THE GOOD LIFE: LOVE’S AIM AND END

My idea of heaven is a fabulous library with a great food court.  I am hoping there’s food in heaven.  Heaven with a great library and at least a Starbucks is what you would expect of a retired university president and professor.  It’s not surprising that the best Christmas presents I recieved this year from my daughter and son were wonderful books.  The one I am reading now makes great sense.  It resonates with my heart and faith.  Its title is Desiring the Kingdom by James K. A. Smith (published in 2009 by Baker Academic).  Here’s a few nuggets of gold in this well crafted tome.  I’ll paraphrase and summarize Jamie Smith:

He paints the picture that we are not containers filled with ideas and beliefs.  Instead we are dynamic, desiring arrows aimed at targets that represent the kind of people we seek to become.  We are creatures of desire craving our visions of the good life.  Our desire is constantly formed by practices and habits that point the heart.  As intentional beings of desire, we lead life with our heart and head, but the heart (affect, kardia, love, feeling our way) is more powerful than just ideas and belief.  We are affective before we are cognitive.  Smith states “To be human is to love, and it is what we love that defines who we are. . . A vision of the good life captures our hearts and imaginations painting a picture of what its like to flourish and live well.”

In our present culture, the good life we pursue defines us through the habit and value shaping cultural contexts that we frequent with near reverence and awe.  They include shopping centers, sports arenas, cathedrals of learning (universities), and community celebrations of patriotism.  He suggests that a lifetime of practices and habits shape our hearts as we pursue our vision of the good life highly influenced by the culture.  As you might expect by the title, Smith makes the case first and foremost for desiring the Kingdom.  As followers of Jesus, our vision of the good life is not based so much on the basic beliefs of the Christian faith, particular doctrines, theology or cognitive catechism.  Rather it is a matter of the heart and the heart is aimed at the priority, the Kingdom of God.  If not aimed at the Kingdom then, it will be aimed at something else.  Sadly, foror many Christians, the reality is that the heart's priority aims at things other than the Kingdom.

I am only half the way through the book.  I know I want to grow in my desire for the Kingdom.  I want Jesus and the Kingdom to be my priority, my only priority following Christ’s directive to see the Kingdom.  As I finish the book, I’ll keep you posted!  Better yet, visit Amazon.com and get a copy.  But beware. You’ll be captured by this author and he has a sequal,  volume two, Imagining the Kingdom.  I imagine I will like that one too.

Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness

And all these things shall be added to you.

Matthew 6:33