Claim 1: Mulholland argues (p. 50) that individual Christians are unable to achieve holistic spiritual health on their own, apart from active participation in the corporate body of Christ. This makes perfect sense to me logically, but as a super strong introvert, I tend to attempt just that – to look for everything I need within myself rather than being willing to rely on the (sometimes undependable) help of others. If I open myself up to relying on others, I am no longer in complete control (oh, there comes the judgment part!! [see "question 1" below]), and that is not comfortable for me.
Claim 2: People tend to begin viewing their personal preferences as the best or only way of going about things (p. 55; ch. 6). This is definitely true of me…. I think it is partly because people like me don’t want to admit our own weaknesses. If we recognize the value in other ways of doing things, it could potentially open the door to needing to be willing to be flexible in how we typically act and make choices. And that’s not always fun! Which leads right into the whole shadow thing he talks about.
Question 1: How much of me is the way it is because of how I was raised? Who am I really? (p. 62) I know I’m a super strong “I” and a strong “J,” but it is much harder for me to figure out if I’m an N/S or an F/T. I can see myself going both ways on both of them, and from some of the reading we did in this chapter I would keep flip flopping on what I think my natural self likes most. It’s hard to figure out how much of the way I practically approach these two is nature vs. nurture. (see below for more on this)
Insight 1: From the description on pg. 52, I had put myself down as an F because of the “need to please others” bit, even though my test results from the night before had put me as a T. But then I got to pg. 58, and his description of thinking people’s tendency to be “more ‘theological,’ more analytical and structural in their spirituality” fit me….well…to a “T.” As I’m sure I’ll talk about in my “Here I am” paper for Wednesday, my relationship with God in high school was definitely “slight[ing] the affective, emotional aspects of [my] relationship with God,” even though I felt a deep need and hunger for that. It’s like I was missing something and didn’t know how to fill the void I felt (see also pg. 60).
Insight 2: The “disintegration” of my one-sided spirituality between my thinking and feeling tendencies definitely led to some stagnation (pg. 63), as mentioned above. I was a super good kid – I memorized multiple whole books of the Bible for Bible Quizzing, knew a lot of the “right answers” about theology, read my Bible cover to cover when I was 11-12 years old, etc. But it was all a façade – It covered up a heart that was so hungry for a real relationship. I was dying of starvation for the feelings of love. I knew with my head that God loved me. The thinking side of me had that box clearly checked off. But I guess I was trying to sweep the feeling cravings under the rug – like I didn’t think that’s what a relationship with God was supposed to/could include. Until that day when God in His GRACE unexplainedly reached down and began pouring out His love into my life – but you’ll have to wait until Wednesday to read more about that. :D
Anyway, going back up to the question I had earlier….I think a big part of this whole issue was that I was raised in a very conservative family that was not at all comfortable with the more charismatic practices of Christianity. The active, personal experience of God’s love and presence was mostly lacking from my life before I came to college. I think that’s because the kind of experiences I’ve had since are kind of scary to people who are trying to fit God into a system of boxes. It doesn’t feel safe to have emotional, affective experiences. And so we avoided them. There are still times I’m not sure what to do with certain things about charismatic practices. But I just keep praying to God that He would guide me into what is true of HIM – that my spirituality would not try to keep Him in some artificial box, but also that I would not start practicing in ways that are not true to His character. Sometimes all I can do is trust Him to be faithful to not allow a heart yearning for Him to go astray.
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