Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
1978
Books are best written in community. I am deeply indebted to those whose lives have surrounded mine and have given substance to the ideas in this book. It was through the friendship and teaching of Dallas Willard that I first saw the meaning and necessity of the 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 releasing me to have time to write in the final weeks of this book, and especially to Ron Woodward, whose pastoral load of necessity increased 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 which I am indebted is vastly larger. Over the years numerous persons have written to encourage, challenge, correct, and stimulate my thinking. In addition, many have talked with me in person about their own strivings, learnings, and growings. All of these people and more have taught me much about the spiritual life and have contributed to this revision.
I especially want to thank my wife, Carolynn, who over the years has taught me more about walking with God than words can express. The dedication of this book to her has even more relevance now than it did ten years ago. Also, I want to express my appreciation to my administrative associate, Lynda Graybeal, who has worked tirelessly on the many details of this revision.
As I revise Celebration, I am struck profoundly by the weakness of words. At best they are broken and fragmented witnesses to God’s truth. We do indeed see through a glass darkly. And yet I am struck even more profoundly by the fact that God can take something so inadequate, so imperfect, so foolish as words on paper and use them to transform lives. How this happens I do not know. It is a miracle of grace and points to the fact that, if there is anything in these pages that ministers life to you, it did not come from me. Soli Deo Gloria!
1998
Twenty years ago I wrote, “Books are best written in community.” Ten years ago I reaffirmed that confessional statement, adding, “the only difference now is that the community to which I am indebted is vastly larger.” So it is today, double and triple.
I would like, however, to add one difference now that was not true before: various ones of our ever-expanding community have since traveled through the Valley of the Shadow. They now live on the other side, overflowing, I have no doubt, with utter joy and complete fulfillment.
The first of these to travel this journey was Bess Bulgin. When I was writing Celebration, I met with Bess weekly, and she would critique my work. Bess was a poet and brought a poet’s eye to all that I wrote. More than just critique happened though: a friendship was forged, rich and abiding.
Then I moved. I did not know if Bess and I would ever meet again this side of the Valley. We did. We both sensed it would be our last time together and said so. We talked and reminisced. She shared a new poem with me. Then, with trembling voice, I read the closing paragraph from the final book of The Chronicles of Narnia to her: “but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
I finished reading, and we sat together in perfect silence. Then I left, traveling back to my new home. Not long after Bess left too, 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, perhaps many times over. Hear, then, these bracing words of Charles Wesley:
If DEATH my friend and me divide,
thou dost not, Lord, my sorrow chide,
or frown my tears to see;
restrained from passionate excess,
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
beneath its mountain load;
redeemed from death, and grief, and pain,
I soon shall find my friend again
within the arms of God.
Pass a few fleeting moments more
and death the blessing shall restore
which death has snatched away;
for me thou wilt the summons send,
and give me back my parted friend
in that eternal day.