Skip to main content

Spiritual Personalities


           Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by eating ceremonial foods, which is of no benefit to those who do so. We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat.
          The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp.  And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.  Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.  For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. (Hebrews 13:9-14)

          I’m going through some books that deal with spiritual temperaments. One of them is called “The Sensate” and they experience closeness with God through symbols and their senses. They like communion, baptism, and liturgy. They probably like wearing a cross because it has meaning. For me, it’s an act of obedience. Judaism is replete with symbolism. In fact, that’s the author of Hebrews’ point. It’s full of images for which Jesus is the reality.
          This is a challenge we all face. We might not find meaning in symbolism. It might be something else. I regularly find myself at odds with what the book about spiritual personalities calls the Enthusiast and the Contemplative (I object to that name, but it works.) I’ll give both a stereotype from my perspective for discussion purposes. For the enthusiast, it’s all about excitement. Lights, music, raising hands and partying. For the contemplative, it’s quieter, but it’s all about the heart going pitter-patter and vacuous smiles. For both, it’s check your brain at the door (or better yet chuck it in the garbage) on your way in and don’t bother picking it up on your way out.  Of course, they look at me and think, “Heartless, cruel, unloving…. If she’d only learn to relax and just go with the feelings….”
          The people who received this letter were questioning whether they should go back to the language they knew. It was safe. But it was only one piece of the puzzle. There is a need for each spiritual temperament: Activism, Asceticism, Caregiving, Contemplatism, Enthusiasm, Intellectualism, Naturalism, Sensism and Traditionalism. But  we need to be careful not to get stuck in any of them, because each can replace God, and exclude other people.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more