Body and Spirit (cont.)

In the last post, I began exploring the idea of physical training as a tool for spiritual development in Eastern cultures and in Christianity. Here, I want to explore some of the ways that physical exercise can contribute to spiritual growth for Christians.

We need to start with a definition of spiritual growth. I am going to part company with many people who talk about this subject, who see it almost exclusively in terms of cultivating our relationship with God. I would argue instead that true spiritual growth is developing every aspect of our being to become more fully what God made us to be. This includes our relationship with God, of course, but any area of personal growth can be an element of our spiritual development, as long as we do not get obsessed with one aspect to the detriment of others. There has to be balance if we are to grow to be like Christ, which should be the goal of every Christian.

How does physical training fit into this? On the most basic level, the Bible tells us that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. This means that we need to take care of it. To do otherwise is to dishonor the Holy Spirit who lives within us. This means we need to adopt a lifestyle that keeps us healthy, including such things as good nutrition, exercise, and rest.

Taking this one step further, when we do not feel well or are tired or in pain, we cannot concentrate; it thus becomes very difficult to pray, read and study the Bible, meditate, and so on. This observation led people across the ancient world to build educational institutions around the idea that it was necessary to develop the body and mind together.

According to legend, Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism, taught physical exercises that became the basis for kung fu at the Shaolin Temple in China because the monks were in such poor physical condition that they fell asleep during meditation. Daoist and Buddhist temples became centers of both education and physical exercise. Korean dojangs and Japanese dojos did the same for the nobility in their countries. In ancient Greece, philosophy and athletics were both taught together in the gymnasia, and Roman education had as its ideal “a sound mind in a healthy body” (mens sana in corpore sano).

There is great wisdom in this. Our bodies are the vehicles through which we develop our minds and hearts. It follows that cultivating health and physical energy can be an important, even in some cases a necessary, prerequisite for spiritual growth.

We can take this still further. Hard physical training develops our bodies, of course, but it also develops focus, concentration, and mental toughness in a way that few other activities do. Virtually all professional strongmen, past and present, talk about how crucial the mental aspects of their training are for their success. And the focus and concentration they learned from the iron carries over into other parts of their life as well.

You don’t need to be a professional strongman to reap these benefits, of course. For those inclined toward it, hard physical training can develop character and focus that affects all parts of our lives. It doesn’t do everything: the Apostle Paul tells us it is of some benefit, but godliness benefits us far more (1 Tim. 4:8). This is where balance matters. We must practice the other disciplines and consciously cultivate godliness as a higher priority than physical ability. But that doesn’t mean that physical training isn’t valuable. For those inclined toward it, it can be a form of spiritual discipline.

In some cases, athletics may be a calling as well. In Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell tells his sister, “God made me for China, but he also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure.” Liddell’s ultimate call was to be a missionary to China, but at least for a time, it was also to be an Olympian. Each of us has a calling that God has given to us that we are to pursue in obedience to Him, and whatever that calling is, we are to pursue it wholeheartedly in obedience to Him and doing it for God, not our employers. In other words, it is a spiritual activity. For Christians such as Tim Tebow or Jeremy Lin, athletics is thus an integral part of their spiritual life, a point David Brooks doesn’t really understand.

These last two points are central to a concept known as “muscular Christianity.” While it can be taken too far or pushed inappropriately as a universal requirement for believers (or at least for Christian men), it is nonetheless a legitimate expression of the faith for those who are called or inclined toward it. And for all believers, cultivating health and energy are important elements of taking care of God’s temple and enabling us to pursue those disciplines and activities that are important for our personal growth.

Body and Spirit

There’s a paradox in the ways Eastern and Western societies view the relationship between the body and the spirit. In the Eastern world, the body is used as a vehicle for spiritual growth, whether through yoga, many forms of meditation, dance, martial arts, or any of a wide range of other physical practices. In the West, spiritual growth is focused far more on mental activities such as prayer, meditation (understood as a rational activity), study, etc. There is little or no tradition of using the body as a vehicle for spiritual development.

This situation is curious from a worldview perspective. Eastern thought tends toward monism, the idea that everything is one (frequently identified as god), and that distinctions between things are illusions. In fact, in many versions of Eastern thought the physical world itself, including the body, is an illusion.

In contrast, Christianity believes that the physical universe is real, including the body. The world is a creation of God that is sustained by Him but has its own integrity: it operates according to its own rules in accordance with the laws God established at creation, subject to miraculous intervention on the part of God.

So how is it that the worldview that sees the physical as an illusion uses the body for spiritual development, but the worldview that sees the physical as real doesn’t?

We need to add one qualification here. Physical disciplines involving self-denial, such as fasting, abstaining from certain kinds of food or drink, sleep denial, and celibacy, find their ways into spiritual traditions around the world. There are many reasons for this which we may explore later. In this post I’m more concerned about physical disciplines that involve developing the body as a vehicle for spiritual transformation

Looking at the Eastern world first, physical disciplines in these spiritual traditions are intended to produce one of two specific results. They may be designed to put you in an altered state of consciousness that will enable you to see through the illusion of distinctions to the fundamental unity of everything—in other words, to generate a mystical experience that transcends the merely physical. Alternately, they may be intended to focus the mind on the immediate present, a state known as “mindfulness.” Mindfulness can be a means of shedding your ego and living with compassion because you recognize your unity with everyone around you. Living in a state of mindfulness is generally what people mean when they use the ill-defined term “spiritual” to describe someone.

The point is that in the East, the body is used as a vehicle to transcend the physical.

In the West, particularly since the rise of Christianity, spirituality is connected ultimately to the Bible and related texts. Since the Bible emphasize practices like prayer, singing the Psalms, meditation (understood as a rational activity), and study, along with corporate worship, these form the core of Christian spirituality. The body is conspicuously absent from this list, except for fasting and different forms of self-denial. The only focus on the body in these devotional practices comes from the use of particular postures for meditation in some traditions, such as the Celtic crossfigell (cross vigil).

In an odd way, the very fact that the West sees the physical world as real contributes to the sense that the body is irrelevant to spirituality. Particularly in the wake of the Enlightenment, we’ve bought into the idea that the physical and the spiritual world do not mix, that the world of matter and energy is completely separate from the world of the spirit. Since the spirit is non-physical, we thus must use non-physical means to develop it.

This idea is akin to an ancient heresy called Gnosticism, which argued that body and spirit are separate and ultimately opposed to each other. In Gnosticism, the body had nothing at all to do with the spirit, leading Gnostics either to unbridled excess on the one hand or to extreme asceticism on the other. Even though the Church rejected Gnosticism as heretical, in part because the Bible teaches that the physical world is intrinsically good, it has had continuing influence on Christianity.

A good part of the reason for this is the Apostle Paul’s rhetorical contrast between “flesh” and spirit, where the flesh is described as evil. When used this way, however, Paul does not mean the physical body; he is referring to something that is non-physical, that is, the part of us that resists the Holy Spirit’s authority and direction in our lives.

To be sure physical appetites can be occasions for sin and the body can be used for sinful behavior. Christians need to recognize that and deal with it. But Scripture tells us that the body is good and that it needs to be used in the love of God (“The greatest [commandment] is ‘Love the LORD your God with all your … strength’…”).

So it is clear that we need to reject Gnosticism, and along with it the idea implicit in the typical post-Enlightenment worldview that the spiritual and physical worlds do not connect with each other.

Does this mean that physical development can be part of our spiritual development? I think it can be, for reasons that I’ll discuss in the next post.

Learning People Skills

In a comment on an earlier blog post, a reader expressed interest in suggested reading related to personal growth. While I’m working on other writing projects, I thought this would be a good time to put up some books I’d recommend for developing better people skills. No matter who you are, no matter what you do, improving your ability to connect and communicate with other people will help you in pretty much every part of life. So here are a few suggestions for books to help you build your skills in this area.

• Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People. The classic book in the field. Although it was written many decades ago, it still has some of the best advice available for connecting and communicating with people.

• Terry Felber, Am I Making Myself Clear? A short book that in some ways is the greatest hits of the other books on communication. It summarizes all the key principles in communication, and includes a great chapter on self-talk.

• Les Giblin, How to Have Confidence and Power in Dealing with People. Another classic. In a lot of ways, I found this book even more practical than Carnegie’s.

• John C. Maxwell, Everyone Communicates, Few Connect. Explains a number of principles that enable us to go beyond simply communicating to people to establishing a real connection with them. This is critical if you are going to influence people in positive ways.

 Improving your people skills will bear fruit in all your activities, whether in your family, when interviewing, on the job, in your friendships, at church, in evangelism, …. So if you’re looking for a place to put some effort into self-improvement, these books will be a good place to start.

Today Matters

“The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.”

This statement sums up John C. Maxwell’s book, Today Matters: 12 Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow’s Success. Maxwell argues that success is built on making good decisions and then following through on those decisions daily with disciplined action. It's not an event, it's a process.

The book is organized around 12 areas where we need to make good decisions and follow through on them:

1. Today’s ATTITUDE gives me possibilities.
2. Today’s PRIORITIES give me focus.
3. Today’s HEALTH gives me strength.
4. Today’s FAMILY gives me stability.
5. Today’s THINKING gives me an advantage.
6. Today’s COMMITMENT gives me tenacity.
7. Today’s FINANCES give me options.
8. Today’s FAITH gives me peace.
9. Today’s RELATIONSHIPS give me fulfillment.
10. Today’s GENEROSITY gives me significance.
11. Today’s VALUES give me direction.
12. Today’s GROWTH gives me potential.

It is worth noting that there are a number of interesting connections between these 12 areas and the 24 character traits identified in positive psychology.

The book includes exercises to help you make decisions and manage them in each of these areas. A month spent on each (remember—it takes 21 days to establish a habit, and I think it’s a good idea to give it a bit more) will pay off tremendously in the long run. Even a week on each would be a good thing, though that might lead to trying to change too many things at once, which is a recipe for failure.

Today Matters is another way of highlighting the principles outlined in The Slight Edge and applying them systematically in a wider range of areas. I highly recommend both books.

Universal Virtues

People today frequently argue that ethics, morality, and ideas of virtue and character are entirely determined by culture, that they have no objective reality. There is increasing evidence, however, that at least some ideas about character are hardwired into us. One of the more interesting studies comes from a group of psychologists who examined cultures from more than 30 countries and all the major world religions. They found 24 character traits that have been universally recognized as virtues by moral philosophers and religious leaders throughout history. After compiling the list, they examined isolated tribes including the Masai in African and the Inuit in Greenland and found the same ideas. The list includes:

• Creativity
• Curiosity
• Open-mindedness
• Love of learning
• Perspective
• Bravery
• Persistence
• Integrity
• Vitality
• Love
• Kindness
• Social intelligence
• Citizenship
• Fairness
• Leadership
• Forgiveness and mercy
• Humility/modesty
• Prudence
• Self-regulation
• Appreciation of beauty and excellence
• Gratitude
• Hope
• Humor
• Spirituality

 This study led to a movement called “positive psychology” that believes that practicing these traits will improve psychological and even physical health. The movement’s handbook is Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification (American Psychological Association, 2004).

As part of your program of personal growth, why not look over this list and rate yourself on each of the character traits. Which are your greatest strengths? Which are greatest weaknesses? Find someone who knows you well and ask her or him to rate you too, encouraging them to be brutally honest. Looking over the answers from both lists, how do they compare? What can you do to build on your strengths and shore up your weaknesses? Consider putting the answers on the list of goals that you are working on this year.

(Thanks to Michael Lee Stallard, Fired Up or Burned Out, from which I learned about positive psychology.)

Body and Mind

When many Christians discuss on “spiritual growth,” they generally mean Bible study, prayer, and other “religious” activities. But while that’s an important part of spiritual growth, it’s only one part of the picture.

Since God created all things good, it is safe to say He values them, and so we should as well. This means we need to be concerned about growth in all areas of our lives, not just “religious” or “spiritual” activities. Limiting Christian growth to things like prayer and Bible study is actually more Gnostic than Christian—it suggests that there’s a radical split between the physical and the spiritual, an idea that has no foundation in the Bible.

Our souls are the critical point for personal development, since we need to use our will to choose to take actions that will lead to growth. But developing the soul directly is difficult. Rather, the soul is generally developed indirectly, through building habits of body and mind that will feed and shape it. So let’s look at these two areas.

Ideas about spiritual growth usually ignore the body, but that is a serious mistake. Our physical strength (frequently described in Scripture in terms of endurance rather than raw power) is a critical component to anything we want to accomplish in life. Put simply, if we are tired or lack energy, it is extremely difficult to focus on anything, and we are more susceptible to temptation and more likely to fall into easier (and generally bad) habits.

Without physical energy, it is impossible to cultivate the mind and the soul, a fact recognized by the classical idea of “a sound mind in a sound body.” (It is also the legendary origin of kung fu, which is said to have grown out of exercises that were taught to monks at the Shaolin temple to keep them from falling asleep during meditation.) So it is important to commit ourselves to a process of physical development. This includes taking care of our health (since our bodies are temples of God) and cultivating our energy through diet, exercise, and rest.

With increased energy, we are in a better position to cultivate the mind. Christians tend to assume that this means knowledge of Scripture, and that is certainly part of it. But this is only part of building the mind. If God is the source of all things and Jesus is Lord of all, then God is interested in all of life and we can study any and every subject as a legitimate part of our personal development and as a spiritual activity.

This includes advancing in our professional life. Whatever you do for a living, unless it is criminal or intrinsically immoral, it is a sacred and holy calling by God for your life at this time. Professional development is therefore also a spiritual activity.

If you’ve been a student you already know how to learn, and all those skills can be applied here. But learning for transformation rather than information is a slightly different process. You need to learn new information, but you also need to let that new information sink deep into you to change how you think. We are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:2). So how do we do this? That will be the subject of the next post.

Heart, Soul, Mind and Strength

Continuing our discussion of God’s priorities, we see that proper love comes from the inside out, heart to soul to mind to strength (physical actions). To understand this, it will be helpful to define the terms Jesus uses:

• Our strength refers to our physical body.
• Our mind is our thought life and our ability to reason and think.
• Our soul is our settled convictions, core values, conscience, memory, and will, which together comprise the essence of who we are. The Greek word is psyche, the root word for psychology, and is often translated as an individual’s “life” (e.g. Mark 8:35). As C. S. Lewis put it, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” To be more precise, we are embodied souls.
• The heart is the even deeper levels of our being, the innermost core of who we are that is generally invisible to us. Scripture tells us that only God knows our heart, which means we don't even know it completely.

We live from the inside out: our hearts move our souls, which then choose what we think about and what we do.

This raises a problem, however: I don’t have direct control over my heart. I (that is, my soul) can control my body and mind, but I can’t will my heart to change because the heart is a deeper part of me than my will.

So how do I move my heart to love God completely?

We may live from the inside out, but we grow primarily from the outside in. In other words, what we choose to do and to think about consistently will mold our souls, which then shapes our hearts. If we are going to change and grow, we need to develop new patterns of action and thought, because this will change our internal lives.

I would take this further to argue that since God expects our best, it is important for us to work to grow ourselves on all levels, heart, soul, mind, and strength. Growing in love for God will inevitably put us on a journey of personal growth as well.

In practical terms, the same applies to loving our neighbors: we need to grow ourselves so that we have more to give to them. For example, the best thing we can do for the poor is not to be one of them ourselves. As John Wesley said, we should make as much as we can, save as much as we can, and give as much as we can. Growing ourselves enhances our ability to help others.

So how do we grow ourselves in such a way that we can love God completely, love ourselves correctly, and love our neighbor compassionately? This is the subject of the next post.

New Year's Resolutions

Everyone talks about New Year’s resolutions, but few people take them very seriously. They’re things we want to do to improve ourselves or to address our dissatisfaction with our lives, but within a few weeks we normally have fallen off the wagon, and having failed once, we forget about them.

If you look over the past year, how have you done? Have you advanced in your relationships with God, with your family, and with your friends? How about professionally and personally? Did you move forward in the things that are important to you? If you continue on the trajectory you’ve set in the last 12 months, will you be happy about where will you be next year? In five years? In ten years? Be honest with yourself. If you don’t like the answer, you need to be willing to put in the work and to establish new habits that will change the direction you are going.

Personally, I know my life needs work.

The question is, how do we begin?

One place to start is looking at why resolutions fail. A lot of reasons come to mind, but I think three are particularly important. First, our resolutions are too extreme: we try to change too much, too fast. Second, we don’t bring others into our resolutions, so that we lack social support and accountability partners, or even worse, we have people around us who are actively undermining our efforts. Third, we lack staying power; that it is simply easier to fall back into old habits than to expend the energy over time that it takes to develop new habits to replace the old.

So how do we fix these?

Suppose you have a big goal for the year, for example, losing 50 pounds. That sounds like a lot, but it really only amounts to about a pound a week. It doesn’t take dramatic action to reach that target, only consistent, small decisions about what you eat and drink and about your physical activities. In the same way, most other big goals can be reached through small decisions that we make daily.

It takes about three weeks to develop a new habit. I would suggest adjusting one habit in any area of your life that you want to improve and spending a full month on it. Evaluate where you are at the end of the month: if you haven’t been consistent, keep working to develop that habit; if you are solid in the habit and are making satisfactory progress toward your goal, keep at it, or if you think you’re ready to add more, maintain the first habit and add something new.

Dramatic change is the result of the accumulation of small changes over time.

Second, enlist the aid of the people you live with, and find someone who you trust who will hold you accountable. Again, using the example of weight loss, most people who fail in weight loss programs do so because of a lack of social support. If the people closest to you won’t support your goals, find out why. You may need to rethink what you're doing. But if their reasons don’t hold water—for example, they don’t believe you can succeed or don’t want you to because it threatens them—then find someone who will support you and move on.

Third, keep your long term goals in front of you, and keep reminding yourself of the importance of taking small steps toward them. You should write your goals out, ideally in long hand (it activates a different part of the brain than typing), and if possible do this daily. It will remind you of what you’re doing and why.

You will also need to increase your energy level, since it takes energy to build new habits. Diet, exercise, and rest are all part of this, but this post is already too long, so we will explore these in a later post.

(For those of you who want to pursue these ideas further, I highly recommend the book, The Slight Edge, by Jeff Olson. It’s the best book on personal growth I have ever read. And no, I don’t get a commission on the sales.)