High School and College had provided a clear framework of how life was supposed to work. I just had to show up for class, do my work, and not do anything too stupid. But now I was in the real world. I had to find a job and pay my bills and find my place in community.

Unfortunately, there are no printed guidelines telling us how the game of life works. We have to figure it out, more or less on our own. Scriptures, and most plainly, the Sermon on the Mount, provide an ethical framework of how Christians interact in the world. But how do do you deal with disappointments, find a job, talk to people and get stuff done?

Andy Stanley says that it’s not experience that’s the best teacher, but other people’s experience. Here are five of my favorite resources from other people who have already figured out what it means to act like an adult.

The Road Less Traveled – M. Scott Peck

M.S. Peck’s classic will help you grow up by admitting that life is tough, love is hard, and then getting over it.  Peck was not a Christian at the time he wrote it, and it is fascinating to see his thinking on psycho-spiritual issues taking shape.  I think of this book everytime I run into a difficulty, or have to fix my car.

Life is Difficult.

This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths.  It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it.  Once we truly see that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult.  Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

You can read my full review here.

Spirit of the Disciplines – Dallas Willard

Dallas Willard’s most practical read.  He explains what it means to be a disciple, and more specifically, how people change.  The basic idea is that Jesus really meant us to live out all the things he said. Change happens through Vision, Intention and Means.

A discipline is an activity within our power – something that we can do – which brings us to a point where we can do what at present we cannot do by direct effort.

Let Your Life Speak – Parker Palmer

There are some wonderful, cheerful people in this world.  They may have bad days, but they seem to always be surrounded by silver linings.  Then there is the rest of us, for whom life just feels heavier.  We are realists and melancholics, capable of seeing past the lies of the world, but prone to get caught up in our own.  Life is a constant search for purpose, meaning, and vocation.

Parker Palmer is a teacher and a Quaker.  He has stared into the depths of his soul, and come out, with a knowledge of his true self on the other side.

Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.

A Severe Mercy – Sheldon Vanauken

How do you shelve this book? Memoire? Romance? Apologetics?  The story of two Ivy League pagans who fall in love, travel the world, get to know Jesus and hang out with C.S. Lewis. It also stares death in the face. The book tells of a truly great romance. In doing so, it deconstructs the very idea of romantic love.

Lewis had been his mainstay in this half-year of sounding the depths of his grief. He it was who had said that Davy’s death was a severe mercy. A severe mercy — the phrase haunted him: a mercy that was as severe as death, a death that was as merciful as love. For it had been death in love, not death of love.

Read my entire review here.

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
– Stephen Covey

While not the first, Covey’s classic is the definitive self-help book.  I often find myself relating to his story about the kids in the subway at the beginning of the book.  The term “tyranny of the urgent” appears in my mind whenever I get stuck taking care of unnecessary emergencies. Of all the organizational tools I’ve encountered, none are as straight forward and applicable as his four quadrants.  And of course, there’s his legendary saying, “Start with the end in mind.”

Until a person can say deeply and honestly, “I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,” that person cannot say, “I choose otherwise.”

What books have helped you handle life as an adult?

The post 5 Books to Help You Grow Up appeared first on Chris Morton.

Finding Our Way Again

The book introduces a series on 7 ancient spiritual disciplines.  The basic thesis is that Christianity’s diminishing role and potency is due to becoming just a system of belief rather than a way of life.  He shows how these 7 spiritual practices have roots in ancient traditions, in some ways reaching back to Abraham.

A few take aways:

• There’s a great diagram on how change happens within the church.  Rebels leave the established bodies, but eventually it affects even the institutions they left.  His point is that God is at work, both within the rebels and the institutions, helping them find common ground in the middle.
• The 3-fold path of ancient spirituality- Via Purgativa/Katharsis, Via Illuminativa/Fotosis, Via Unitiva/Theosis.  We purge ourselves of embedded sin, bask in the light of God, and join him in his work.  He has a cute parable to help communicate this.

Downsides:

• The book seems rush and disconnected.  Pearls on a string.
• The second is a hobby horse that he won’t get off of.  McLaren opens the book discussing the common ancestry of Judiasm, Christianity and Islam, and how we suffer from the same problems.  Though he has some interesting points, he keeps coming back on it, making you think that he’s more interested in tinkering with Universalism than teaching us how to find our way again.

Despite these downsides, it has enough pearls that it’s worth the short read.  I’m wrestling with how to make katharsis a regular part of my life.  If you’re really interested in spiritual disciplines, go read Foster or Williard or Brother Lawerence.

The post McLaren Thinks We’ve Lost Our Way appeared first on Chris Morton.