Notes

1.

1. Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society (Stanford University
   Press, 2015).

2. Italics added. John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted (Zondervan, 2009), 79.

3. No pun intended.

4. Thomas Keating, The Human Condition: Contemplation and Transformation (Paulist Press, 1999), 38.
   
   

2.

1. See Mark 1 for this story.

2. The exact quote from his autobiography is “A public man,
   though he is necessarily available at many times, must learn to
   hide. If he is always available, he is not worth enough when he
   is available.” Elton Trueblood, While It Is Day (Harper & Row,
   1974), 67.

3. I love Nouwen’s framing of the spiritual trajectory as solitude
   to community to ministry. All three matter. To borrow a slightly
   overused metaphor, I’m writing (right now) about one leg of a
   three-legged stool. Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude (Ave Maria
   Press, 2004), 17-18, 26.

4. Mark 6:31 (NRSV).

5. Matthew 28:19.

6. Matthew 11:28.

7. Matthew 10:6.

8. Matthew 4:19.

9. Luke 10:3; and these are just a sampling, see also: Mark 1:17,
   John 1:46, Matthew 14:29, Matthew 19:21, Matthew 25:34,
   Mark 10:14, John 7:37, Revelation 22:17 (come) and Mark
   16:15, Mark 2:11, Luke 7:50, Luke 8:48, Mark 19:52, Matthew
   8:4, Matthew 17:27, Matthew 19:21, John 8:11, and more (go).

10. T.S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton,” III, in Four Quartets (Harcourt,
    1943), 6.

11. Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Living Reminder: Service and
    Prayer in Memory of Jesus Christ (Seabury Press, 1977).

12. Mark 4:19 (NRSV).

    
    

3.

1. Philippians 2:13.

2. I’m deeply indebted to Tim Keller’s cultural analysis here, for
   more of his work on identity, read Making Sense of God.

3. 70-80% is the rough estimate. See Joseph Henrich, The
   WEIRDest People in the World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.

4. See Jesus words in Matthew 10:34-39 and consider reading
   Joseph Hellerman’s work on the “anti-family teachings of Jesus”
   in his excellent work When the Church Was a Family.

5. Matthew 10:37.

6. If you’re interested in Christian identity, I would recommend
   reading The Gift of Being Yourself by David Benner.

7. The Spiritual Formation movement more broadly (of which
   I’m gratefully a part) tends to follow Thomas Merton in using
   this framework, first developed by the (very) secular psychologist
   31
   Donald Winnicott, but I intentionally shy away from it. I think
   it was helpful in speaking to Baby Boomers and those from more
   traditional cultures (such as immigrants to the West), but for
   my age and below, who were raised on a steady diet of “be true
   to yourself ” dogma, I think Paul’s original language of “old self ”
   and “new self ” (Ephesians 4:22-24), which is similar, but actually
   fairly different, is a better path forward. Just my two cents.

8. This is not to say that self-awareness is not important, it
   is, vitally so, in my view. See my teaching on Discovering Your
   Identity and Calling at https://practicingthewayarchives.org/
   practices/identity-and-calling.

9. See his book by the same name: Henri J.M. Nouwen, The
   Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom
   (Doubleday, 1996).

10. For the record, I really like personality tests, as long as you
    understand they are not “True.” They reveal things about us, and
    they conceal things about us. My advice: use them as one data
    point among many, but don’t lean too heavily on them.

11. Of course, grace, biblically, is more than just this love, it’s
    also this love manifesting itself in our bodies and lives by the
    Spirit empowering us to be and do what we could not be or do
    on our own.

12. 1 John 3:1.

13. Gilovich, Thomas, Victoria Husted Medvec, and Kenneth
    Savitsky. “The Spotlight Effect in Social Judgment: An
    Egocentric Bias in Estimates of the Salience of One’s Own
    Actions and Appearance.” Journal of Personality and Social
    Psychology 78, no. 2 (2000): 211-222.

14. Says the guy with both a “.com” and “LLC” after
    his name.

15. G.K. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox
    (Image Books, 1956), 5.

16. This is John 1:19-23 and is a favorite story of mine.

17. See Luke 4:14-21.

18. 2 Timothy 1:11 and Galatians 1:17-18.

19. Revelation 1:9.

20. I’m indebted here to the language of my friend Dave Lomas
    in his book The Truest Thing About You.

21. See 2 Corinthians 5:17; Colossians 3:3; Psalm 139:14, 16;
    Romans 8:28; Ephesians 2:10. Just to cite a few.

22. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies (Adversus Haereses),
    Book IV, Chapter 20, Section 7 (ca. 180 AD).

23. Ibid.

24. Colossians 1:27.

    
    

4.

1. Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day,” in New and Selected Poems,
   vol. 1 (Beacon Press, 2004), 94.

2. Luke 1:38.

3. Acts 20:24.

4. John 8:29.

5. Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion (Harper & Brothers,
   1941), 109.

6. This is especially true after experiences of trauma or
   relational breach, as they fragment our sense of self and often
   sabotage God’s healthy design for identity-formation. In these
   cases, our path to healing is often less through time in solitude,
   and more through community, through rebuilding trust with
   others who can speak God’s words of love and identity and
   calling over us. But that’s another book …

7. Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude (Ave Maria Press, 2004), 26.

   
   

5.

1. Matthew 28:20.