Curt Thompson’s The Soul of Desire is the kind of book that paints a picture that you know is beyond your grasp. He’s a professional writing from his own experience about a kind of community-building that he has created and refined and has great control of. But I think that’s okay, even if it is a “crumbs from your table” kind of scenario.
Because we all need to learn to do the things that Thompson suggests in the book. When we are at our best, we do those things naturally: being present, asking questions, helping each other see how God is at work. Much like Made for People and How to Know a Person, practical things are given that churches and the people in them can find ways to be better Christians together.
Thompson ends the book with a list of four questions, two of which he spent a decent amount of time with earlier in the book. These four questions are diagnostic questions that help us talk and think together. They help us locate ourselves: our feelings, our motives, our hopes, and ultimately our desires. They are:
- Where are you?
- What do you want?
- Can you drink the cup?
- Do you love me?
The first question is straight from the Genesis story of Adam, Eve, and God after the couple have eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The remaining three are from Jesus and reflect conversations he had with those needing healing, James and John (and their mother) positioning for power, and Peter as part of his “reinstatement” at the end of John’s Gospel. At one point Thompson asserts that these questions can (and probably should) be asked by people in all kinds of settings, including work. It really would be interesting to ask “where are you?” at the beginning of every meeting. (I check in with my people more broadly/personally at the beginning of most meetings. Maybe I should try this for a while instead.)
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As I type this, I’m about halfway through the book that Thompson wrote between The Anatomy of the Soul and The Soul of Desire. I’m really enjoying The Soul of Shame, mostly because of how I know it fits with Thompson’s bigger picture (since I essentially skipped from book one to book three). At the very least, Thompson gives his readers food for thought. He’s also giving us questions to ask and dispositions and postures to maintain while thinking and asking and listening. I think we’d all do well to listen to what he has to say.
Space Enough, and Time 