Celebrating THE CELEBRATION OF DISCIPLINE

How I Came to Read Celebration of Discipline

As I headed to my car, Jenny called after me: “Don’t forget to buy a gift for Sally.”   Sally was Jenny’s Sunday school teacher.  It was early December.  My wife wanted to give a small Christmas gift to recognize Sally’s class leadership.  I was taking a seminary class at United Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, and could easily stop into the book store to grab something Sally might enjoy.   The book store staff had placed a display featuring Richard Foster’s book, Celebration of Discipline right in the middle of their cramped space.  The display grabbed my eye.  The book looked like a safe gift.  Recently published.  Hard bound.  Devotional.  It would look good coming out of Christmas wrapping paper.   I bought it.

Two days later, the book, still in its plastic bag, sat on my desk.  It was Friday and I was agonizing with the writing of my sermon.   Procrastinating momentarily, I gently lifted the cover and a clump of pages.  I didn’t want stiff binding to lose its newness.  I read a couple of sentences at the bottom of a page.  It was interesting.  I gently opened the book to another spot.  More interesting stuff.   I thought, this is better than the sermon.  Maybe I should use this.

The next time I was at the Seminary Library I checked out the book.  Every sentence was beckoning.  Each chapter gave a first step for beginning one of the practices that make up a full spiritual life.  The book begins with meditation and moves to prayer, study, solitude, guidance, confession, simplicity—twelve in all.

The hand that steers the world’s course had coaxed me to read that book.  For the year following I entered into a prayer life that significantly deepened my ministry.  I preached a sermon series on the disciplines that evoked remarks from my congregants, which I still remember.  I read Dallas Willard’s book, the Spirit of the Disciplines and In Search of Guidance.  I don’t think I really learned anything that I hadn’t known.  But Richard Foster enabled me to start acting on what I knew.

It was probably the mid-1980’s when I discovered Celebration of Discipline.  The book was nearly a decade old.  I still can’t explain why the United Seminary Book Store put it out a special display after it had been around that long.

I also can’t explain why it had escaped my notice.  As I read the book and was moved by its power to motivate me, I wondered why I never read a review of it or heard about it at a Presbytery meeting.  I checked the theological book reviews.  Celebration of Discipline was neglected by Presbyterian and mainstream Protestant circles.  I needed someone with a Ph. D. to tell me that Richard Foster had produced an important book.  I wondered if I had missed some heresy hidden in Celebration’s pages.  Was I being taken in by something that my teachers found toxic?  Or shallow?

The Power of that Book

Celebration of Discipline is now 40 years old.  Its author, Richard Foster, is withdrawing from his public ministry.  Celebration was his first book.  As the story goes, Richard Foster attended a young writers conference sponsored by Harpers Publishing House.  Harper’s almost never accepts and publishes an author’s first book.  With Celebration, they made an exception.  The book has had a remarkable impact.  Maybe my own experience is a capsule of the power the book has had over, probably millions of Christians.  I remember waiting for Celebration to be released in paperback.  It’s still only in hardback.  I’ve had several copies in my possession.  I’ve loaned them or lost them.  My current copy is on Kindle.

Meeting Richard Foster

Several months ago I received an email and invitation to attend an evening with Richard Foster and his son, Nathan, held in a large Methodist Church in Lakewood Ranch, Florida.  I had no idea what I’d be doing on October 14^th, but I returned the email saying that I was interested.  I then forgot about the invitation.  A couple of days before the event another email arrived indicating that I was registered.  Jenny and I drove to the church and found our seats.

The gathering of about 200 people was easy-going.  The group sang three hymns and Nathan spoke first.  Nathan and his father seem more like best friends than parent and child.  The whole evening was sprinkled with silliness and banter between the two Fosters.  Nathan spent much of his time at the microphone talking about his dad’s absent-mindedness.  Richard is clearly other-worldly, which means that he is forever losing glasses and keys, much to the entire traveling crew’s amusement.

Richard is also self-forgetful.  Not surprisingly, grateful readers of Celebration of Discipline, will tell Richard powerful stories of the book’s impact.  Curiously, the author is ever surprised to learn that God has used his work.  Nathan says that Richard is always surprised that people come to his talks.

A description of Richard that has stuck in his inner circle is that he is “devastatingly ordinary.”  Nathan talked about his dad’s slow pace of both reading and writing.

Several years ago, Richard wanted to write a book on spiritual direction, the practice of working with a spiritual counselor to enhance one’s prayer life.  Nathan said that Richard read  40 books on spiritual direction.  He then dropped the project.  His reason was simple.  The more he studied, the more he realized that he knew of nothing new to say about the discipline.

Beginning Small

Richard then stood to speak.  At first, he appeared to be reading his notes.  He talked about the fundamental principle of the inner life, which is to do something with your body, which opens you to God.  Spiritual practice is what you look at, listen to, think about, who you hang around with, or how you avoid people.  The life with God begins when we cultivate habits and repeat them until they become an ingrained or that well-traveled neural pathway in our brains.  Foster said, “The spiritual life is an interactive friendship with Jesus.  We place our bodies on the altar for God’s transformation.”

Foster appreciatively cited I Timothy 4.8-9, which likens the Christian life with an athlete’s work-out routine.  He went on to explain that the disciplines are how we exercise; how we “work-out” spiritually.

With this groundwork, Foster came out from behind the lectern.  His talk was gathering energy and moved in a fresh direction.  He talked about praying for little things.  “Don’t launch into praying for world peace or justice in oppressive countries.  Pray for your afternoon chores.  Someday in the future, you may progress to praying for universal justice.

The talk ended on a joyous note.  Foster said that “God gives us all the good we can stand.” 

Richard told about being coached by a spiritual friend, “Agnes,” who announced a two word revelation: ‘fun ahead!’”  Richard used the phrase, “high, holy hilarity.”  He remembered that St. Francis was known as a “troubadour for the Lord.”

If anything, the evening’s tone was airy and childlike.  It was lighter than Richard’s books.

Maybe that’s the point.

After all, I met Richard Foster by accident as I grabbed a copy of his book to be used as a gift.  My relationship with Celebration deepened as I gingerly peeked at its pages.  Then surprisingly, it has reached a high point when an email, mixed with the advertisements and political appeals, asked for my attendance, which easily could never have happened, but maybe was always intended to happen.