Two Things You Won't Get Here and Now

Every society has its blind spots. And, to be honest, no book or historiographer will later be able to evaluate that society without his or her own society's blind spots. At any rate, I'm going to give a big stab at two things that we are lacking in our society that are crippling and destructive.

-Discipline. I find this most obvious in the Church but it is clearly a societal problem at the country level. We seem to be really fond in the American, contemporary, evangelical church of love and grace and spiritual giftings (all yay), but there is a giant hole where spiritual discipline once was. In fact, as I have discussed this with people lately, I have received blank stares, which just confirm to me that this is a blind spot. Consider all the saints before our time and in other countries who unabashedly pointed to the New Testament and yet proclaimed that there are things we are commanded to do and therefore should be doing them. We are to strive. We are to stretch ourselves and challenge ourselves and to be more like Jesus. And I can feel some of you bristling at this. Sigh. I just happen to be one of those people who likes a challenge and who likes rules, so it is joyous for me to want to embrace this lost art. Read Richard Fosters Celebration of Discipline. And consider exactly what is is that we expect of ourselves these days. Busy daybooks. A college education. But etiquette? Fasting? Customer service? Sexual abstinence? Honesty. Sigh again. You don't want to do it? Do it anyway. You think you can't do it? Too bad, it's required.

-Communityism. That's not a word. But what I mean is not "community," it is more the opposite of individualism. I have long noticed that old stories (including the Bible and many other works) speak of people often as groups. There was a concept of group personality. Group action. Group consequences. In America today, where we are obsessed with the individual, we are missing out on a vital part of the human experience: communityism. I notice that less and less Americans are able to even identify themselves as part of a group, let alone lose their identity in one. But this is not normal. We are part of a larger organism at various levels, and there are movements made by and reactions to that larger organism. Again, I can feel some bristling. And I find myself at a bit of a loss for explaining it right now, but maybe one day I'll write more extensively on it since I have not heard anyone else tackle it. Just trust me. It's a big problem.