Ruminate

I keep a few cattle and my daughter keeps goats.

Cattle and goats are ruminants, which means they have compartments in their stomach. They spend time eating and then they spend time standing around or lying down. It looks like they're not doing anything but they're busy barfing up what they just ate, chewing it again, and then swallowing it into a part of the stomach that can do a better job of extracting the nutrients that their bodies need. The grass that cattle eat is hard to digest and the shrubs and bushes that goats like are even more difficult to process. They need a large block of time each day in which they appear to be resting but are actually doing the most important work of eating - slowly re-processing of stuff that's already been taken in so they can use it fully. Stopping what you are doing to digest what you've already taken in is called ruminating.

People use the word 'ruminate' about what we do even though we only have one stomach compartment. When people ruminate we think deeply about something that's been happening in our lives. It's a different kind of thinking from rolling with the punches in the moment, or reacting to a new development, or learning a new skill. Ruminating is what happens when you take the moment or the new development or the new skill and put it into a big picture of your life in a way that's useful to you. It takes time and it's hard work just as it is for cattle. As a Christian person, you may (or may not) sense God's presence in a particular experience but in reflecting about it prayerfully afterward and in conversation with other people of faith you come to see how that experience is leading you to a more clear understanding.

Regular movement between activity and the pulling back from activity to think, pray, and discuss is important for us in the same way as it is for a goat's digestive system. In some church circles, it even has a name - praxis. In the years following World War Two, there was a period of political and economic stress in South America that Christians found themselves caught up in. Christian leaders looked back to those who had set an example of courage and virtue in faith during the war - people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Andre Trocme - and saw that each of them had very specifically pulled back from action on a regular basis to pray and discuss with others. Jesus did the same thing in the gospels. Pulling back helped them to engage more faithfully with the difficult situations they found themselves in. Far from being retreat or cowardice, regularly ducking out of the action was a way of strengthening their Christian witness and focusing their actions as they got back into the struggle. The cycle might happen on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis and it was important as a way to not let the heat of the moment distract them into a compromise or lose sight of their goals.

The cycle of praxis is important for us individually and for our church as well. We can't eat all the time any more than cattle can. No goat spends all its waking hours cleaning up undergrowth and debris and neither can we be actively engaged all the time. We need to spend large amounts of time withdrawing from the valuable work that we do so that we can continue to do it. We need to think, pray, discuss, read Scripture and refocus on a regular basis so that we can get back into our important job of being Christ's followers in our community. If we don't pull back to think, pray, and discuss after learning a new lesson we won't be able to apply that lesson. We also can't sit and digest all the time, getting lost in theory or analysis in ways that starve us of actual relationships with God and others. God calls us to action and movement in the same way Jesus called his disciples, “Come and follow me.” We need to move back and forth between theory and practice, action and contemplation, doing and reflecting.

Recently our church has had a hard time filling leadership positions. Deacons have been hard to come by for several years. The Mission Committee has gone without a chair for some time. Other leadership or elected roles sit empty and more are coming up. It's tempting to think that either we need to get down to it and start volunteering or (as I have suggested in the past) maybe the time has come to get rid of jobs that no longer connect with what's needed. But it's also possible that we have forgotten how to ruminate.

Maybe we have forgotten about the praxis cycle. If cattle spent all their waking hours eating and running around they would soon become unhealthy and exhausted. They have to learn how to pull back from eating in order to process what they've already taken in. It has to happen regularly - a goat cannot eat for four days in a row and then chew its cud for the next four days. It has to eat some every day and then stare across the yard and chew its cud for a while that the same day. As a body of Christ, our congregation can't go months or years between periods of digesting what has happened to us, refocusing, and getting ourselves together. It needs to happen on a regular basis - weekly, monthly, and annually. We will lose sight of what God is preparing for us if we do not. Cattle also can't assign some members of the herd to eat and others to chew their cuds. Each one has to be involved in the eating and each one has to lie down and chew her cud for a while. In the same way, our church, although differently gifted, can not assign some people to do things, others to gripe or compliment about what's being done, some to discuss, and others to pray about it. Each of us does all of those things to some extent or the body (maybe we could think of ourselves as a herd or flock) will become unhealthy and exhausted.

In a few weeks, we will have our usual fall congregational meeting. We could use that meeting as a convenient deadline. Before it comes along on our calendars we can think and pray, alone and with others, about how our church is doing. Before, during, and after the meeting, we can talk to one another and pray together in light of Scripture. We can start a process of ruminating openly. We can be purposeful about moving back and forth between action and contemplation. We can discover what God is already busy preparing for us individually and together.