Upper Room Books - Invite. Engage. Inspire.

Laurence Hull Stookey is the retired Professor of Preaching and Worship at Wesley Theological Seminary and the Pastor of Asbury United Methodist Church in Allen, Maryland.

Disciplines: A Book of Daily Devotions is a longstanding—and beloved—resource published by Upper Room Books every year. Each week’s readings are reflections on scripture passages in the lectionary for that period.

In 2013 you can not only read these daily devotions but also comment on them, ask the writer a question, and respond to others who are reading the same material each day. We are looking forward to building a community of Disciplines readers! Just sign in and add your comment in the Comments section following the Monday blog post.

Each Monday an introduction and the initial reading for the week will be posted. Come back to this Monday post throughout the week to continue the conversation about the week’s readings and prayers.

Read Proverbs 8:1-4
A casual reading of the opening lines of Proverbs 8 can seem to imply that what is known as “The Poem to Lady Wisdom” suggests the honoring of two deities: God the Lord and a female consort. But before jumping to that conclusion, ponder the fact that the Hebrew language has no neuter. Every noun must be designated as either “he” or “she”; there is no “it” available.
Further, poetic texts are not intended to be the basis of literalistic rationalism. Instead they are meant to stretch our imagination and send us off prepared for new insights, for deeper understanding. Wisdom is indeed a crucial attribute of the one God. But Lady Wisdom is neither a goddess nor a consort; let alone is she a temptress. But she graciously offers her priceless gifts to all who will listen in the public square, at the crossroads, at the gates and entrance portals of the town.
Who among us does not need and seek a greater depth of knowledge in order that we may more fully serve God? Perhaps we despair at achieving this. Despair may be justified if we try to manufacture wisdom ourselves. Today’s reading reveals that what we seek has been characteristic of God since before creation and is available to us because it is in accord with the interior desire of the One whom we serve.
In the history of Christian thought and piety, divine wisdom as found in the book of Proverbs becomes the foundation upon which have been built our understanding of the Word of God (logos) and indeed of the Trinity itself. This we shall explore more fully as we pray our way through the week ahead.
Gracious God, to all who truly seek you, grant the holy wisdom that has forever been at the center of your redemptive love for your world. Amen.

“I am sorry but I have to decline all the other audios. The recording is such that it is not possible to transcribe them.” These were not words I hoped to hear from the transcription service to which I had sent CDs of Henri Nouwen’s 1985 meditations on following Jesus. My plan was simple and would expedite my work as editor of A Spirituality of Homecoming, the next volume in The Henri Nouwen Spirituality Series: The transcription service would translate the admittedly challenging recordings into clean manuscripts that I would then edit with leisurely ease. No such luck.

Thus began months of leaning into my computer, earphones glued to my head, straining to understand Henri’s words as he moved about the large room at St. Paul’s Church in Harvard Square, sometimes near and sometimes far from a small cassette recorder with built-in microphone. The room held five hundred people, and it was overflowing with students and townspeople eager to hear the renowned Harvard professor speak about Christian discipleship. To my ears, it sounded as if half the city had squeezed into the parish fellowship hall. People shuffled their feet and rustled notebook paper. The audience erupted in waves of laughter at jokes, inaudible to me, that Henri muttered under his breath. A baby, with evident pleasure, repeatedly punctuated one of Henri’s talks with the words, “Dada, Dada, Dada….” Another time, a woman close to the microphone asked softly, “What did he say?” Her friend responded, “I think it was something about…” and, not able to make out his answer, my mind drifted to the scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where Jesus is delivering the Beatitudes. Someone toward the rear of the crowd is having trouble hearing the prophet and wants to know what he just said. A companion responds, “Blessed are the cheese makers.”

Yet even though my tidy plan to edit perfectly accurate and cleanly formatted transcriptions of Henri’s talks had been thwarted, and even though my head buzzed with the background noise that shrouded Henri’s words, it was fitting that I should be the one to transcribe these tapes. Indeed, it was a homecoming of the most wonderful kind. Here I was in his presence again, more than three decades after the conclusion of five years as his teaching, research, and editorial assistant at Yale Divinity School. The Dutch-accented voice, so familiar from hours together in classrooms, chapels, retreat centers, and social evenings in his home, rose and fell with characteristic passion as he tried to evoke the challenge and the beauty of following Jesus.  The central themes of his presentations, well worn through repeat appearances in books, articles, and lectures, but still fresh with the vital urgency of truly good news. I could easily visualize his large hands reaching out into the air around him as if he might catch and hold before us the wonder of life in the Spirit of God. Yes, it was good to spend this time with Henri.

Homecomings sometimes have a way of moving us from the present to the past and then back once more to the present, but a present now reframed by new meaning. Initially, in the “present” of my editorial work, I was seeking simply to extract from these difficult recordings a publishable manuscript for the Henri Nouwen Spirituality Series. Then, as I entered the soundscape of those Harvard Square tapes, the richness of long past years with Henri drew me back through corridors of memory, and I sensed the presence of gracious Mystery that often seemed to accompany him.  All at once I was dwelling in both that invigorating past and a transfigured present. As I felt myself sitting among those in the parish hall listening intently to Henri’s impassioned meditations on Jesus, and felt too the tension in my back as I tried to follow Henri’s words in the midst of the human and technological din, it suddenly became clear that I was actually experiencing the reality Henri was describing. How difficult it is to hear Christ addressing us in the midst of our noisy world! How challenging it is to follow him when so much around us vies for our attention and commitment!

Here I was, earphones plugged in, sitting at the point where past, present, and future converge in the simple words “Come, follow me.”

When did you first hear those words?

How did you respond?

Derek Maul, Upper Room author, shares  thoughts on the importance of Christian community in the final of three blog posts. Derek’s latest book is 10 Life-Charged Words: Real Faith for Men.

“It’s in the context of community that we find the most compelling stories, the most adept evolutions of theology, the most cogent commentary, and the most miraculous revelations of God’s incarnation in real time…”

One of the common misunderstandings about writing is the notion that authors need isolation, retreats away from the action, and that we should be sequestered in order to do mysterious things like, “Find my muse.”

Creativity, according to myth, requires silence, laser-like concentration, and an environment free from busyness, noise, people, or other outside distractions. I’ve even heard writers buy in: “What I need is a few weeks of solitude to create my masterpiece.” And, “If I could just get some consistent uninterrupted time alone, then this pesky writer’s block would go away.”

Really? Write in a virtual vacuum? I don’t think so!

Irrepressible Life
Now I’ll grant that a few quiet hours might help me stay a step or two ahead of the grammar police in the copy editing department (no offense), but that’s only after I’ve gone toe-to-toe with enough real life to first write something that might need a little fine-tuning.

Inventiveness has to be built on constant interaction with real life and, most importantly, interaction with honest-to-goodness people who live in honest-to-goodness community. In fact, it’s in the context of community that we find the most compelling stories, the most adept evolutions of theology, the most cogent commentary, and the most miraculous revelations of God’s incarnation in real time.

Beyond Observers
Writers like to say we are professional observers. That may well be. But it’s not enough for us to observe community; we are also called to be conscious participants and purposeful creators. We need community to sustain us, to challenge us, to encourage us, to hold us accountable, to introduce us to the real stories of real people. That’s how we learn what it means to live the gripping saga of authentic life.

Living in community means making the conscious decision—moment by moment—to follow Jesus into the crowd, and to serve the people God loves.

Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.—Acts 2:45-47

At the rural retreat center where we stayed, sun lingered among the bare tree limbs before bidding farewell to the day. In the quiet of that gentle hour, I turned for prayerful reflection to the account of Matthew’s call in Matthew 9:9-13. As I entered the drama unfolding in this story, what struck me with great force was this observation, unique to the Gospel of Matthew: “it happened that a number of tax collectors and sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples” (Matt. 9:10). What was it about Jesus that drew these outcast and despised people to him? What beauty shone in his face, what welcome whispered through his presence, what kindhearted love echoed in his manner of speech?

Grace. How ingeniously and fruitfully God employs the small things of daily life—a meal, a conversation, a glance—to place before us the great invitation to come, to be fully accepted and healed, and then to follow. To the tax collector and sinner in me, Jesus offers an approach without fear of rejection or recrimination: “It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick” (Matt. 9:12). And to the Pharisee in me, Jesus presents the great challenge of the spiritual life: “Go and learn the meaning of the words: ‘What I want is mercy, not sacrifice’” (Matt. 9:13).

Is it too great a stretch to suggest that this rhythm of approaching Jesus and then taking up his challenge is the heartbeat of a publishing ministry devoted to spiritual life resources? These resources too are among the small things of daily life. It seems to me that all our books on prayer, meditation, Bible study, and other spiritual disciplines offer pathways into a transforming encounter with Jesus. Some show us the way to his dwelling place (John 1:35-39) by offering guidance through what theologian Karl Barth called “the strange new world” of the Bible. Some present the wisdom of spiritual writers from across the ages or train the eyes of the heart to see the beauty of Christ shining in every corner of Creation. Other books encourage us to spend time in Christ’s presence simply watching how he is with people and learning first hand what it means that he is gentle and humble in heart (Matt. 11:29). Yet others help us cultivate the art of listening to him (Luke 9:35) through lectio divina practiced alone or in small groups. Some books on aspects of discipleship in light of contemporary issues may even lead us further by preparing our hearts to be the good soil which, receiving his words deeply, bears fruit a hundredfold (Mark 4:8).

Grace. How characteristic of God to make a personal story, a short phrase, a familiar metaphor on the page of a book suddenly come alive with consequences for our understanding and action. An unanticipated challenge to our vision of how things are, an undeniable claim upon our energies and resources, a profound reordering of our priorities, a new appreciation for the beauty of the Lord sends us out from the presence of Jesus with a new mandate: “Go and learn the meaning of my words by testing them in the daily activities and relationships of your life. And fear not, for I am with you always.”

Which spiritual life books have assisted you in this movement into Christ’s presence and out into the world?

John S. Mogabgab is the Special Projects Editor at Upper Room Books.