I love the idea of discipline (and orgnaization too, for that matter). I have an idealized notion of what it would be like to go about my day with purpose and deliberation. The weakness of the flesh and of the will, mine in particular, disturbs me. You may think I am speaking metaphorically, but I'm not. I have sympathy for weakenss; I have little sympathy for my own, and that my friends is another form that weakness takes.
I like authority too. C.S. Lewis writes that there are only two ways we come to know things, or rather two ways we gather facts about which to reason, either through authority, e.g."the report of other minds," or through experience. Both modes of fact gathering have their problems, for instance I have trouble knowing which authorities have authority, but that's a whole 'nother set of complications.
The development and following of discipline is difficult as well, mostly because I can not seem to do it. This may be true of the spiritual disciplines especially. Right now I am struggling with what it means to have a quiet time, and not only because quiet times are so very difficult to come by. Maybe it is as they say it is with writing--the key is simply to show up. Sounds simple enough, but how easy is it really to show up? After many years of disappointment and failure, I decided again to read through the Bible in a year. Some of you know that I first tried doing this in highschool, even though I was convinced that I had read most of it at various and sundry times, but I never managed to make it work using the prescribed methods. You know those reading schedules they used to give you at youth group or in Sunday School or Church? I'd begin sometime in January or February, and try to catch up, and maybe even think for a few days that I cold do it, but I was never able to actually stick with such a plan.
Last year when I made the decision, I thought I'd go about it differently. I knew this time that a lot of the material was hard for me to understand, so I decided to read the entire thing, not worrying about understanding it, but getting the exposure so my brain could continue to work on it when I wasn't reading. That way may next pass would be a little easier. Have you ever had that experience, where maybe you read something you didn't understand but when you went back over it the meaning was a little bit clearer? Or when you read it aloud to someone else you suddenly got the author's voice and knew a little more of what he was talking about? I wanted this time to use familiarity to my advantage.
I knew that I'd had a hard time following a schedule, so I took a princple I had liked from one of those plans, and applied it in my own way. I had noticed a preference for those plans that combined readings from two different books of the Bible each day. That way I could get through four chapters with less frustration with those books like Numbers that might get a little tedious with all those names and counting. This was also based on something I had noticed in my other reading. I have often gotten tired (and maybe even a little bored) while reading a longer chapter but found myself re-energized at chapter's end. I'd start a new chapter and get excited about reading all over again. Therefore I would read a couple of chapters in Nehemiah and then switch to Genesis or something in the gospels. I know it wouldn't work for everyone, but it worked out very well for me.
I also relieved some pressure in another way. I wanted to read the entire thing, and my goal was to read it every night, but I decided that if I wanted to take a break for a week at a time that would be fine, so long as I came back to it after several days. If we were referring to a particular book in Sunday School, I would go ahead and read it as quickly as possible. On Saturday's I often read more chapters, sometimes ten or more as time allowed.
In this way I read the entire (Protestant) Bible in the New King James version, and reread The New Testament in the Contemporary English Version in the course of the year. I didn't take a lot of time with it, and I admit that I sometimes dozed through the Psalms, my mind wandering, but the point was I got through it.
This year as I read my goal is to be mindful of what I am reading. I have no particular time frame in mind, all I really care about is paying attention to what the words say. I have been inconsistent in this reading, it is true. I take notes if I am moved to. I ask my questions on paper, but I don't necessarily try to answer those questions. Again, it is an exercise in paying attention, and an exercise in taking notes, another discipine I have struggled with over the years. Some mornings I don't write down a single thing.
I don't know if this reading is devotional. It certainly isn't study. Both kinds of reading matter. Those of you who have disciplined yourselves might not consider it a discipline, and some mornings it doesn't feel like quiet time, but it is valuable to me.
I wonder if any of you would be willing to share what "quiet time" means to you. Maybe you would share a little bit of journey. Maybe you could talk about it all day and night but would never take the time to write it down. Because writing anything down takes a tremendous amount of time and mental energy, I find. Most days I wouldn't even broach the topic in my own mind. I have another question, but the time of quiet in the house was over long ago, and I can no longer formulate it. Noise pollution, I told Michael, makes it very hard to write, to which he agreed. It isn't pollution, really. It is the sound of life. But it is all the same distracting.
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