading Water Buffalo Theology (for the fourth or fifth time). All this have never felt right.

Some of the thoughts I have written above are actually newly forming ideas, which have come as I have been working this week. I am thinking about fully embodied Christian Formation (spiritual formation). How can we encourage people to not merely seek to shape and form their “minds” or their “spirits” but their whole persons. Allow all of who they are to be engaged in active, intentional formation. In fact some aspects of “Spiritual Formation” already do this, but what if it was an intentional move in the field. Forming whole persons in to fully participate in the Kingdom, shaped and formed by their creator, their Savior. This makes practices such as Pilgrimage, Retreats, and fasting which engage more than just the “spirit” and the “mind” just as vital, as Bible study, prayer, journalling and devotional life. It gives new ways for us to explore the ways in which we are shaped and formed by the giving and receiving of hospitality, as well as charity, both the physical and monetary. When we are whole, all that shapes and forms us comes together to bend us and form us into the likeness of Christ.

This unity will also shape and change the institutions Christians form and in which they participate, perhaps allowing us to envision what a united congregational life might be, what unity in our denominational structures could mean and perhaps dream of what unity in the whole of the Church could look like. What would the Church be if we truly were a unified Body as Paul envisioned us?