Celebration of Discipline The Path to Spiritual Growth 20th Anniversary Edition Richard J. Foster Contents Acknowledgments v Foreword by D. Elton Trueblood ix To Carolynn Introduction xi wife, counselor, companion, encourager 1. The Spiritual Disciplines: Door to Liberation 1 Part I. The Inward Disciplines 13 2. Meditation 15 3. Prayer 33 4. Fasting 47 5. Study 62 Part II. The Outward Disciplines 77 6. Simplicity 79 7. Solitude 96 8. Submission 110 9. Service 126 Part III. The Corporate Disciplines 141 10. Confession 143 11. Worship 158 12. Guidance 175 13. Celebration 190 In Celebration of Celebration of Discipline 202 Notes 211 Bibliography 222 iv / RICHARD J. FOSTER Scripture Index 227 Subject Index 231 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS About the Author 246 Also by Richard J. Foster 247 1978 Other Renovaré Resources for Spiritual Renewal 248 Books are best written in community. I am deeply indebted to those Copyright 249 whose lives have surrounded mine and have given substance to the About the Publisher 250 ideas in this book. It was through the friendship and teaching of Dallas Willard that I first saw the meaning and necessity of the Richard J. Foster's Study Guide for Celebration of Discipline 251 Spiritual Disciplines. His life is the embodiment of the principles of this book. I owe much to Bess Bulgin, who carefully and prayerfully read each line of this book many times over. Her feel for rhythm has greatly enhanced its readability. Ken and Doris Boyce helped me more than they will ever know by their constant encouragement and enthusiasm. The help of Connie Varce, in typing, grammar, and optimism, added a great deal. Mary Myton worked endlessly in typing both rough draft and the final manuscript. Stan Thornburg taught me about the Discipline of service with his words and his life. Rachel Hinshaw graciously offered her skills as a professional proofreader. My special thanks to Newberg Friends Church for re- leasing me to have time to write in the final weeks of this book, and especially to Ron Woodward, whose pastoral load of necessity in- creased as mine decreased. I thank my wife, Carolynn, and our children, Joel and Nathan, for their incredible patience throughout the writing of this book. 1988 It has been ten years since Celebration of Discipline was first published. I still find it true that books are best written in community; the only difference now is that the community to v vi / RICHARD J. FOSTER CELEBRATION OF DISCIPLINE / vii which I am indebted is vastly larger. Over the years numerous per- The first of these to travel this journey was Bess Bulgin. When I sons have written to encourage, challenge, correct, and stimulate was writing Celebration, I met with Bess weekly, and she would cri- my thinking. In addition, many have talked with me in person about tique my work. Bess was a poet and brought a poet’s eye to all that their own strivings, learnings, and growings. All of these people I wrote. More than just critique happened though: a friendship was and more have taught me much about the spiritual life and have forged, rich and abiding. contributed to this revision. Then I moved. I did not know if Bess and I would ever meet again I especially want to thank my wife, Carolynn, who over the years this side of the Valley. We did. We both sensed it would be our last has taught me more about walking with God than words can express. time together and said so. We talked and reminisced. She shared a The dedication of this book to her has even more relevance now new poem with me. Then, with trembling voice, I read the closing than it did ten years ago. Also, I want to express my appreciation to paragraph from the final book of The Chronicles of Narnia to her: “but my administrative associate, Lynda Graybeal, who has worked the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful tirelessly on the many details of this revision. that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, As I revise Celebration, I am struck profoundly by the weakness and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But of words. At best they are broken and fragmented witnesses to God’s for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in truth. We do indeed see through a glass darkly. And yet I am struck this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the even more profoundly by the fact that God can take something so cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter inadequate, so imperfect, so foolish as words on paper and use them One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes to transform lives. How this happens I do not know. It is a miracle on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” of grace and points to the fact that, if there is anything in these pages I finished reading, and we sat together in perfect silence. Then I that ministers life to you, it did not come from me. Soli Deo Gloria! left, traveling back to my new home. Not long after Bess left too, 1998 traveling to her new home beyond the Valley of the Shadow. Such loss is a reality we all must face at one time or another, per- Twenty years ago I wrote, “Books are best written in community.” haps many times over. Hear, then, these bracing words of Charles Ten years ago I reaffirmed that confessional statement, adding, “the Wesley: only difference now is that the community to which I am indebted is vastly larger.” So it is today, double and triple. If DEATH my friend and me divide, I would like, however, to add one difference now that was not thou dost not, Lord, my sorrow chide, true before: various ones of our ever-expanding community have or frown my tears to see; since traveled through the Valley of the Shadow. They now live on restrained from passionate excess, the other side, overflowing, I have no doubt, with utter joy and complete fulfillment. thou bidst me mourn in calm distress for them that rest in thee. I feel a strong immortal hope, which bears my mournful spirit up viii / RICHARD J. FOSTER beneath its mountain load; FOREWORD redeemed from death, and grief, and pain, I soon shall find my friend again There are many books concerned with the inner life, but there are within the arms of God. not many that combine real originality with intellectual integrity. Pass a few fleeting moments more Yet it is exactly this combination that Richard Foster has been able and death the blessing shall restore to produce. Steeped as he is in the devotional classics, the author has given us a careful study that may, itself, be valued for a long which death has snatched away; time. Though the present volume demonstrates indebtedness to the for me thou wilt the summons send, Classics, it is not a book about them; it represents, instead, genuinely and give me back my parted friend original work. in that eternal day. What strikes us at once is the comprehensive character of the current undertaking. Many contemporary books deal with particular aspects of the inner life, but this one is different in that it deals with an astonishing variety of important topics, much of its freshness of treatment arising from its boldness. The author has undertaken to examine a wide spectrum of experience, from confession to simplicity to joy. Since the finished product is the outcome of wide reading and careful thinking, it is not the sort of book that can be dashed off quickly or cheaply. The sources of insight are varied, the chief ones being the Holy Scriptures, and the recognized classics of devotion, but these are not the only fountains from which the author draws. The careful reader soon recognizes a large indebtedness to secular thinkers as well. In view of the fact that the author is himself a Quaker, it is not surpris- ing that the contributions of the classic Quaker writers are prominent. These include the works of George Fox, John Woolman, Hannah Whitall Smith, Thomas Kelly, and many more. The purpose here is not sectarian but genuinely ecumenical, since important insights ought never to be limited to the group from which they arise. What we are given, accordingly, is an example of the catholicity of sharing. The treatment of simplicity is especially valuable, partly be- ix x / RICHARD J. FOSTER cause it is not simple. Indeed the ten “controlling principles” con- cerning simplicity, which are explained in Chapter 6, are themselves sufficient justification for the appearance of another book on the INTRODUCTION spiritual life. The ten principles enunciated, while rooted in ancient wisdom, are made astonishingly contemporary. The author understands very well that the emphasis upon simpli- It is a wonder to me how God uses squiggles on paper to do his city may itself become a snare. This is why he will not settle for work in the hearts and minds of people. How are these squiggles anything so obvious as the adoption of a plain garb, though he can transformed into letters and words and sentences and, finally, say tersely, “Hang the fashions. Buy only what you need.” Here is meaning? Oh, we may congratulate ourselves on knowing a little a radical proposal which, if widely adopted, would be immensely about the function of neurotransmitters in the brain or about how liberating to people who are the victims of the advertisers, particu- endorphin proteins affect learning and memory retention, but if we larly those on television.