The Wisdom of Stability: Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture

To say that we live a "hyper-mobile" culture may be a bit of an understatement these days. Just today, I was eating lunch with my family at the local Japanese restaurant following our church's worship service and there were three teenagers sitting together in a booth near us. As I walked by their table, I noticed that the three of them were sharing the same physical space (they were sitting together in the booth), but they were not interacting with one another at all. Instead, two of them had their cell phones under the table, "texting" someone, while the third had her cell phone up to her ear, talking to yet another person. With access to their whole network of "friends" at their fingertips, these three teenagers were essentially trading the friends sitting within touching distance for the virtual connection achieved via LCD screen.In an ever-shrinking world, characterized by instant communication to almost anywhere on the globe, how are we actually doing at building community? With families constantly on the go, kids that aspire to grow up and move up the social ladder, and a constant barrage of information overloading our senses, are we reverting to a nomadic existence once again?Likewise, how do we define stability in today's context? Often, we refer to people who are "stable" as those with a good education, steady employment, financial abundance, and a traditional family. Could it be that, in this very definition, we are undermining the possibility of true community by placing such high value in those things which promote self-reliance and independence from those with whom God is calling us to share community and interdependence?It is questions like these that Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove tackles in his latest book, The Wisdom of Stability: Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture. Many young evangelicals today are finding life-giving wisdom in ancient traditions, passed down throughout the centuries of Christian life and practice. Wilson-Hartgrove is one of these, culling the gifts of the Desert Mothers and Fathers for our contemporary time in this book. Wilson-Hartgrove is among a growing number of young Evangelicals, living in intentional communities that seek to embody this ancient way of life in new, urban contexts.Drawing from the vow of stability described in the Rule of St. Benedict (which Wilson-Hartgrove's own "new monastic" community follows in adapted form), this book challenges the commodification of community seen in 21st Century culture. Identifying the innate human desire to connect with other people, "social networking" has become a phenomenon through websites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Cell phone companies capitalize on the desire to constantly be in "contact" with one's network through phone calls, text messaging, and access to these online communities. As Wilson-Hartgrove notes,"The great advantage of a Facebook friendship, of course, is that it is so easy. I get to choose who I want to "friend" and whose friendship requests I respond to. We gather around our common interests, share the stuff we want others to know, and log off when we feel like it. In many ways what we have is connection without obligation. But intimacy without commitment is what our society has traditionally called `infidelity'."Though Wilson-Hartgrove doesn't use this term, the hyper-mobile nature of today's society has led to an increasingly "pornographic" culture, where people are valued based on their usefulness to another person. Individuals are turned into objects that can be used as means to an end rather than the embodiment of the image of God. As humans, we are not free-floating spirits, despite the temptation to view life this way through the lens of cyber-relationships. This embodiment is the kind of stability that Wilson-Hartgrove is commending in this text. It is the embodiment of faith, within a community, over time. It is the slow development of relationships and communal trust as flawed humans rub shoulders with each others over the course of time, transforming and shaping one another "as iron sharpens iron."Additionally, Wilson-Hartgrove's advocation of stability as a virtue further embodies the missional nature of the Church's calling. As the body of Christ, the Church is called to incarnate the Gospel - to be the "good news." The vow of stability makes this incarnational quality of the Church's mission truly achievable because it calls to love not just in words, but "in action and in truth."I have read most of Wilson-Hartgrove's works to date and can say that this one has been the most powerful and convicting read yet. His engagement with the Biblical material is always fresh and insightful, drawing me to a deeper appreciation of the text by looking at it from new perspectives. The overarching metaphor of life as a house, along with his personal stories, cause the reader to feel as though you are pulling up a rocking chair on the front porch and sharing a glass of sweet tea and conversation. This is a timely book, a needed book, a book that should be widely read and talked about among those who wish to fight the cultural tendency to "move up and move out." This is a book about the difficulties and dangers of community life, as well as the unparalleled joys of plunging deep roots in a specific place, among a specific people.

"What is the point of a community--of a life, even--if we don't sit down and take the time to enjoy it by remembering?" (page 79)And the best place to do that sitting down and enjoying, Wilson-Hartgrove tells us, may well be right where we are. Instead of chasing after, always chasing after, he counsels a way of life that is *settled*, that may sometimes mean giving up a perceived greater good to learn to treasure the really better life that we already have, right where we are now.The author and his wife have chosen a settled lifestyle in a small community, but he has spent time with monastics and others schooled in the way of simplicity and rootedness to build a case for stepping back to a life many of us long ago gave up as hopelessly out of date. "Most modern (or postmodern) people get uncomfortable when talking about commitment and stability" he notes. "We worry that vows like stability can be dangerous." (page 4) Nor does he shy away from discussing the pitfalls to avoid, when stability might become instead stagnation and boredom.In the end, however, The Wisdom of Stability shows us there is indeed wisdom to be found in re-thinking our mad dash after...whatever it is that we find ourselves ever chasing and never quite grasping.This is a book to buy, not check out of the library, for you will want to dog ear it, underline it and write notes in every available margin space, coming back to it for quotes to be used in other writing, in talking to friends, and yes, in writing your own review of the book. A few thoughts to sample before you buy your own copy:"Careful attention to the mundane tasks of daily life is the process by which we exorcise ambition and grow in love." p 115"Prayer is not an interrupting distraction but rather a gift that reminds us what all of our living is for." p 73As to the pitfalls of the extremely rooted life, he notes that living in a monastery brings "the real challenge of hospitality,...opening the door again and again to the brothers [each] lives with." Wilson-Hartgrove goes on to say that even outside the monastery walls "spiritual boredom can lead to a quiet disdain for the people I share life with...Boredom tempts us to give up on the people God has given us." p 118-119As an antidote for this kind of boredom, he reminds us that "our spirits do well when our bodies have work to do...While manual labor is no panacea for the ills of acedia, almost anything that gets our bodies moving can be a real help for spirit that grow weary in the unprecedented leisure of postindustrial society." p 120Rootedness is never to be seen as a selfish action however. We are reminded "to ask how much of the stability we invest in--good education, stable jobs and even our ideal of family--is an attempt to establish security for ourselves apart from dependence on another's grace? If we are to practice true stability, we must find ways to receive it over and again as a gift. Rich or poor, we cannot get away from our fundamental need for a home in the household of God." p 124For any Christian seeking to live out a life of grace and rooted in faith, The Wisdom of Stability will be a valuable read.

I've been reading this book and ...honestly... it's been life changing. I am not sure if you can relate but, I am always looking for 'the next big thing', or looking for 'my calling' or trying to find 'my purpose'. I tend to be so unhappy with my current circumstances that I live in the next 5 minutes, 5 days, weeks, years and end up forsaking the present. I've lost so much time running to something instead of being still. When people frustrate me I put a wall up, when I'm unhappy at work I ask God to change my profession, when I'm not happy with what's in my closet I buy new stuff that I'll end up being unhappy about in a few weeks. I realize that I've spent the last several years running to something that was never really there. I keep thinking that whatever's around the 'next turn' is going to be 'it' and THEN I can stop chasing my tail. What this book has shown me is that we are not able to find God when we are running or chasing after something. We really find God and experience Him when we are still- when we are stable.Here's a quote from the book that is stamped on my heart, "Maybe none of us are safe to respond to God's call until we've stayed put long enough to face our demons".This book has changed my heart. I would recommend it to anyone that is looking for a way to find stability and peace in this ever changing world!

We live in a world that is constantly moving and changing. Hartgrove takes an honest look at the scriptures and church leaders to set before his readers an invitation to a different sort of life, a life of stability. This book will challenge those who read it while inviting the reader deeper into their relationship with God and the importance of place.

Heartgrove shared some deep and great wisdom into the practices of rooting and place. Living in a society that is always in the demand for the "new", it is refreshing to find meditative solace as Marcel Proust would say by the, "real voyage of discovery consisting not in new landscapes but in having new eyes."

This was the second book I've read from Jonathan and it was incredible. God has really used it to challenge me. It's a great read, the only reason I didn't give it 5 stars, was I wished the scripture references were stated more clearly as oppose to the notes in the back. But other than that it was phenomenal! :)