I rate Soulful Spirituality an “only ok” rating. That’s not to say that I didn’t learn something. My big take away was the comparison of “soul” to “spirit” in Benner’s work. Soul is the grounding of who we are; Spirit is the expression or energy or passion we express. I thought that was a neat way to look at things – that we need health in both our grounding, in who we are, as well as in the way we express life.

Another part I appreciated about Benner’s work was the concept and reminder that we are constantly becoming. We’re not static and this present moment is the moment of life and becoming alive. Very psychologically true.

I rate it the way I have because I believe a true and healthy spirituality is driven by God’s Spirit as it courses through us. To me, Benner’s work seemed more about an individual realizing him/herself toward awareness and seemed, by the writing, to be possible without the Spirit or much needed involvement of God at all – as if God were out somewhere in space just waiting for us to realize ourselves toward him as our end-goal destination.

While I appreciate the mention of spiritual vibrancy and find much of Benner’s writing to be very psychologically helpful and good, I’m left wondering at the end of the book what, in the author’s words, is a true and living spirituality and what does Jesus have to do with it? How does life come to us from God and course through us? Or, is it like Benner writes, that our lives are about a coming awake to an already present, yet strangely unknowable (my take on Benner’s book) God?

Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words by Brian D. McLaren

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoy McLaren’s vulnerability within his writing – I get the sense that I’m listening to someone who’s still wrestling over things, like I am, and not someone who’s professing to have it all worked out.

My take away from this book was the permission McLaren’s stages brought to my own life and walk with God. The seasons were: Simplicity: The Season of Spiritual Awakening; Complexity: The Season of Spiritual Strengthening; Perplexity: The Season of Spiritual Survival; and Harmony: The Season of Spiritual Deepening. McLaren took twelve words to flesh out these seasons and attached the words to practices of prayer and meditation which I felt reverted back to an introspective examination of the self and gave alleviating permission to whichever stage you happen to be in and to just be there.

Those twelve words are: Here, Thanks, O; Sorry, Help, Please; When, No, Why; and Behold, Yes, [...].

The stages McLaren wrote about were the reason I picked up the book. They’re reminiscent of a few other things I’ve read by ancient church fathers and more recently by Adele Calhoon in her book, The Spiritual Discipline Handbook, where in an appendix she wrote about seasons of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. McLaren’s autumn was Calhoon’s winter, but other than that, things were quite similar in terms of seasons.

I believe this book is good for introspective people but wonder if those who are less introspective would really get much out of it. I wonder if something more like Richard Foster’s The Celebration of Discipline really fleshes out an understanding of spiritual attentiveness to the ways and person of God through intentional practices. Yet, Foster’s book lacks an overarching sense of spiritual season, which I think is very helpful. It attaches us to what St. John of the Cross wrote 500 years ago about the Dark Night of the Soul and such things and how they’re all for the shaping our our whole selves toward absolute grace filled dependence on God.

Now, my fault for the book is that I feel McLaren’s writing on the spiritual life, like many other books these days, seems to open a possibility of us working our spiritual life on our own with or without the Spirit of God propelling or filling us with spiritual life. Jesus and the Jesus Way themselves even seem optional by McLaren’s writing – which I doubt would be the case if I sat down and talked with him. …I wonder.

While I appreciate the mention of spiritual seasons and the words McLaren uses to flesh out those seasons, I’m left wondering at the end of the book what, in the author’s words, is a true and living spirituality and what does Jesus have to do with it?

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Soulful Spirituality: Becoming Fully Alive and Deeply Human by David G. Benner

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I rate Soulful Spirituality an “only ok” rating. I read and learned some good things. My big take away was the comparison of “soul” to “spirit” in Benner’s work. Soul is the grounding of who we are; Spirit is the expression or energy or passion we express. I thought that was a neat way to look at things – that we need health in both our grounding, in who we are, as well as health in the way we express life.

Another part I appreciated about Benner’s work was the concept and reminder that we are constantly becoming. We’re not static. This present moment is the moment of life and becoming alive. Very psychologically and spiritually true. After finishing Benner’s book, I feel like I’m left wondering how he would really describe a fully alive life. Alive to what? Awake to who? Self? God? The Other? I’d like to explore that more with him.

I’ve rated the book the way I have because I believe a true and healthy spirituality is driven by God’s Spirit as it courses through us. To me, Benner’s work seemed more about an individual realizing him/herself toward awareness and seemed, by the writing, to be possible without the Spirit or much needed involvement of God at all – as if God were out somewhere in space just waiting for us to realize ourselves toward him as our end-goal destination. I believe the center of action in the spiritual life resides in God in whom we live and move and have our being as we’re animated to become awake, alive, and somehow able to be poured out.

While I appreciate the mention of spiritual vibrancy and find much of Benner’s writing to be very psychologically helpful and good, I’m still personally left wondering at the end of the book what, in the author’s words, is a true and living spirituality and what does Jesus have to do with it? How does life come to us from God and course through us? Or, is the spiritual life like Benner writes, that our lives are about a coming awake to an already present, yet strangely unknowable (my take on Benner’s book) God? I deeply agree with the attentiveness and coming awake part. But, I do wish I could hear more from Benner about what Jesus, the path and call of discipleship, including the call to “die to self, rise in Christ,” have to do with the book. I imagine a conversation like that with this guy would be very enlightening.

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I believe God is a very big, very knowable, yet very unknowable God all at the same time. As I’ve explored the Christian faith, I’ve come to see that single denominations or branches have a hard time capturing the whole picture of the Christian spiritual experience; it’s hard to condense all of God’s traits and character into one denominational thread. This might be why we have so many branches and denominations because every few years someone comes along and says, “Hey, what about this aspect of God and the Christian experience,” as they have their Bibles open in front of them.

Now, I’ll say it’s unfortunate that we’ve had the splits. I believe it would be far better for us to be a unified whole. That said, I don’t see why we cannot be even with all the denominational nuances. I believe at the core of our split is a disability to listen to one another and validate the opinion of the one in front of us. A simple validation like this is not an agreement, it’s an openness to explore life with God together, neither one of us dominating the other, neither one us feeling like we need to be on the defensive or offensive because the rule of the day is Love. I do not think that relationships like this will end, as some propose, with people shaking heads in agreement as they go home at night, but in reality not really agreeing but feeling the impulse of the day to tolerate for the sake of toleration. No, toleration does not win the day. Toleration is still an abrasive phrase; it’s saying, “I’ll put up with you…” I think the greater good is seen in walking together, shaping one another through listening, and then not tolerating but loving one another. This becomes a hard thing for us because we need a ground, a rule, of what love is. This is revealed to us in Jesus Christ, who is the very subject of all of our Scriptures. So, love, then, seeks not to manipulate or coerce, but embrace. Toleration is not a true embrace, but a thorny one.

Here’s what made me think of all that:

Richard Foster in Streams of Living Water drives us along the road of seeing the beauty of six threads of Christian life and experience. They are:

1. The Contemplative Tradition: The Prayer Filled life
2. The Holiness Tradition: The Virtuous Life
3. The Charismatic Tradition: The Spirit-Empowered Life
4. The Social Justice Tradition: The Compassionate Life
5. The Evangelical Tradition: The Word-Centered Life
6. The Incarnational Tradition: The Sacramental Life

The book takes us on an adventure, seeing and sensing the beauties of who God is and how he has been with his people throughout Christian history. A very helpful part of each chapter is when Foster writes about the strengths that each of these six categories bring to the table, as well as the pitfalls. He masterfully helps us see that while we benefit from all of these traditions, abiding in one or two of them alone, without thought to the others, is a shortchanging of the fullness of life that God desires for us.

I recommend this read for anyone interested in Christian History but wanting to read about threads of God in operation instead of a linear day-by-day take.

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