By LeRoy Lawson
Four Steps to Spiritual Freedom
Thomas Ryan
Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2003
Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy””Until You”re 80 and Beyond
Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, M.D.
New York City: Workman Publishing, 2007
Generation iY:Â Our Last Chance to Save Their Future
Tim Elmore
Atlanta: Poet Gardener, 2010
Made in America
Bill Bryson
New York: William Morrow Paperbacks, reprint edition, 2001
I teach a seminary course called Theological Integration. Students take it in their final semester. First comes this class, then commencement. As the name indicates, the course is designed to encourage a summing up of their seminary education, to put together all the disparate parts””languages, church history, theology (Christian doctrine), Old and New Testament studies, and Christian ministry””into a coherent (integrated) whole.
But what should that whole look like? Thomas Ryan”s title gives the answer: it should look like spiritual freedom.
The author is a Jesuit priest. This reviewer is not. It”s amazing, though, on how many points the Catholic and the Protestant agree. Not in everything, to be sure. I”m far less liturgical in my worship practices, and far more likely to turn a skeptical eye toward the complications of church hierarchy and mysteries of mystical religion.
Still, in spite of myself, I had to agree with the author”s prescription for attaining the freedom the apostle Paul prizes”””It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). To be free is to enjoy an integrated theology.
The recommended steps are the four sections of the book. To state them is simplicity itself. To live them takes discipline.
1. Know who you are.
2. Live your calling to the full.
3. Let go of the results.
4. Daily rededicate your life to God.
I chose this text because I thought it would help my students. I am rereading it because it has already helped the professor.
If you decide to pick it up, may I make a suggestion? Take it slow and easy. Forget your speed-reading skills. Pause. Reread. Linger awhile. Ponder.
 While I was thoughtfully making my way through its pages, I was in touch with a friend suffering severe anxiety attacks. His financial situation frightens him, a common condition in these post-Great Recession days. I asked to send him Four Steps to Spiritual Freedom, convinced he would find release from fear”s grip if he would give these steps a chance.
I”m hoping my students will take Thomas Ryan”s counsel seriously, also.
Younger, Not Older
I don”t write this column on my own. Friends aren”t bashful in telling me I need to read this book or that one. They try not to sound as if they doubt my ability to write on my own, though I suspect they do. Instead, they adopt a tone of tactful assistance. As a matter of fact, they are helpful, and I”m grateful.
Two such suggestions follow:
The first is from a man even older than I am. He had heard I”d be on a panel at the North American Christian Convention (subject: “You”re Going to Die””Deal with It,” a rather curt title, don”t you think?). He recommended that his younger (but not by much) colleague would benefit from the advice of a 70-year-old lawyer and his younger personal physician. Together Chris Crowley and Dr. Henry Lodge have given us, Younger Next Year. Their premise is simple: If you”ll follow the regimen they outline in this book, within a year your body will feel and act younger. If fact, you won”t just feel younger, you”ll actually be younger: stronger, more fit, even more sexually vital.
Well, I could use a little help in the getting younger department, so I read the book not just for my workshop but for myself.
There are no surprises here. We all know what to do to extend our sojourn on this planet. We just don”t do it. Crowley does. When he took his 50-something flabby self to see Dr. Lodge, he was told in no uncertain terms that if he wanted to see 70 he”d better shape up. Literally. And then the good doctor prescribed the regimen that has the now 70-year-old skiing, bicycling, laughing, and loving like a 30-year-old.
The first half of the book is about exercise. It has already changed my workout habits. Then on to diet. I”m going to start practicing what they preach someday. Soon. The only problem is they prescribe all those grains and greens and stuff. Still, it”s a diet that should be followed, if you want to live longer. I do.
What I like best about the book, though, comes toward the end, when these two secular guys admit there”s something about the spiritual life that makes a difference, and that caring about others and being committed to a cause other and bigger than yourself is ever more important than push-ups.
This is light reading, but engaging. I”m glad my friend, probably concerned about my own flabbiness and habit of aging, put me on to it.
Younger, Worth Loving
The other recommendation takes us in the opposite direction, to young people. In this case my recommending friend wanted to help out this ancient professor by touting Tim Elmore”s Generation iY. He thought it would lead to my greater understanding of these puzzling, paradoxical students of mine.
Early in the book I nearly gave up. It sounded too much like the typical litany of shortcomings of today”s youth, the jeremiad of every older generation. He was painting in strokes too broad, wringing his hands too often.Â
I”m glad I didn”t quit, though. He then turned from analysis to prescription. If we want to “save their future” (which the subtitle sets as our goal), here”s what we must do, he says. Then follows chapter after chapter of thoughtful, useful recommendations.
At root, Elmore says we must love them, listen to them, not attempt to make them over in our own image, bring out the best, and enjoy them.
Among his helpful topics are these:
“¢ how to turn at-risk kids into productive adults
“¢ how to rescue them from their digital addictions
“¢ how to enjoy them for who they are and not who we want to force them to be
“¢ how to repair the damage well-
meaning but misguided parents have done, andÂ
“¢ how to equip them to lead us into the uncharted future.
Dr. Elmore is a leading authority on the subject. He founded Growing Leaders, an organization based in Atlanta. The advice he offers is good medicine for anyone who works with young people, whether you like them or want to hide from them.
Well, I like them.
Language, Our Native Tongue
Let me sneak in one more book here, just to feed this old English teacher”s habit. Bill Bryson”s Made in America has been around more than a decade, but I just picked it up from Audible.com. It has been my early morning treadmill companion. I”ve read just about everything this never-boring writer has published. This one is particularly fun for a lover of words, especially, as the title indicates, words “made in America.”
Bryson tells us when words were coined and why. Along the way he treats us to a breezy, endlessly intriguing guided tour of America from its start to today.
The British will never admit that ours is anything but a barbaric tongue, of course, one replete with neologisms and hideous concoctions and offensive assaults on the Queen”s English, but to Bryson the American language is endlessly fascinating, always evolving, and never boring.
LeRoy Lawson is international consultant with CMF International and professor of Christian ministries at Emmanuel Christian Seminary, Johnson City, Tennessee. He also serves as a CHRISTIAN STANDARD contributing editor and on Standard Publishing”s Publishing Committee.
0 Comments