Refocusing the Western Christian Lens: Embracing a More Diverse Spiritual Formation, S1E2

In this conversation, LaSaundra Gibson and Dr. Cindy S. Lee explore the concept of spiritual formation, particularly challenging the Western-centric views that have influenced Christianity. They discuss cyclical vs. linear spirituality, reimagining time as led by nature and seasons rather than clocks, listening to the soul’s longings, and honoring ancestral wisdom. The conversation emphasizes the significance of communal spirituality, especially by honoring the Sabbath as a spiritual practice that promotes justice and equality. Dr. Lee advocates for a more inclusive understanding of spirituality that embraces uncertainty and the diverse experiences of individuals.

Transcript

LaSaundra Gibson (00:44)

Welcome to The Being Devotionals. I'm LaSaundra Gibson. For centuries, Western voices have shaped our view of what spiritual formation is and what it should look like. But my guest today, Dr. Cindy S. Lee, challenges the way we look at formation through our Western lenses. Cindy is the author of Our Unforming, De-Westernizing Spiritual Formation. She's an affiliate assistant professor of doctorate of ministry at Fuller Seminary.

And as a spiritual director and Taiwanese American, Cindy has a special interest in BIPOC centered spirituality. She leads retreats, trains and mentors other spiritual directors. Welcome Cindy. I'm so excited you're here to chat with me.

Cindy Lee (01:25)

Yes, thank you, LaSaundra It's great to be here with you for this conversation.

LaSaundra Gibson (01:29)

Yeah, So I'm thrilled for our audience to hear what you have to say. really found that in your book, the wisdom that you share really inspires and challenges us to be more compassionate, more loving, inclusive, and communal in how we live our lives spiritually and really just as humans. And so I left

the end of your book, just feeling all of those things. And I is a special person to be in the presence of, and I'm so thankful that we get to hear the wisdom that you're going to share. I want to start by talking about what formation is and sort of our definition. Many people, you know, we have degrees in spiritual formation, but many people often ask me, you what is that? Even Christians. the short answer for me is usually,

how we're formed into the likeness and image of Christ, and most importantly, how we're being restored to our belovedness, which is the true self. How would you define spiritual formation?

Cindy Lee (02:29)

Yes, for me, spirituality and formation is primarily about experience. And so we can contrast that with theology and discipleship, which is more about knowledge, about what we can know about God or divine or the sacred, whereas our spirituality and our formation is primarily about how we can experience the sacred.

How do we experience God in our everyday lives? And sometimes that means we don't need to put words to it. We don't even need to define it. We just need to experience it with our full selves.

LaSaundra Gibson (03:02)

Mm-hmm.

That's so true. I remember when I entered seminary a couple of years ago, I've since graduated, but so many of my cohort peers were shocked at how much I brought the experiential to this program that I was in where I was gaining a lot of the intellectual, but what many of them really couldn't speak to was the experiential and growing up in a Pentecostal background, of course, being a Black woman.

I mean, we're expressive culturally and so the experiential is really important. And so I'm thankful that I brought that in and I began to realize how much I was really bringing to the table through that experience. you know

Cindy Lee (03:52)

Yeah, very

true. what's interesting is that's exactly what Howard Thurman experienced. If you read his autobiography, you know, he was tasked to teach a course on spiritual formation at, I believe this was Boston University. And it would be like the first formation class at the school. But then in his autobiography, he wrote about feeling confused.

about what exactly am I supposed to be teaching? Because he wrote, he felt like formation could not be taught. It can only be caught. Like there is something about formation that just is not communicated through the same way in which the Christian church is used to, which is through like classes and sermons and whatnot. And he felt formation.

isn't transferred in that way, it is primarily something you need to embody in yourself and you can't teach that and you can't force that, but you can maybe create an environment for that transformation.

LaSaundra Gibson (05:03)

Yeah, I think we're going to touch on some of those things as I sort of lead us through the ways that we can really begin to unform our Western linear progression. I love how you say that spiritual formation is really about human formation because, newsflash, being a Christian, folks, does not make you a good human.

Cindy Lee (05:25)

Yes.

LaSaundra Gibson (05:26)

And

I know many people automatically think that until you meet a Christian who's mean and hateful. And then you're like, I thought you were supposed to be. it's like only formation can do that. talk about in your book, even a recent book I was reading by Brian McLaren, Do I Stay Christian? He touches on, as you do as well, about the beliefs that we put so much weight in.

the creeds and all those things and those are great, but they really do give a one-sided perspective of what really God is wanting to do, which is make us whole. So can you touch on the circle versus linear that we often see in the Western way of looking at formation?

Cindy Lee (06:12)

Yeah, the linear and future oriented worldview is just part of the Western worldview. But what we see is that that worldview has influenced how the Christian Church approaches something like spiritual formation or even the Christian life as a whole. And so, you know, a linear expectation then it expects that life happens.

in a linear progressive way from one step to the next step to the next step. And as you are going through life with these linear expectations, you get better and better. You progress in some way. And so this linear expectation then values progression, right? It values perfection. It values achievements. And so you can see.

a lot of that just in the US culture in general and what we expect of life. But it has sort of seeped into the church and how we approach our spirituality and formation with the same linear expectation that the Christ in the Christian life are supposed to just go step by step. And you can see this in all the discipleship frameworks. Like here's the one, two, three steps for being a Christian.

But what that sets us up for is just a false expectation. Then we feel like when life doesn't progress as we expected, we feel like failures. Or when we have and are driven by that perfection expectation, then again, when life doesn't go that way, we feel like there's something wrong with us.

But what so many sort of ancient indigenous spiritualities, non-Western cultures that have a nonlinear orientation of life can teach us, right, is that spirituality doesn't always work that way. Instead, what we can expect is a cyclical orientation of life. And it's primarily nature that teaches us this cyclical orientation. Like if we observe...

just how nature works like this, the changing of the seasons or the rotations of the earth, the moon, right? It teaches us that life works cyclically and there are patterns of like life and death and rebirth, right? That changing of the seasons is just the natural way of being, which means our spirituality works the same way.

that we are, we experience all the things of life that should be the expectation, all the difficult and challenging things, all the joyous and celebration things, and that is the expectation. That it's not better and better, but just how do I continue to evolve through all the cyclical seasons of my life? How do I continue to deepen?

in all of the cycles that I experienced in my life.

LaSaundra Gibson (09:31)

And that really points to what you mean by just human formation.

Cindy Lee (09:35)

Yes. How do I be a decent human being as I'm experiencing all these seasons of life?

LaSaundra Gibson (09:42)

Yeah. Well,

I want to look at some of the ways that, and you sort of touched on one already, that we can begin to unform our Western linear progression spirituality. And one way we can do that is by changing how we look at time. you know, productivity is the culture in the West, and being burnt out is glorified. And if you're not tired, then something's wrong with you, because that's almost like...

a braggadocious thing to be able to say you're worn out because you've been a boss, you know, doing all these things. And you said the movement of life determined by a rhythm of people instead of a clock seems much more in tune with God's sense of timing. Can you talk more about that. I like how you actually shared a story of how you really started to unform and

began following the seasons, as you mentioned, and paying attention to your soul's longing and desires.

Cindy Lee (10:50)

Yeah, so since the West tends to have this linear orientation and future oriented worldview, it affects how we understand and view time. And it's almost like we feel like we own time and it feels like we can manipulate and control time. And if we have that approach towards time, then our life is dictated by schedules and planning and whatnot.

And the consumerism that affects the whole world feeds into that and takes advantage of that where then we feel like we're losing time and don't have enough time. And so the clock becomes what rules us. But that's not the only orientation of life. And that's not the only way to relate to time. And so, you know, something that I did for myself, right, was just to have a season.

where I stopped everything as a reset and then as much as possible, you know, I couldn't do this entirely, but as much as possible, I tried not to use watches and clocks and calendars. Instead, I sort of had a reset and then was sort of moved by my desires for like a six month season and tried to live.

with just what are the natural rhythms of nature around me and to follow those rhythms for sleeping and for getting up and for all of those things and just noticing what did that do for my body? How did that change the way that I live? And it was just to reorient me to not be controlled by time.

LaSaundra Gibson (12:45)

And in that too, when you talk about your soul's longing and desire, I think it's important too to talk on just how sacred our soul is. I think part of our Western also is afraid to admit that we have wants and needs and that somehow those things are bad. And so can you talk about what you were doing in listening to that soul's ache?

was not out of alignment with God or with yourself.

Cindy Lee (13:14)

Yeah, I mean, ultimately, you know, we what we want of our desires is for our desires to align with sacred desires, right? For our desires to align with the heart of God. And so our desires are not in contrast to God's desires. We are listening for where the heart of our desires actually align.

But to get there, we have to be really attuned to our desires and our wants in order to discern, in order to weed out the desires and wants that come from unhealthy spaces and the desires and wants that come from really healthy spaces in us that long for God, that long for the sacred. But that means not neglecting and ignoring our desires. That means actually really paying attention to and listening to all of them.

LaSaundra Gibson (14:11)

Recently, it wasn't that long ago, wasn't even a month ago, I had an appointment. And in my mind, my mind was saying, have all these things to do after this appointment, you need to return home and check off the list and get going on these things. But really what my soul was longing for was just some time to sit at a coffee shop, read, I think I was still reading your book.

And that just sounded like such a refreshing to my soul. And so that's what I did. And after I finished reading and having my coffee, there was this little sandwich shop next door. And I was curious. And I'd seen a few people coming in and out of there. And I thought, I'm curious. I'm going to go see what's the deal with this little sandwich shop. And when I walked in, I just said, hi, I'm just looking and I'm just curious.

I'll never forget the girl's name who greeted me. Her name is Sarah. And it was just like, she just, her life's mission for the day was just to bless my life. She started saying, well, let me give you, here, just take this sandwich. Which one would you like to try? And then I started looking at the Italian ice, just being curious. And she said, I'm going to give you this one to try. I walked out of there with a sandwich and some Italian ice.

And Sarah just said, hey, take it. I'm just giving it to you. Why not? I just want you to try it. And I think maybe the day before this, I was having a moment where I really was letting God have it and just lamenting and venting to God about where, I don't know where you are. I feel really abandoned. I feel hurt about the things that are happening in my life. And it was that moment.

of listening to longing and desire that connected me to God again. It wasn't the Sunday service I'd gone to the day before, but it was that moment of feeling cared for, loved, seen and known that reconnected me in a way to where I felt God was near. And so God is always wanting to connect with us, right? And so I think this is an example of those moments where longing is there, our soul's longing.

In those moments, God really, there's an opportunity to connect with God.

Cindy Lee (16:40)

Yes, and what I love about that story is giving God the spaciousness to respond. Like giving God that open space in yourself, in your schedule, in which God then can move, right? And kind of bless you with things you didn't expect.

LaSaundra Gibson (16:59)

Right, yeah, the spaciousness. So another part of our looking at ways to sort of shift our Western lens a little bit, remembering, and I love this that you talk about, this is where we really begin to acknowledge the ancestors, the people in our life who, there's a thread and

I love how you say, must learn to actively listen for who God was to our ancestors in order to learn who God is to us today. And you talk about the liberating I am. I don't understand why it is so difficult in our Western culture to have a respect for the ancestors. It's almost like we're doing some voodoo spooky thing if we talk about ancestors. And I don't know if you have some insight into that, but

You really just, you shared so much wisdom on this. So I want to talk about this. What would you like to share about this?

Cindy Lee (17:59)

Yeah, I mean, again, it comes from that same cultural orientation that the West tends to have a future orientation and thus always looking to the future. Whereas so many of us come from cultures that have a past orientation in which the past has not ended yet. That's the worldview. So we have practices then that continue to remember and honor the past, including our ancestors. And you know, so when

Western missionaries went into all these cultures that had these ancestral practices, it was unfamiliar to their own culture. And so they used their judgment, right, because it was unfamiliar to them, they were afraid of it. So they tried to control it and say, that's wrong, that's evil. But really what I write about in that chapter is,

Actually, remembering our ancestors is all over the Bible. It's all over the scriptures. Like it's repeated again and again and again in the Old Testament and then it moves even into the New Testament as a very important practice. That's how Jesus's story starts off in Matthew chapter one. It's a genealogy of his ancestors. And so just because the Western missionaries were unfamiliar with that,

LaSaundra Gibson (18:59)

Yeah, it is.

Mm-hmm.

Cindy Lee (19:24)

they were unable to see it in the scriptures. However, for us that we do come from cultures that do remember our ancestors, it sticks out really clearly in the scriptures as something very important for us to do, which is to honor those that have made the way for us and to remember their stories and to tell their story.

LaSaundra Gibson (19:48)

what I love about your book is just I could visualize the stories that you shared about you and your family. And they were so meaningful to me to hear just your interaction with your grandmother and

We'll get to the subject of Sabbath, but the story of your aunt and uncle who were just so tired and they were always falling asleep on the couch. Like, that was so relatable to me and my family. so will you share about your family background? Because when I met you,

I asked you at the time, was like, how do you hold your Christian faith alongside your heritage and you're Taiwanese, but you also have this Daoism and Buddhist faith? So can you talk about how you hold all of those together?

Cindy Lee (20:37)

Yes, from our past oriented cultures, what we learn is that we honor the lineages that we come from. And so that is true of my own faith and spirituality as well, because I come from an interfaith family. And so my father's side of my family, they are Christians. So my grandparents, they grew up under

Japanese occupation of Taiwan and when they were studying in Japan, that's where they met Western missionaries and the Christian faith was brought into my family lineage and they raised my dad, my aunts and uncles going to church. And so that continued as I was being raised because my grandparents lived with me that we went to a Taiwanese immigrant church every Sunday. And so

the Christian faith is part of my lineage and I honor that. At the same time, my mom's side of the family, that side has the lineage of, for most Taiwanese people in Taiwan, it's a mixture of ancestral practices and Daoism and Buddhism and Confucianism. And so I also honor that lineage as part of me. And so I also study and practice, you know, the spiritualities that come.

from that lineage. And for me, I don't feel any tension in holding those together. So they are all part of me. So I honor all of them.

LaSaundra Gibson (22:15)

How do you, what are some of the practices that you incorporate into your just rhythm, your spiritual rhythm, the Daoism in Buddhist?

Cindy Lee (22:26)

Yeah, I mean, there's lots of spiritual practices that come out of Daoism and Buddhism. Like even mindfulness practices that the West is incorporating quite a bit today comes from Buddhism. But I do lots of everyday things like Tai Chi and calligraphy, which is considered a spiritual practice. So all of that is incorporated into my everyday or every week rhythms just for myself.

but also the way of being, the way of experiencing the world and the way of relating to God.

LaSaundra Gibson (22:58)

Yeah, and like you said, it's a part of your being and that's why we need these voices speaking about how these things do not hold tension, they are part of our being and in fact connect us to I mentioned earlier, I grew up Pentecostal and in a little Black Pentecostal church in Texas where all of my family is, that's where I was born and raised.

I left Texas when I was in my early 20s because I had a news background and I was traveling to different states for work. And this trend that came along with the non-denom churches and things like that. And so there's mostly a rock band and that sort of thing. So those are the kinds of churches that I was going to for really most of my adult years.

then right around before I went into seminary, I had this nudge to go to an Anglican congregation, which is so very different from what I grew up in. It's English. Anglican means English, you know, it stems from, from Europe in England. I went Sunday, it wasn't even Sunday. I think it was the weekend and I was really just having a hard time.

I thought, I don't think I can go to church on Sunday. I need more. I need to hear gospel songs. I need to see my ancestors represented in the cloud of witnesses and I'm not seeing it Love my church, love the people there. They're wonderful people. But even when you think about the liturgy and the music,

Music is about what, 90 % of what you hear in a service if you're going to a church service. And we know that music moves to the heart like nothing else does. And so not even in the music, not in the liturgy, there's no thread of seeing my people. And I don't know where it came from, but it was just a longing in my soul. needed it. So that was on a Saturday. I remember waking up on Sunday.

And in the still small voice, which I know to be God's voice, I heard, we're going to the beach today and you're going to listen to... I have a playlist, it's a Juneteenth playlist and they're filled with freedom songs, songs of my ancestors who are singing about liberation even though they were not free. and God said, you're going to listen to that playlist on the way and you're going to listen to it on the beach and that's going to be your church service today.

and I'm getting emotional even just talking about.

It was like God had given me permission to.

do what I know I needed to do, connect with my ancestors. And I never felt so cared for and so loved in that moment that God was like, this is what we're doing. And it was like, yes, we are. And I just remember how refreshed and how fulfilled I felt that day after going and just that God was looking out for me. And again,

doing that did not disconnect me, but drew me closer to God. And I will never, ever forget that. So I, I mean, I would love to have you comment anything you want to share, but I just, I want to challenge our spiritual leaders out there. If you see one person in the audience who does not look like you, please consider how you can draw them in.

and consider what their soul might need, you can do something. Even if it is adding a gospel song and don't tell me you can't sing like that. Well, I have to sing like y'all all the time. I got to sing a rock song and I don't sing like that. So, you figure it out. You know what I mean? There's no excuse. You just, you don't know what people might need and how that can really draw them in.

Cindy Lee (26:50)

Yes.

LaSaundra Gibson (27:04)

and connect them with God's heart in a way that nothing else can.

Cindy Lee (27:11)

Yeah, I mean what I hear in your story is one, the importance of connecting with your own spiritual lineage and whatever that may be and for your soul, right, to your soul needs it every once in a while, if not always, right? And the second part of your story is then the freedom. The freedom that it gives you when you can express, right, express your spirituality.

in the way that your body and soul needs and how freeing that is which means there's so many people that that need that freedom and how they experience God because Christianity is not bland. It's not neutral But people try to present it that way and how boring is that?

LaSaundra Gibson (27:44)

summary.

Right.

Yeah.

Right. You know, we talk about we're made in the image of God and, you know, to think about, how the West and, you know, the colonization and missionaries and things, who thought they were doing a good thing. But I mean, to think that that God made all of these different people and for for someone to say this is this is the right way and you can't even connect with a God that you can't relate to.

And that is stripped away from so many people, know, from me, I, you know, but it's still in there, right? The drum beat, the sound, the moan, the groan is still in there. Even though I didn't grow up, in Africa, I grew up here. And so it just, you just see the connection.

the interconnection of how everything is really connected. And it's a beautiful thing. Yeah.

Cindy Lee (29:00)

And it's generational, right? Like

it remains in our bodies, even if we didn't know it or realize it, it's still there. But if we give ourselves that space, that freedom to express, our generational practices will come out.

LaSaundra Gibson (29:18)

Yeah. You talk about how we process suffering and uncertainty in our Western culture. Instead of trying to defend God or explain things, you challenge us to really hold the mysteries of God and embrace that uncertainty. Can you talk more about

Cindy Lee (29:39)

Yeah, think Western Christianity has tried to form us for certainty. And there's reason for that. Everyone likes certainty. It makes us feel better. And so, you know, all of our liturgies, our creeds is trying to affirm to us the things that we can be certain of. But I just wonder if actually we need to be formed

for uncertainty, that really uncertainty is just the way of life, right? That we can't actually be certain ever of anything. And if we only have a spirituality that forms us to for certainty, we will be unprepared for the uncertain things that happen in life. So instead, what if we have a spirituality and formation that prepares us and forms us

LaSaundra Gibson (30:21)

Mm-hmm.

Cindy Lee (30:38)

for the uncertainty, for how we remain present to all the unexpected things that can happen.

LaSaundra Gibson (30:48)

Yeah. And I think this sort of touches on...

how we, uncertainty, can begin to listen for God's voice in various ways. Like you talked about, I think in moments of uncertainty, or I shouldn't say moments, it feels like years of uncertainty in my own life, it's through those seasons that I began to hear God speak differently, like we talked about earlier through desires and longings, the ancestors.

not just through the beliefs that we read in Scripture and the creeds, but God is speaking in the created earth. God is speaking through our bodies. I think, would you say that able to embrace more of that mystery really helps us to hear the language of God?

Cindy Lee (31:33)

I mean, God is present in all things, right? So of course, God will be present, very present in the uncertainty. I think the question is, are we present to the uncertainty? Because if we aren't present, then we'll miss God in it, right? But if we are present to all the uncertain and unexpected things that are happening, then if we're present, then we'll see God there too. so if we show up, God shows up. If God shows up,

we are invited to show up there too.

LaSaundra Gibson (32:05)

You talked about maybe God's preferred language is silence. I loved that, but then I didn't because I think we wrestle with silence, right? We were like, well, where are you God? You know, you've abandoned me. But what do mean by that?

Cindy Lee (32:23)

It comes just from a wondering, a curiosity that perhaps God prefers our presence more than our words. And so we're used to just praying with words, But what if prayer is simply just being presence to God, fully there, and it doesn't even need words? And if that then is prayer, right, then...

That is God's language too, or God's prayer, is not necessarily giving us all the answers, but being present to us as we're present to God. And so I think if we look at nature, and nature communicates very loudly, but without our human language. And so what if we learn from nature in which we learn to communicate in a different way?

and perhaps the language of nature is also the language of God. And what would it mean then to learn God's language instead of expecting God to always speak in our language?

LaSaundra Gibson (33:31)

I love that.

I want to talk about Sabbath. You said embracing the Sabbath is a just and equal system. All created peoples and things receive rest when we embrace Sabbath.

Scripturally, work and rest are not opposites, but create a cyclical rhythm.

Can you share more about.

Cindy Lee (33:55)

Yes, if you study Sabbath in the scriptures and it's a commandment, Like resting is a commandment. If you study Sabbath in the scriptures, it is a system, right? And it's an economic system that brings justice and equality to the whole community. So Sabbath is not just

Let me take a day off. Sabbath is that our identity is not in our work. Our identity is in our God given identity, our God given belovedness. And that already changes things, right? So that people, the value of people is not in their work.

or in what they can produce and so we don't treat people as workers. Their Sabbath identity is in their belovedness. And in the Sabbath laws then that are in the scriptures, everybody stops. It doesn't matter if you're a land owner or if you're working in the fields or you're one of the animals. Everybody stops and it

rest and it puts the whole community on an equal and even level. But if one person. Breaks that and decides to work. It starts to create inequalities in the economy and so the Sabbath system and the commandment to Sabbath in the scriptures is really a commandment of justice and quality.

for our societies. And there's so much to expand on that. There's so much we can learn about that. But what that means for us then is the radical invitation to rest, to Sabbath, to find our identity there and not in our work. And then to look around us to our communities. Who is not able to rest? Again, that will show us where the inequalities are in our communities. And then what can I do?

LaSaundra Gibson (35:49)

Yeah.

Cindy Lee (36:15)

to help the people around me to be able to rest.

LaSaundra Gibson (36:19)

Yeah, and you talk about, you know, how we even just how we look at rest is this Western lens and this privilege of rest where so many marginalized groups aren't able to do that. You shared about your aunt and uncle who own the restaurant and you've just seen this cycle throughout your family of people working hard because they had to. And so at a family gathering, they're falling asleep on the couch.

And I know that for myself. I remember I was working in Omaha, Nebraska, one of my first TV jobs. My mom and my aunt came to visit me and I had invited them over to dinner with this couple that I'd And I don't know how I came up, but my aunt was like...

Yeah, I work three jobs and the husband almost passed out. He was like, you work three jobs? And it was just, he couldn't even understand that. And it was like, yeah, I work three jobs. You know, I have to, but you know, I look at my aunt now and all these years later and just, she's retired and I'm just like, man, you...

just rest, you deserve the rest. mean, all these years that you didn't get to do that. it is so unjust, but that's how the system is set up, right? So how do we, as we look around and we see those that don't have that privilege, what does it look like to be able to bring some sort of equity to that space?

Cindy Lee (37:52)

Yeah, I mean, first of all is for our churches to not limit Sabbath to, well, you take a day off and you go to Sunday service. That is not rest, right? Sometimes that's, yeah, sometimes it's a lot more work, right? So first, to not use that limited definition of rest. And second, then what the Bible teaches us really is Sabbath takes a collective effort, communal effort. Everybody has to rest.

LaSaundra Gibson (38:01)

No, it's not. If you serve it at church, you know is not risked.

Cindy Lee (38:21)

which means if there are people around you that can't rest, then that's my responsibility. I need to do something about that. And so it is then to look at each individual in our communities like your aunt and to ask, are they resting? If not, how can I help them to rest? How can I give them that space of rest for their bodies to rest? And what that means is one, sleep is a spiritual practice, right? So if...

People just don't have time to sleep. Instead of going to service, let them sleep, let their bodies rest. But then also it's, well, if there are moms around me and they never get a break from their children, what can I do to just like give them a couple hours of rest just by watching their children for a couple hours? Like those are really practical things that we can do to make Sabbath and rest a communal effort.

little acts usually of, okay, how can I help this individual to rest? How can I help this group family to rest? And just doing whatever I can do to give them that space.

LaSaundra Gibson (39:30)

Yeah, thank you for that. it, you know, isn't it interesting how churches do like to, you know, talk about the Sabbath, but don't practice that really. And, you know, you have people serving almost like a full-time job. That's insane. And people aren't going to set, a lot of times they don't set those boundaries because they think, well, it's my church. You know, I set those boundaries, but I know there are many who struggle with that.

Cindy Lee (39:37)

Yep.

Exactly.

LaSaundra Gibson (39:56)

I think the theme as we're coming to the end here

The themes that I hear through everything that we've talked about are a we instead of an I, the interconnectedness of everything. Everything is connected. And the communal way of looking at things, taking a communal lens instead of, again,

Cindy Lee (40:10)

Mm-hmm.

LaSaundra Gibson (40:23)

my faith or while I'm getting my Sabbath and not being concerned with how maybe whatever you're doing might be affecting someone else not getting the rest they need. And so I think that that theme is flipping how we look at our spirituality from a very individual lens and looking at it truly through a we, a communal, because spirituality is a we.

Cindy Lee (40:51)

Yes, very much so. And once again, Christianity has been influenced by the Western worldview, which tends to be more individualistic, which has made the faith we practice very individualistic. But if you read the scriptures, the Israelites in the Old Testament, they weren't an individualistic culture, they were a communal culture. And so we can actually learn more about the scriptures or understand it better.

from the lens of cultures that have a communal worldview. And one thing is, like, if you're free to experience God the way that your culture has taught you to experience God, and if I'm free to experience God the way my culture has taught me to experience God, and we can share that together, then both of our experiences of God will expand, right, as I learn from you and you learn from me. And don't we want an expansive God? Don't we want to experience God that way?

LaSaundra Gibson (41:47)

Yeah, an expansive God. I love that. And I keep seeing the circle and that circle is expanding instead of the linear. And I love that image that you've brought to us. Is there anything else that you want to touch on that you'd like to share that I haven't brought up in our time?

Cindy Lee (42:06)

No, I've enjoyed this conversation and the questions that you brought as well as the stories that you brought. I think that is exactly my hope in writing that book is not just that you would hear my stories, but that it would encourage people to share their stories and to connect with their stories and then to be able to hear from each other about all of our stories and the ways that we experience God.

LaSaundra Gibson (42:31)

thank you so much, Cindy, for joining today. So much wisdom in what you share. I know there's so much we can expound upon on all of these topics, so I hope to have you back one day again Cindy S. Lee, Our Unforming, De-Westernizing Spiritual Formation is her book. Pick that up. You won't regret it. It's a wonderful read.