Shapevine Missional Simple and House Church Spiritual Leaders -- Alan Hirsch Sally Morgenthaler Ron Martoia Steve Sjogren Reggie McNeal Brant Hansen Frank Viola

June 23, 2008

Liminality and Transformation pt 3

So let’s pick up on the question we ended with. What is the relationship between liminality and transformation?

Well this is the big learning for me the last number of months.

Liminality creates shifts in our perspective. Or another way of saying it, our vantage point gets altered or our mental models destabilize.

What do I mean? For a long long time personal growth in the modern world has been classified essentially as horizontal bandwidth expansion. Grow your skill sets, your knowledge base, your relational IQ. Take the same basic model into the church and we have said development or spiritual formation are a function of acquiring more biblical knowledge and doctrine (hence going to church umpteen times a week for yet more informational dumping) and an increase in our response repertoire, be more loving, more kind, more patient etc…

In short both are about horizontal bandwidth. But what happens when all the data in doesn’t answer some critical questions or provide the resources in the most difficult situations? What happens when a crisis hits (liminal space – think Jonah, think tragic accident, think job downsizing) and the typical learnings don’t compute, of the mastered principles no longer work or apply. How many times have you heard, how many times have I preached, “obedience brings the blessing of God?” Well that is nice, that is trite and that sounds sort of true, until you turn to Hebrews and find obedience can get you sawn in half and a host of other pretty horrible things. Maybe these are in a broader definition of “blessing,” but my guess is the platitude is misleading. Until we have some liminal experience those “universal truths” seem workable, trustworthy and certain. But that is the problem. The biblical material doesn’t describe or prescribe a predictable, certain, mechanical world, because that isn’t how life is or the bible or God.

Liminal experiences are jarring. They bring us outside of ourselves to examine the blind spot assumptions we hold to determine if those assumptions (now no longer in our blind spot) are in fact good assumptions or if they need adjusting.

Do you see what has just happened? The transformation being experienced at this juncture isn’t about horizontal bandwith acquisition, it is about asking questions about the material that has been acquired. Instead of asking what principles do I need to learn to master the life game so God will bless me, we instead ask questions about our questions. In this case, is it a good idea to think there are principles that once known and applied will enable me to master life?

Questions about our questions are what we call meta-questions. These questions cause us to shift our mental models of how the world works, how we think God is, and how we think the bible is “used.”

Liminality is the catalyst for the opening up a new vantage point from which we ask questions about our questions. It is a higher altitude so to speak. Instead of it being horizontal bandwidth expansion it is vertical perspective shifting.

What would happen if we determine to make horizontal and vertical development part of our definition of transformation? My sense is it would alter spiritual formation forever and cause us to think about the bible, God and life in entirely new, fresh and life giving ways.

For part one and two click here

Keywords: liminality, martoia, personal development, transformation

Posted by ron martoia | 0 comment(s)

April 23, 2008

ron martoia

Of Architecture and Music

I have been thinking about space lately. Not outerspace, but how physical space impacts my interior space. It is a bit like how space or what we call rests between notes is what makes music intelligible. Let me explain.

As I am writing this I am sitting in an airport half way around the world on the continent of Africa. Several times in the last two weeks I have had an abrupt shift in physical environments that has brought a sense of awareness that was acute and spiritually powerful. I had the opportunity to speak with the staff of an incredible church that has one of the most contemporary designed church campuses I have ever seen in the world. Not overpoweringly large just fresh, unique, and architecturally spectacular. But amidst this contemporary complex of buildings was chapel. On the outside the building fit with the rest of the campus, but the inside? A total shift in space feel. Starkly minimal, dim catacomb like lighting, traditional pews and an incense I had never smelled before. We were gathering for 12.00pm prayers; the whole staff and administrative team, there must have been 70 people. The abrupt shift in space made me very aware. I sensed something different in me and in my ability to listen to God as we did some Taize type chant. The residue from that experience lingered as I noticed my ability to listen and ask questions during the next 3 hours I shared with the staff. My 20 minute shift in space had actually created a shift in me…

Last year I had the opportunity with 40 others to spend 5 days with the Benedictine Monk Father Thomas Keating. Keating is the head and heart behind the explanation and practice of centering prayer. We met for a one week event at a hotel in Colorado. What was interesting to me though was how we took a conference room and transformed it into a special space. I am not a fan of the distinction between sacred and secular space. Everything is God’s and to quote Richard Rohr Everything Belongs. But what was interesting as we entered this conference room made “temple where we meet God,” something shifted with each of the participants. We walked into room where prayers mats and cushions, an altar full of artifacts we had each brought that held some symbolism for us, and then incense, candles and art all contributed to a shift in all of us from casual and common to alert and special. This shift was noted and discussed on several occasions during the week…

How physical space impacts our moods, self understanding and outlook is a fascinating and sometimes overlooked dimension in our spiritual formation

This raises an interesting thing for me as I reflect on the double entendre of space/rest and it’s interplay with the correspondence of architecture/music.

Jesus changed locations for altering his perspective and for shifting his awareness. For him the desert held special significance, but we see him heading to mountains and sea as well. (This incidentally is the idea behind Len Sweet’s water, mountain and desert Advances.) For Jesus changing locations brought altered awareness and perspectives. He was the one that said I only do that which I see the Father doing. His rhythmic away-ness in a different space colored and toned his with-ness in ministry. His intonation to the people around him, the flow of power in and out of his body, his unapologetic movement away from people in need to recoup his own rhythm are all notable characteristics in his life and work.

The spaces we create in the long musical note of life noise is what gives it the potential to transforms into music. For our lives to sound different than our culture we have to have a rhythm punctuated with rest/space that let’s noise undergo transformation into a musical score that actually goes somewhere.

Largely out of my Keating experience I decided to create a place in my house where I could do my centering prayer practice each morning and evening. In the space I face the woods in my back yard, I have a prayer mat and cushion, I have candles and a small platform I can place some reading or quotes if I choose. It’s portable and movable. No big deal really. Now I admit this may sound like “Quiet Time 101” to use that old term I remember hearing in my early Christian days, but I have to say something has happened to me that is hard to describe. The inserted space into the physical architecture, is symbolic of inserted space in the noise of my life. One impacts the other in deep and spiritual ways.

My entrance into the chapel this week, half way around the world, has been but one of the many reminders I have had recently that spirituality and the ensuing formation from it are sometimes as much about form as they are content. That is true of architecture as well as music. I have a renewed commitment to pay attention to both.

Possibilities…

1. Consider how the tempo of life unfortunately and often dictates your outlook
and feelings.

2. Really consider a 2x daily centering practice. If you are unfamiliar with this a
good place to start is with Keating’s book Open Heart Open Mind. The entire
book is available free online. (http://www.centeringprayer.com/OpenHeart/index.htm)

3. Consider making some space special for your centering times. It can be
portable and movable.

4. Monitor what happens in twice daily rhythm and how your creativity soars,
your ability to listen and hear becomes more acute and intonation to
the Spirit’s promptings naturally emerges.

Posted by ron martoia | 0 comment(s)

April 08, 2008

ron martoia

Oprah and Eckhart: What is the Deal?

All the hubbub about Oprah and Eckhart might be a needed wakeup call for the church. I know I know...there are all sorts of vitrolic videos circulating throughout the internet on youtube that have made their way into the church. These videos claim she is the antichrist, that Oprah and Eckhart are conducting the first 2 million person global wide trance and a host of other things to make sure we boycott their webcast, his book and her show. But let's hit the pause button a sec. Is this the way to engage the conversation? Is this the way to actually know what the conversation is? Is this the way for us to be informed as to what 2 million people find so compelling? I hear all sorts of fear, see all sorts of efforts at control, but have yet to meet any of the fearful who have actaully read Tolle's book or watched any of the webcasts....in context, as in watching the whole thing.

I think we have a responsibility to read the signs of the times. To understand where the human text and narrative currently sit within our culture so we have a better understanding what yearnings inside of the public at large are being met by what can be only referred to as a book about spiritual formation.

But most of all in all this we have the responsibility to voice whatever our opinons are from a place of being informed and respectful. We have been called to do ministry in this context, at this time, in this spiritual zone of history. Let's not squander the opportunity to seize on what some are calling an unprecedented time for spiritual dialogue....and the word there was dialogue...not diatribe.

Keywords: Eckhart, Oprah, semiotics, spiritual conversation, spiritual formation

Posted by ron martoia | 1 comment(s)