Dallas Willard, in The Spirit of the Disciplines, advocates prayer, solitude and silence, meditation upon the life of Christ, sacrifice and service to others. He implies these disciplines will allow us to make room for what Soren Kierkegaard calls the infinite.
Every believer should read the book. But if Kierkegaard had read it, I imagine he would respond that prescriptions are dangerous, and we each need to discover and practice our unique manner and method.
In my case, prayer may not be the most effective means of accessing the infinite. I have a fitfully wandering mind. Even with a prescribed agenda like the Lord’s Prayer, I need to address one thought at a time because each thought sends me off on a tangent. “Our father–” Zoom, off I go into concerns about parenting.
Solitude and silence work for me. During the time in my life (age fifteen, following the death of my father) when I most needed to feel the presence of the infinite, I spent nearly every day for a year at a golf course amongst oaks and willows alongside the stream. Usually I played alone. The golf course wasn’t Walden Pond or a hermitage in the desert, but it served.
Meditation upon the wisdom and life of Christ has become a vital part of my routine, and also where these reflections of mine usually begin.
Sacrifice and service to others, I suspect, follow naturally from love conceived in the manner Kierkegaard teaches: that we should obey Christ’s command to love (primarily in action) our neighbors (everyone) without distinction.
And I will add to Willard’s list a discipline I find both difficult and imperative, which is denying myself the right to judge.
Long ago, when I first turned to the Bible, a passage that most rang true was Luke 6:37: “Do not judge not and you will not be judged, do not condemn and you will not be condemned, forgive, and you will be forgiven.”
“Do not judge” felt especially relevant, and I have tried to obey as it applied to severe judgments (this guy is a lowdown, worthless jerk, etc.) Only lately, in response to Kierkegaard’s exacting application of Christ’s commands, have I begun to notice the extent to which I go around judging all day long. He isn’t successful since his car is junk, she doesn’t know how to match clothes, he probably eats too much, she has breast implants, he’s an athlete, she is exceedingly beautiful, as would her friend be if she gained about twenty pounds.
All these judgments of mine, according to Kierkegaard, have the effect of delivering judgment upon myself.
Say we are a curious person who wants to know about others, and instead of our critical judgments we look at people with the intention of seeing the goodness, the love in them. Instead of my eyes and thoughts lingering on the beautiful checker at Trader Joe’s, suppose I turn to the heavy-set older fellow she is checking, and attempt to view him with Jesus’ merciful and loving eye. If I succeed, won’t I get blessed with a deeper appreciation of beauty, more in accord with the infinite?
Kierkegaard has been accused of drawing from Eastern thought, perhaps because of his vision of God echoing our behavior with his behavior toward us. Without exception, Kierkegaard teaches, God’s attitude toward us literally reflects our attitude toward others.
No doubt this will offend many believers, as it seems almost mechanical, more like karma than like the ways of the anthropomorphic God they imagine.
Still, the notion of God’s behavior reflecting ours is an idea worth much consideration, as it may hold a key to the infinite.
