The Discipline of Community

Prospective Cover

I haven’t been blogging lately – instead, I’ve been furiously proof-reading the publisher's galleys of my book – which I hope will be in your hands by the end of May. Keep your eyes on this site for the details as soon as they’re available.

But today I want to resume the series I started back in March – Ten Disciplines for Living Downstream from Eden – principles for living creatively in our less-than-perfect world. These disciplines are ways to respond not just to the gift of water – but to all the lavish natural resources of the created world.

The discipline of reverence, worship and awe and the discipline of gratitude orient us to God as our Creator and Provider. The discipline of responsive stewardship orients us to both God and the earth – to our physical and spiritual environments. The discipline of generosity opens our hearts and hands and minds in response to all we’ve been given.

The Discipline of Generosity

Two previous posts - on Gratitude and on Stewardship - lead to today's on the discipline of generosity. Generosity flows out of a glad heart, a world-view of abundance, and trust in God’s providence rather than the fear of scarcity and a spirit of greed.

Generosity is the responsive overflow of people who have experienced the goodness and extravagance of God.

The Discipline of Responsive Stewardship

This week my wife and I saw the movie 'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen', an improbable story that can still reel you in. It’s romantic comedy and political satire, not an environmental film, but one of the sub-plots contrasts a vision for developing a barren landscape against antagonists who would rather destroy the environment to advance their political ends. The downstream results are devastating (though, since the film is a comedy, not ultimately terminal).

That’s a light-hearted backdrop for the weighty and timely theme of ecological stewardship. In previous posts we’ve looked at two important disciplines for living joyfully and responsively in our flawed but wonderful world: the discipline of reverence, worship and awe and the discipline of gratitude. These disciplines focus our outlook and attitude towards creation and instill a sense of wonder and privilege. The discipline that I want to highlight in this post is

The Discipline of Gratitude

Today is World Water Day – a United Nations celebration of the vital importance of water for our lives and for the planet.

Here’s a quote from my upcoming book Downstream from Eden:

"Biologically, our bodies are about 60% water; newborns are closer to 75% but by their first birthday, they’re down to about 65%. Our brains stay around the mid-70’s and blood is 83% water. Every cell in our body contains water and every cell membrane has a meticulous arrangement for allowing water in and keeping it out so cells don’t just disintegrate. Water is the crucial mechanism for transporting nutrients to our cells and shipping away the waste."

The Discipline of Reverence, Worship and Awe

This afternoon my wife and I walked with some friends in the woodlands above our home. We live on a protected moraine, vital to the re-charge of groundwater for our area. The past few weeks have been extraordinarily warm, so the snow is long gone, and the ponds are now a raucous chorus of frog songs. Moss on stones and rotted stumps virtually were glowing in the shafts of sun beaming into the still drab-brown woods waiting for spring.

Kairos Moments

I thought of calling this post “the ambiguity of time”, but what I really want to notice is the rich opportunity that every moment of life brings.

In Greek mythology, Chronos was ‘Father Time’, the personification of time in minutes, hours, days and years. But the wise Greeks also recognized that within the flow of time some moments are more momentous than others. There is a timeliness to things.

So they used a different word, ‘kairos’, to describe the right moment for something. Aristotle identified the point in an argument when the proof should be presented as the ‘kairos’ moment. Chronos is the quantity of time; kairos is the quality of time – time pregnant with purpose.

A Leap of Faith

Less than one in a thousand of us has February 29 for a birthday. This date comes only around every 4 years.

It takes 365 days plus almost six more hours to make a full orbit around the sun, so we get a quarter day behind every year. Back in the time of Julius Caesar (46 BCE) astronomers added an extra day to the calendar every four years to catch up. But that extra day actually gives us more time than we deserve,