Scott Peck – Surprised By Joy

“I do not understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.” – Anne Lamott

One of the books I read in my morning meditation time is Listening to Your Life by author and pastor Frederick Buechner. My mom and I were talking about it a little while back. She mentioned that some find his writing to not be doctrinal enough. Funny because I read him and find at times that I think he’s too doctrinal.

When I was trying to understand how my view of faith differed from that of my dad (and mom) as I was writing my book Finding My Father’s Faith, I read Dr. M. Scott Peck’s book Further Along the Road Less Traveled. In it he describes four stages of faith.

The first stage, chaotic/antisocial, he reserves for people with anti-social tendencies; his second stage is formal/institutional in which faith is governed by an outside body, typically the church.

Dr. Peck calls stage three people “skeptic/individual.” Often stage three people are children of stage two people who have been raised with the values of the church but fall away from the formality and governance of it.

He then describes these stage-three people as usually scientific, truth-seeking people who often begin to see patterns in the big picture that tie them back to the beliefs of their parents and when they do, they transition to stage four, mystical/communal, “people who have seen a kind of cohesion beneath the surface of things.”

Those stages rang true to me and I found comfort in the classification of it all. Regardless of the theory behind it, I suspect that whatever our ideologies are, it’s a narrow band trying to find others who are align exactly or even fairly closely.

But I think we transcend that when we tell our stories. For me, authentic storytelling skips the doctrinal distinctions in the head and goes right to the heart. Here’s one that recently struck me, Buechner tells the story of a friend showing up when Buechner’s daughter was sick. He’d come from 800 miles away without any advance notice and then spent a couple of nights hanging out.

Buechner said they didn’t do anything particularly religious – went for walks, smoked some pipes, took a drive. “I believe that for a little time we both of us touched the hem of Christ’s garment, were both of us, for a little time anyway, healed.”

For me, it hits me right in what I believe is sacred: showing up, being present, holding space for one another to tell our stories.

“It is the ability to choose which makes us human.” – Madeleine L’Engle

When the pandemic hit last year I had just started watching Season 3 of Bosch on Amazon Prime. One night I turned it on and the story line involving one of my all-time favorite detectives as he navigated departmental politics, the drama of his own life and homicide cases he works left me feeling wrung out instead of entertained. So the next time I was looking for evening entertainment, I had to find something else.

Instead I’ve been listening to podcasts as I clean, exercise and prepare for the next day. On Being with Krista Tippett, Soul Sundays with Oprah, Unlocking Us with Brené Brown, The Michelle Obama podcast and Revisionist History with Malcom Gladwell have given me the sound bites and food for thought for a year. What a difference it has made! Author Simon Sinek on Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead podcast made a comment that put words to this for me – sometimes we work alone but that does not have to be lonely if we have sense of faith and community. Listening to deep and inspired conversations with curious and insightful interviewers has kept me company and inspired in this year of being apart.

Krista Tippett’s podcast with Nicholas Christakis, professor of sociology at Yale, was so uplifting to hear his message about how our species is wired for good – to love, to cooperate, to teach each other stuff.

I loved hearing one of the rare interviews with psychiatrist Dr. M Scott Peck did with Oprah. She asked how he got so much done and he replied that he got so much done because he spends two hours a day doing nothing. He used to called it his thinking time but then people felt free to interrupt him so he renamed it his praying time and then no one dared.

When Brené Brown interviewed psychologist and author, Harriet Lerner, it was a master class in apologies. I so related to the point she made that adults often use a child’s apology as a launching point for a lecture instead of “thank you for saying that, I appreciate it.” Her point was that neither children nor adults feel much like apologizing when that is likely to happen.

Michelle Obama interviewed her mom, Marian Robinson and they laughed about how Marian used to foster independence in her children by letting them get themselves up and ready for school, “it’s up to you” she would quip, “I already got my education.”

One of the Brené Brown podcasts was with neuroscientist David Eagleman whose research at Stanford shows that our brain is constantly changing and making new connections. He made the point that even in the hour of listening to the podcast, our brains would be changed by it. And I believe it was in the same interview that he said who we are is shaped by the five people that we spent the most time with. It is that point that sticks with me as I consider how to spend my precious free time. Who am I listening to and is it what I want to be shaping me?

Tag: Scott Peck

Showing Up and Telling Stories

Who Are You Listening To?