The Rule of Family Faith: Practicing the Presence of God in Our Outward Lives Bonnie J
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The Rule of Family Faith: Practicing the Presence of God in Our Outward Lives Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Ph.D. amily spirituality does not always look like “spirituality” as many people understand it. When we think of spirituality, we often picture inner peace and tranquility. But families are anything but tranquil. In fact, if you want to turn your life upside down, entertain a serious love relationship, consider marriage, or better yet, have a child. To obtain the serenity we often associate with Fspirituality, one would have to flee all this for the desert or monastery, as some early church fathers did. We also envision spirituality in terms of revelatory mountaintop experiences, the kind religious mystics claim. But again, such an occurrence seems more likely to happen on retreat from, not in the middle of, domestic life. In search of epiphany, people have often left home and family and embarked on a journey. Taking care of a home is actually one of the most ordinary of activities. In fact, preparing food, cleaning toilets, and folding laundry can be downright humdrum, drab, and dreary. It is the kind of work that is never finished and that endlessly recycles, rising up again almost as soon as one has finished the last load of wash or cleaned the most recent mess. Those who cannot pursue either monasticism or mystical visions often turn to the church and congregational worship as the heart of faith. But once again those with kids, especially families with young children, can sometimes find it difficult to get everyone out the door, into the car, and to church on Sunday morning without a minor family feud over who wears what or sits where, arriving frazzled and distraught from the effort. Once there, children’s noise and constant movement are often unwelcome. So families disperse to age-appropriate settings, such as a cry room, and then leave, wondering whether the faith of the family as a whole has been deepened or further fragmented. Neither child nor adult knows what the other encountered for Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Ph.D. is the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Pastoral Theology at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. Her latest books are In the Midst of Chaos—Caring for Children as Spiritual Practice (Jossey-Bass, 2007), Let the Children Come—Reimagining Childhood from a Christian Perspective (Jossey-Bass, 2003), and Children in American Religions (Rutgers, forthcoming 2007). One of seven recipients nationwide of a Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology in 1999-2000, she has also received grants from the Lilly Endowment, the Association of Theological Schools, and the Wabash Center on Teaching and Learning in Religion and Theology for the study of families, children, and religion; research on practical theology; and exploration of teaching and vocation. This article draws on her book, In the Midst of Chaos: Care of Children as Spiritual Practice. Summer 2007 Lifelong Faith 1 © LifelongFaith Associates the past hour or two. Nor does the Sunday school flyer or church bulletin usually make it out of the I want to help enrich the active van and into the home. practice of faith already percolating in families If we cannot flee family relationships, travel to the and congregations by exploring the peculiar mountains, or join together to character of the rule of famil y faith. worship in the right spirit on a regular basis, then we might at least consider a quiet half-hour set program to create in Puritans sanctioned the home as a aside daily for individual prayer congregations, or one more family “little church” but then elevated and Bible reading as the bedrock faith activity to work into an the father to the role of pastor, of faith. Yet again there is already overloaded schedule. nearer to God than others—with nothing like having children to Rather I want to help enrich the all the potentially harmful disrupt this. Such practices are active practice of faith already consequences of this equation.4 often further complicated by the percolating in families and None of these patterns is ideal. demands of paid employment. congregations by exploring the Almost all have biases against Given these powerful peculiar character of the rule of women and children and their full preconceptions of what it takes to family faith. participation. be a spiritual person and daunting Christianity has its own obstacles to church participation, Christianity’s ambivalent history on the family what becomes of faith in families? that goes right back to Jesus Are those people who are Ambivalence about himself. A curious passage immersed in what one Family Faith appears in the Gospel of Mark, psychologist calls the “parental right at the beginning of the emergency”—the heavy lifting of gospel, defining his ministry, in parenting that easily consumes at It might help to understand the which he rejects his own family least eighteen years of broader nature of the challenge (Mark 3:31–35).5 Jesus has just adulthood—just “on idle” with first. Few religious traditions have been baptized and tempted, he their faith, taking time off while escaped the tension between has eaten with tax collectors, others seek God on their behalf?1 spiritual practice and family life, refused to follow religious rules If not, just how does one although most have explored about Sabbath keeping, and understand the development of ingenious ways to deal with it gathered a group of men around faith amid the demands and chaos that do not, in the end, him for intimate fellowship. His of families? What about the adequately resolve it. Catholics, family is rightfully worried about children themselves? Is their way for example, have attempted to him. All they want to do is of faith included in these common mediate the hierarchy of celibate protect him. But they can barely views of spirituality as somber spirituality over spirituality of the get through the throngs of those reflection, mystic awakening, home by identifying the family as who will not leave him alone. corporate enactment, or personal a “domestic church,” a small-scale When they do, what does Jesus prayer? model of the Church itself, an idea say? “Who are my mother and So persuaded are we by these that goes back to the fourth my brothers?…Here are my definitions that we do not century and that has enjoyed mother and my brothers! recognize family spirituality when resurgence in the past two Whoever does the will of God is we see it. The problem, in other decades.2 Jews in eighteen- my brother and sister and words, is as much the common century Eastern Europe and other mother.” perception of spirituality as any periods separated spiritual It is not that Jesus does not failure to practice our faith. My practice along gender lines, with love his mother or cherish hope in this article is actually religious study reserved for men families; other Scripture passages quite simple, therefore: I want to and care of family the obligation suggest otherwise. He blessed explore ways to envision the rule of women. Hinduism regulates the wedding wine, welcomed children, of faith in families so church problem chronologically, dividing valued marriage, and rejected leaders and those in families can the life cycle into four periods divorce. But Jesus had a larger nurture and uphold it. In other with a special stage of vision in mind. He disclaims his words, I will not suggest one more “householding” for rearing own family to proclaim a new spiritual chore to do, one more children.3 Seventeenth-century family of believers defined not by Summer 2007 Lifelong Faith 2 © LifelongFaith Associates birth but by commitment to The Rule of Religious century, Benedict of Nursia, doing God’s will. created an order that balanced Jesus himself was, of course, Life prayer and daily work, while single and without children, and Ignatius of Loyola founded the he asked those who followed him Early church theologians Jesuits in the sixteenth century as to leave their families. The apostle attempted to resolve this a religious society that combined Paul never married or had ambiguous legacy by setting up a contemplation with action children. He thought the coming two-tier spiritual path. Those who designed to change the world. of God’s kingdom advised against were “religious” left families to Today thousands still belong to changing the situation in which pursue a higher calling. This these orders, and their practices one found oneself. He and his calling involved living by a fresh are receiving renewed attention followers described the early “rule” or pattern of life carefully not only among Catholic laity but Christian community as the new crafted around disciplines of also by all those who seek richer “household of God” (Eph. 2:19), a charity, celibacy, poverty, shared ways to incorporate a religious portrait that subtly shifted the possessions, and steadfast “rule” of faith into daily living. locus of faith from the hearth of commitment that helped preserve The term rule does not refer to the biological family to house bounded religious communities. a set of directives, instructions, or churches and new extra-familial In some cases, the established step-by-step exercises. Its relationships. hierarchy of celibate religious life meaning is better captured by the It is no surprise, then, that as superior to the faith of the laity Latin word Regula, suggesting a the early church did precisely left the latter without spiritual pattern or model that guides a what Jesus predicted: set brother guidance.6 But this was not way of living. From this angle, against brother, father against always the case.