Jesus and Human Flourishing

One of the questions I have enjoyed engaging is the purpose of the Christian spiritual life in relationship to the question of human flourishing. When I think of human flourishing I think of things that help people become more fully alive. This question started for me years ago when I read Steinbeck's East of Eden and his description of the Glory struck me deeply.He writes, (and please excuse the gendered language):

“Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then -the glory- so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man's importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories. It is a lonely thing but it relates us to the world. It is the mother of all creativeness, and it sets each man separate from all other men. ”

Of course, this is not an everyday experience. But I am thinking of any activity that we don't want to end. Like a dinner with good friends where you don't notice the times, or walking on the beach in the morning and all seems well, playing with kids in the backyard, the enjoyment of a great ice cream cone, or even a worship service where all the pieces just cohere beautifully and you find yourself so powerfully in the presence of God.

I am wondering how Christian spirituality speaks to this? Is this the goal of being a Christian? I don't know the answer yet, but here are somethings that have to be considered:

1) It can't be an end in itself. If flourishing is a selfish desire for personal fulfillment, than it can't be the goal of Christian life.

2) Christian prayer actually claims that part of flourishing is to die to self.

3) The Christian spiritual life seems to imply that as we slowly remove the sin in our heart, we naturally flourish more and more. In other words, flourishing is our natural condition; sin holds us back.

4) Jesus talked about bringing life, life to the full.

5) The experience of human flourishing has to point beyond ourselves to God.

6) Christian prayer assumes that we need Jesus to get past the sin in order to flourish.

7) Christian prayer puts us regularly in a place to receive the grace of Jesus.

8) Human flourishing takes place in Christian community.

9) Human flourishing also require times of solitude.

10) Human flourishing is a life long process of growth and maturity.

11) Human flourishing doesn't just mean happy. Part of it is wrestling with the hard parts of life.

12)

I will add more as I think of them.

Reflections on Soup'd Up: Join the Resolution!

Every year I am one of those who is seduced yet again by the allure of New Year’s resolutions. Because yes, I do want to lose weight, read more books, be nicer, worry less, be a better father, be less selfish, run a marathon and learn to sail. Goodness! Looking at the list I see why I never quite make it. And yet I really want all those things. 

Last night at Soup’d Up we had a great conversation about resolutions and what they mean. We started with a scripture reading from 2 Corinthians. This is the famous one that reminds us that if we are in Christ then we are a new creation. We also watched the Rob Bell video in which he reminds us about the fact that life comes from death. Talking about his wife’s awesome salsa, he reflected that for us to get nourishment the tomato in the salsa had to die. And there is a law here, that life comes from death. Of course, the ultimate expression of that is the fact that Jesus died for us to bring life. 

It puts resolutions into perspective. At my table, I reflected that part of spiritual growth for me is that when I know that I centred in prayer on God in my life I am far less reactive. I am able to handle difficulties and do things that I wouldn’t ordinarily do. It is because I am living in grace that I find the strength to do what I am wanting. And of course the scripture reminds me, what I really want is not to lose weight, but to be a new creation. How about you? What do you want?