Reflective Lifestyle

2 Timothy 3 NRSV

16 All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

Beginning a 'reflective lifestyle' can be daunting. Let's face it, 'reflective lifestyle' is not exactly the language that we use in everyday life, at least not in Lanarkshire where I live. In fact, it can sound a bit 'New Age', a bit odd, something someone with fewer concerns than an ordinary person trying to cope with the cost of living crisis would spend time doing.  However,  if we simply examine how we successfully deal with questions / issues in our lives in our contemporary period it will follow, that taking some sort of assessment of the situation we are in and how we got here, identifying the root issues, making some sort of plan to deal with the issues, identifying things that help and hinder, getting down to making some change, reviewing what works and then move on to the next part of our lifeplan is going on. We use guides and templates, internal and external sources of help to assist us in making the change in our life we desire or simply need. We draw on our cultural resources to make sense of what needs to be done. In the culture in which I live this is made up of both 'scientific' assistance (E.g. consult a G.P. over a medical issue and thereby access their very specialist scientific knowledge and advice). We will also use our traditional cultural forms of knowledge (E.g. faith perspectives, humanistic perspectives, rituals, politics, economics, sources of identity, lived experience and so on; 'Embodied Intelligence'). These two forms of knowledge are both cultural and interdependent on one another. For example, our values, attitudes and beliefs including the historical experience of accumulating them will modify what we prioritise and do, even if there is a good scientific basis or not for doing so.  How we act is governed by complex interrelationships of the physical, social, psychological, environmental and developmental space that we occupy. All of this stuff is going on all the time and we are hardly aware of it. That's why, for the writer of Psalm 1, the overt identification of reflection as a conscious process is so important. It provides us a way of increasing our awareness and control over our lives. 

For the disciple of Jesus of Nazareth reflection is rooted in the sacred writings that Jesus knew and that He used to guide Him and that He used to teach. We also have the writings that have become scripture for us. These are the writings of the first disciples who knew Jesus directly or knew those who knew Him directly. The scriptures are, what the writer to Timothy states as 'useful for teaching'. Here, the word teaching comes from the word used as 'wisdom'; the scriptures are 'wisdom literature'. For the disciple, a healthy life, community and family summarised for us as the  'Love of God and Neighbour' are rooted in  the reflection on this wisdom literature and on the One of whom they speak; Jesus of Nazareth. In summary then, Reflection will have two sources: the scientific / social scientific sources of knowledge and the sacred writings of our faith. They interact through reflection producing meaning, understanding and action leading to what Jesus called in the Sermon on the Mount: 'Wisdom', 'Wise Action', 'Hearing and Doing'.