Liturgies for young and old.(You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit)

• Published in: American Conservative Vol. 15; no. 5; pp. 55 - 56
• Main Author: Olmstead, Gracy
• Format: Book Review Magazine Article
• Language: English
• Published: Arlington The American Conservative LLC 01.09.2016; American Conservative LLC
• Subjects: Habits; Love; Nonfiction; Rites & ceremonies; Smith, James K A; Spirituality
• ISSN: 1540-966X

Perhaps it's this remembrance that helped me identify so deeply with [James K.A.] Smith's new book You Are What You Love. Smith begins his book with a classic quotation from St. Augustine's Confessions, in which Augustine declares that "You [God] have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." There is a teleological bent to human nature: we are dynamic beings in search of a specific end. And while philosophy since the Enlightenment has conditioned us to believe "we are what we think" (thanks in large part to René Descartes), Augustine's statement positions the seat of human character and creaturehood in the heart, not the head, suggesting that our proper end is devotion, not cognition. "What if, instead of starting from the assumption that human beings are thinking things, we started from the conviction that human beings are first and foremost lovers?" Smith asks. Then, the question becomes not "whether you will love something as ultimate," but rather, "what you will love as ultimate." This is where that Bach Partita comes in: to foster virtuous love is "more like practicing scales on the piano than learning music theory," writes Smith. "The goal is, in a sense, for your fingers to learn the scales so they can then play 'naturally,' as it were. Learning here isn't just information acquisition; it's more like inscribing something into the very fiber of your being." Learning to love God is like learning to play [Johann Sebastian Bach]: it requires daily immersion in habits and practices that train the "muscles" of my heart to desire, and thus do, what it ought. A Christian home should be mindful of formative liturgies-"story, poetry, music, symbols, and images"-that foster children's spiritual growth "under the hood" of consciousness. "Children are ritual animals," he writes, "who absorb the gospel in practices that speak to their imaginations." Participation in the liturgical calendar-using candles, colors, feasts, festivals, and stories-can help integrate our children into the family of faith.