Alzheimer's patient never forgets love

A friend of mine (also named Jason) shared a memory he had with his grandmother who was dealing with the memory loss that comes with Alzheimer's.  

My friend walks into the room where his grandmother is. She is a shell of her former self, but looking at her he sees flashes of her younger self. He knows that her days are scary and full of strangers. He is saddened not only with the quality of life that she currently has, but he is keenly aware that the shared memories they had are no longer shared. He is the sole care taker of the past they created together. It was a humbling experience.  

She slowly moves her head up from her spacey daze that she falls into for so much of the day. He wonders what she is looking for in those blinkless stares. Is she trying to make sense of her surroundings? Is she wanting to say something but cannot find the words? Is she looking for her name? 

Before he is able to get a word out to greet her, she looks right into his soul and says, "I don't know who you are, but I know that I love you."  

And that one sentence is the only memory of his grandmother that he guards and protects with his life. It is the the one memory that trumps all the other memories that he is the care taker of. It is the one memory that tells him all he needs to know about his grandmother. 

Why conflict management should not be taught

Ministers are trained and expected to be decent at conflict management. Generally people who are in conflict are okay with a minister walking into the room because it is thought that ministers will not, at the very least, escalate the conflict but hopefully help manage the tension in the room. 

This is an important skill set to have and cultivate when you are in ministry and, well, life.  

Most of the time, I have experienced that we ministers forget that we are not in the conflict management business. Oh sure, we can and do help manage conflict, but this is not what we ought to be about. 

Surely you know this as well, but maybe you just don't know that you know. 

How about a parallel example. 

Doctors can give you things to manage the pain you feel in your life, but doctors are not in the pain management business. They are in the healing business, and while doctors can address pain, they are much more interested in healing the source of the pain.  

Ministers are not in the conflict management business, we are in the wholeness business. We are not there just to manage conflict, but to work at conflict resolution.  

We can manage all the conflict in the world but the source of that conflict will remain and wounds will continue to reopen if we forget that we are, like doctors, in the healing not just management business. 

Do devotions keep us shallow?

There are more devotional books and magazines out there than you can shake a stick at. There are blogs you can find and subscribe to (such as this one) which will deliver stuff right in your email box. There is Chicken Soup for every type of soul under the sun (perhaps except the Agnostic or Atheist). From Ellen to Guideposts from Readers Digest to posters with kittens "hanging in there", we can find any kind of devotion to our liking.  

We all have a desire to connect with ourselves and with that which we give our devotion to, which is why devotions of all sorts will always be around.

Perhaps the reason we love devotions is because we do not do devotions that we do not like. Dog lovers don't eat Chicken Soup for cat lovers. Men don't read women's devotional Bibles. Liberals don't listen to O'Riley and conservatives don't listen to Maddow. Devotionals become an habit of confirming the world that we want to see. Devotions magnify confirmation bias and do not challenge us too much, because if they did then I am unsure we would be devoted to them.

Perhaps this is why even a standard text for Christian Spirituality does not have a chapter dedicated to devotions. Devotions keep us where we are and keep us from going deeper into the great mysteries of the world. 

Devotions do not stretch us to the uncomfortable parts of ourselves or our world. Sure the devotion on occasion may convict us, but usually in the sense that we are reminded of something that we already knew, just someone put good words together to express it. Devotions do not challenge us beyond the boarders of our world-view and thus can keep us in the shallow end of our faith.

Unlike devotions, disciplines are not the things we would choose to do. These are the practices that others have taught us to do, these are the things we do even if we do not understand them (because they do not fit our worldview). Disciplines are the habits that challenge us and deeply shape us.  

I have a mentor who each night watches an hour of FOX news for the purpose of trying to understand her conservative brothers and sisters positions. She is the most liberal person I know, yet each night FOX news is on at her home. This is a discipline she has taken on, that challenges her, that she many times does not like.Over her time of doing this discipline she has a greater compassion for her neighbors as well as even been personally challenged on some of her world view assumptions.  

And this is where devotions have a place.  

Devotions are a place we return to, after practicing disciplines, and ask the question - in light of my disciplines how is my devotional life (worldview) different? If our devotions are not challenged by our disciplines then we are not practicing either very well.  

I have yet to find someone who loves to fast from eating. Yet, I know many who do. Few people love to get up and sit in silence for any period of time, yet I know several who do. Few people intentionally try to understand the others worldview in order to learn to love better, yet I know some who practice this discipline.  

Could it be that all our devotions and lack of disciplines are keeping us people of Faith shallow?