Critical Journey
Following are notes on the highly regarded book,
The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith
by Janet O. Hagberg and Robert A. Guelich
AUTHOR’S THESIS:
There are mileposts on the journey of faith whose consistency have been noticed by both ancient and contemporary travelers of the Christian spiritual journey. These stages include: discovery of God, discipleship, productivity, journey inward, confronting God’s will, and journeying outward with a heart enthused to love as God loves us.
Stages:
1. The Recognition of God
2. Discipleship
3. The Productive Life
4. The Journey Inward
The Wall
5. The Journey Outward
6. The Life of Love
p. xviii – “We have two objectives in writing this book. First, we want to aid you in understanding your own faith journey by helping you discover where you may be along the way and recognize where you have been. Second, we want you to appreciate where others are on the critical journey at similar or different stages.”
pp. 2,3 – Spirituality and religion are not the same thing. Religion may or may not drive us back together in relationship, but spirituality always does – with God and each other.
p. 7 – “The stages on the journey are very fluid.” (Though sequential), “We move back and forth between them regularly, and we can experience more than one stage at the same time.”
(Each chapter’s end) - At each stage, we can become “caged,” unable to move forward.
p. 10 – Each stage manifests some negative character traits, feelings or experiences.
p. 12 – We admire people who are one stage ahead of us; we don’t understand and therefore distrust the experience of those two or more stages ahead of us.
p. 13 – Movement to the next stage is often motivated by “crisis.”
p. 14 – Moving on is easier if one has a spiritual guide who has journeyed further.
Ch. 1 – God moves us along the journey, we don’t move ourselves.
STAGE 1: Recognition of God
p. 33 – Recognition of God may be gradual or dramatic; both result in “awe” of God.
STAGE 2: The Life of Discipleship
p. 53 – In the Discipleship Stage, it is crucial to be in relationship with others.
People in stage 2 may think people in stage 4 are losing or have lost their faith.
p. 63 – “Switchers,” disappointed with a group or leader, move around, but not on.
“Searchers,” injured, frustrated or confused, search outside the faith for answers.
p. 64 – “At stage 1, we think we are wrong and weak and that others are right and strong. At stage 2, we think we are right and strong and that others are wrong and weak.”
STAGE 3: The Productive Life
p. 73 – The “productive stage” is the “doing” stage, full of growth and rewards, but also often full of selfish motivation and self-propulsion rather than divine dependence.
STAGE 4: The Journey Inward
p. 93 - Stage 4 is unsettling; a “God and me” time of doubt, questioning, addressing deep personal issues, healing, confronting discrepancies between God’s will and ours.
p. 94 – Sadly, many pastors and Christian leaders haven’t been through stage 4 and so can’t help those who confront it. Seek out those spiritual directors who have and can.
p. 97 – Stage 4 is a search for directions, not answers.
THE WALL
p. 109 – Many shrink back from going through “the Wall” that confronts us with God’s will, because the other side is so mysterious and uncertain. Even while we long for the transformation the wall promises, the status quo feels safer.
p. 114 – “The Wall represents our will meeting God’s will face to face.”
We try to deal with it the same way we have gotten through life – on the strength of our own will or gifts.
p. 114 – There is a deep sense of God being at work in us; therefore we are less afraid.
p. 115 - “We are dying to self and waiting to be reborn.”
p. 115 – The Wall represents barriers we have erected over time and are now slowly breaking through. It is where psychology and spirituality converge; where we surrender our wills in order to be spiritually healed. (BT: you can’t deal with what you don’t acknowledge.)
pp. 115 – 118 Types of resistance at the Wall include: strong egos, self-deprecation, guilt/shame, intellectualizing, high achieving, doctrinal rigidity and the difficulty faced by the ordained to be uncertain, vulnerable and to not equate their will with God’s will.
p. 116 – We cannot remain in control. This experience (at the Wall) does not mean that we lose our self-esteem. Rather our ego-centeredness is changed to a God-centeredness … A vast difference exists between humility and low self-esteem.
p. 116,7 – To deal with past guilt and shame, especially when resultant from pain inflicted by the Church or by Christians, people tend to substitute other spiritualities or causes for God. What is needed is recognition of paradoxes, such as the Church is God’s family, but doesn’t perfectly represent God.
p. 117 – High Achievers try to work hard to navigate the Wall or build a higher one to jump it. They struggle to go through the wall by self-surrender, not self-effort.
p. 119 – The Wall is where our ego and will are transformed, released & turned outward so that love can emerge. Spiritual and psychological healing. We recognize the unhealthy motives behind our “selfless” acts.
p. 119 – At the Wall, we let God change us, but we do not become perfect. We become aware of our weaknesses and God’s unconditional love, nonetheless. We become aware of how we were following other motivations and yield instead to God’s will.
p. 119 – We need someone with us at the Wall; a guide who understands the experience.
p. 121 – Essential to healing is the four-phase movement of Awareness, Forgiveness, Acceptance and Love. We become aware of our shadow sides; our hidden parts. We are not what we appear or want to be. With anger, bitterness and sadness, we become aware of this fact. We forgive ourselves and others, aware that we are all different people than we thought we were. We accept and embrace our true selves – the good and bad in all their specificity. Because if we don’t, these parts we want to deny will control us like false gods. They can lead us to suicide. With God’s intervention comes Love for God, ourselves, others. Not just whom we WANT to love, but everyone. Not out of low self-esteem, but from encounter with God.
p. 122 – Discernment follows the Wall experience. We learn to listen anew, not relying on past ways, which may have been distractions from following God. We suspend dogma, rules and rationalizations to listen in new & risky ways to God.
p. 123 – “We simply cannot go through the Wall while working sixty hours a week . . . ” Solitude is necessary.
p. 128 – The Wall must be experienced before we can proceed to the Journey Outward.
Stage 5: The Journey Outward
p. 128 – Stage 5 (Journey Outward) requires sacrifices of some very important things, but once we’ve come to this point, we won’t think of them as sacrifices. We’re more than ready for something more.
