Tonight at midweek we had a lesson based on this book by Larry Crabb. Larry is one of the pantheon of authors in the mold of “Sacred Romance” and “Wild at Heart” by John Eldredge. Sacred Romance, pretty doggone cool. Wild at Heart, well, um, did I mention Sacred Romance?
I want to read this book based on the lesson given this evening, mainly because so many responded to how it helped them. I’ll be honest, I don’t understand the main concept as presented – meaning the concepts of upper room and lower room. I do understand the concept of making the church community the safest place on earth.
As I understand it, the lower room is the unspritual life and the upper room is the spiritual life. Living in the upper room is described as
- Finding ourselves wanting to bless people more than use them.
- Discovering an unshakable joy that survives the most crushing disappointments.
- Noticing a patient and kind gentleness nudging aside our irritation with people.
- Experiencing ourselves as solid and whole in the presence of those who used to intimidate us.
The lower room is described as welling up four negative (my word, not his) passions:
- Passion for Self
- Passion to Control
- Passion to define life and death on our terms (I didn’t understand this one.)
- Passion to Perform
The speaker remarked that this analogy helped him to understand his spiritual relationship to God. He understood the book to talk about moving from the lower room to the upper room. I missed the heart of the message at this point, due to a coughing fit. When I came back, though, folks were sharing their thoughts.
Personally, I could never define myself as being in the upper room. Call it a weakness, a spiritual malady, a personality quirk, or what have you. I have experienced all of the things described, just not all at once. Beyond that, was Jesus in his lower room when he cleared the temple in John 2? or called the Pharisees names? or when he called Herod a fox? How can the markers of spirituality be feelings and experiences?
I want to read the book because my brief introduction leads me to believe that passion is to be minimized. (There is no passion in the upper room, only the lower room.) It also leads me to believe that what is important is what I feel, not what I do. (I would contend that both are misleading.) I have a hard time believing that either of these is true.
Having said all of that, what did resonate was a small part of the descriptions of each room. In the upper room, God arranged the furniture. In the lower room, the self arranges the furniture. The upper room, to me, could be seen as Colossians 3, focusing on things above. Under the same analogy, the lower room could be seen as focusing on the things of this earth, like Peter when he walked on the water briefly. Moreover, God controls the spiritual life while the self controls the life of the flesh.
I can understand that temptation is all about lowering our gaze. I can understand that the evils of life can beat someone down enough that they will not look up literally or figuratively. I can understand deciding that it is easier to live a life for self rather than live for God and trying to find happiness in the persihable things of this earth. The entire analogy resonates with Proverbs 15:24:
The path of life leads upward for the wise
to keep him from going down to the grave.
Proverbs 15:24
The message tonight went on to explain the need for others in our life to help us. I believe Larry describes spiritual friends and spiritual directors at this point. I do not know what the speaker tonight said about this in more detail. (the aforementioned coughing fit.) However, I do understand how good a timely word can be (Prov 15:23). Despite all the garbage of spiritual mentoring I endured, I still understand that I am not always the best person to discern what is going on in my life. Outside help means a lot of things, especially in an individual’s life – my life. Outside help means talking to trusted people inside and outside my church heritage and asking them what they see. It can even mean asking a friend of a friend. I have received an apt word from folks of different faiths and cultures, as well as just plain bad ideas. (All the junk cannot be blamed on my parents or the ICoC subculture, though it would be rather conveinient to do so.)
In any case, I dream of a sacred community that I see in the New and Old Testament. A community where we are all royal preists. A place where we are all brothers and sisters. A family to belong and a people with a distinct culture. I haven’t come close to experiencing this, but I imagine what it would be like. A place to feel safe, as the title suggests.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dream of some utopian church experience – that awaits in Heaven. However, it is still important to build or find what is best in Christian relationships wherever God has placed me.
So far, it seems to be okay. But like I said earlier, I’m not always the best judge of what is going on around me.