On any journey you eventually discover that a change of course is necessary. Sometimes you find a faster route. Sometimes you notice a cliff ahead that you would rather not tumble over. Mid-course corrections are not admissions of failure. They are signs that you are paying attention. Lately I have found myself making one of those quiet adjustments.

I have been trying to be more intentional about what I read and how I read. At the end of last year I set a goal for myself to work carefully through one of Shakespeare’s plays. I chose Shakespeare precisely because he is not easy. The classics demand something of you. They stretch vocabulary. They require patience. And yet they endure for a reason. They endure because they resonate. Pain, joy, betrayal, ambition, redemption, longing. The human condition has not changed nearly as much as we like to think it has. If a work survives centuries, it is probably because it has touched something common in us.

So that was the plan. And then something interesting began to happen.

I have been on what I can only describe as a Spirit-led reading journey. A book my men’s group selected intersected almost perfectly with a book I had picked up earlier simply because the title intrigued me. Two very different authors, two very different angles, yet they were circling the same center. Spiritual formation. The more I followed the thread, the less it felt like a coincidence and the more it felt like providence. Not random, but guided. Like I was being nudged down a path I had not carefully charted but perhaps deeply needed.

The trail itself now seems obvious in hindsight. It began with The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, that quiet invitation to commune with God in the ordinary rhythms of life, even while washing dishes. Then came Perichoretic Salvation by James Gifford Jr., and reading Gifford was something of an epiphany for me. He gave language to something I had sensed but could not quite articulate. His theological precision around mutual indwelling and union with Christ did not feel abstract. It felt like someone had turned on a light in a room I had been standing in for years.

After that I picked up The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard, and I began to realize that Willard was circling the same reality Gifford had described, but with a very different vocabulary. Where Gifford was academic and carefully mapping the doctrinal contours of perichoretic union, Willard was intensely practical, showing what that union looks like in the lived reality of everyday obedience. I followed it with Living in Christ’s Presence, and again it was the same theme translated into daily experience. Gifford gave me the architecture. Willard walked me through the rooms and asked how I was actually living there. Then The Saving Life of Christ by Major W. Ian Thomas drove the point home in a way that was both humbling and liberating. His insistence was clear. As Christians we cannot live the Christian life. We cannot manufacture Christlikeness through willpower. Only Christ can live the Christ life. Therefore, the call is not to try harder but to allow Him to live His life through us. Different voices. Different eras. Yet they were circling the same center. Formation. Indwelling. Participation. Not information, but transformation.

Then there was a small moment that felt almost trivial at first. We had some time to kill before lunch and wandered into a bookstore. I had no intention of buying anything for myself. I usually begin in the philosophy section, then drift toward history, then theology. The philosophy shelves were filled with the usual suspects. Another translation of Plato. Another edition of Marcus Aurelius. Worthy, but nothing new. The theology section was overwhelming. So many titles that you almost do not know where to begin. And then one word caught my eye. Experiencing. The book was about experiencing the Scriptures rather than merely reading them. That distinction struck me immediately. Reading can be informational. Experiencing is transformational. I pulled it off the shelf and discovered that it was about reading the Scriptures in the spirit of Dallas Willard, whom I had just been studying. Again the same thread. Formation. Application. Not simply knowing that you are in a relationship with God, but asking how that relationship actually shapes daily life.

All of this has required me to loosen my grip a bit. When you are living in a relationship with God you must give Him room to guide. I still have goals. I still intend to read Shakespeare. But I am writing those goals in pencil. If they need to be adjusted, I can erase and refine them. The journey matters more than rigid adherence to a checklist.

My wanting to read Shakespeare may be part of the plan and somehow it may related to what I am reading now. It would not be the first time two seemly unrelated books would come together in a new way deepening my experience.

Years ago I read a widely recommended book on local government leadership because I wanted to better understand what it means to participate responsibly in a participatory form of government. Where better to start than the local level. That reading later intersected with my study of Dante’s Divine Comedy in ways I did not anticipate. I initially approached Dante expecting poetic or philosophical nuggets of wisdom. What I found was something far deeper and more political than I imagined. Dante places people in hell, purgatory, and paradise not merely as literary devices but as moral commentary. He does something remarkable. He puts members of his own political camp in hell when they deserve it. He places some of his opponents in paradise when they embody virtue. Principle over party. Truth over tribe. That is the opposite of the divisive spirit we see so often today. It is also a warning. When religious leaders seek earthly power instead of Christ’s kingdom, they place themselves in dangerous territory. Dante understood that. It is sobering how relevant that remains.

The more I step back, the more I see how interconnected all of this is. Spiritual formation. Civic responsibility. The approaching two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our nation. Classics. Theology. Governance. None of these are isolated compartments in my life. They are threads woven into one larger project. The project of becoming. Of learning how to live well. Of, as one recent book described it, entering a kind of master class in learning to live like Jesus.

This shift has even begun to change the way I write. A friend recently told me that while he finds my topics fascinating, he prefers talking with me to reading my blog because sometimes my writing feels too academic. I had to admit there is some truth there. When I write I often feel like I am drafting a collage paper. I want to cover the topic thoroughly. I want to cite sources. I want to make sure the argument is tight. There is value in that. It helps me think clearly. But I am also reminded of something A. D. Sertillanges wrote in The Intellectual Life. When you learn something, you assume a responsibility to pass it on. If I learn in an academic mode, perhaps I should also translate that learning into language that is more accessible. Writing is partly for me. It helps me organize the chaos in my head. But if I am going to share it, I owe it to you to make it accessible.

So I am experimenting. Some posts will remain more structured and academic. Others may feel more like this. More conversational. More reflective. Less like a thesis and more like a journal entry. I am not forcing topics. If I begin a series and it stalls, perhaps I have said what I needed to say for now. Perhaps I need to study more. Perhaps I am not ready yet. That too is part of formation. I just need to keep moving down the path of life.

In many ways this post is simply a pause. A moment to step back and look at the map. You know those signs in malls and parks that say, You are here. That is what this feels like. I am on the journey. The destination remains the same. But the route is being refined. And I am learning that changing course, when done attentively and humbly, is not a sign of drifting. It is a sign that you are growing.

I know some may look at all of this and see yet another rabbit hole, another wandering detour, another sign that I am chasing ideas instead of staying the course. I understand that concern. From the outside it can look aimless. And yet, as I look back, the path was not something I manufactured. It was laid before me. The books were there. The intersections were there. The invitations were there. They were open to me, and I chose to follow. If you refuse every side trail, you may feel efficient, but you will miss what was waiting just beyond the bend. After all, you cannot catch that rascally rabbit unless you are willing to go down a few rabbit holes. 😉

Excerpt

Sometimes a change of course is not drifting but listening. What began as a reading plan became a Spirit-led journey through Brother Lawrence, Gifford, Willard, and Ian Thomas, all circling one truth: Christ in us. Formation is not striving harder, but allowing Him to live His life through us.

Purrgil Know The Way