Program / Course 2: The Solitary Christian in Depth / Lesson 6.3
What you will learn
- Review a draft framework honestly against Scripture, the traditions and the course’s warnings.
- Use a set of questions to find weaknesses in the draft, including pride, isolation and avoided duties.
- Revise the framework and share it with a trusted reader.
- Set a schedule for continued review so the framework stays alive and honest.
The big idea
A framework is only as good as the review that follows it. A first draft usually shows what the writer hopes. A good revision shows what the writer has learned. Review means reading the draft again with the course’s warnings in mind, testing it against what you have actually done, asking someone else to read it and changing what does not hold. It also means planning to review again, since lives, seasons and understanding change. Revision is not failure. The Christian tradition treats ongoing correction as the normal path.
Key terms
- Review
- A deliberate look back at how you have lived and whether your plan helped, done on a schedule.
- Revision
- A change made to the framework after review, to make it more truthful, more workable or more faithful.
- Examen
- A short daily prayerful review of the day, associated with Ignatius of Loyola and used by many Christians, Catholic and Protestant.
- Drift
- A slow, unnoticed change in practice or belief, away from what you intended.
- Reader
- In this lesson, a trusted person who reads your framework and tells you honestly what they see.
- Ecclesia semper reformanda
- A Latin phrase meaning that the church is always to be reformed. It is associated with the Reformed tradition and is often applied more widely to the need for continued correction.
Background
You have now lived with a draft for at least a week. Your first task is to read it again as if it were written by someone else. It will probably look different. Some commitments will seem too large, others too timid. Some parts will look like what you wanted to be and not what you are. That discovery is useful.
The Christian tradition builds review into the spiritual life. Paul tells the Corinthians to “examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves” (2 Corinthians 13:5). The psalmist prays, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts” (Psalm 139:23). Monastic rules include chapters of correction and regular meetings. The Reformed tradition speaks of a church always being reformed. Review is not a sign that something has gone wrong. It is how the life stays alive.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Check the draft against practice
Take a week or a month and compare what the framework says with what you did. Count the days you kept each practice. Note which commitments you broke most often. Note what pulled you away: tiredness, an obligation, a mood, a lack of interest. Then ask whether the failure was in you or in the plan. A commitment you cannot keep after honest trying is probably too large or in the wrong place. A commitment you could keep and do not is a different problem, and may need honest talk with your accountability partner.
Do not use failure as proof that the plan is worthless. Benedict calls his Rule a little rule for beginners and expects the monk to struggle.
Step 2: Question the draft with the course
Read the draft with the course’s main questions in mind. Does it describe solitude, or has it slid toward isolation or avoidance of duty (Module 1)? Has it been written with honest knowledge of the tradition, including what it says solitude gives and cannot give (Module 2)? Does it say what you believe the church is, and how you belong to it (Module 3)? Does it use Scripture with care and test private conclusions against others (Module 4)? Does it guard against pride and self-deception, and name a real person to whom you answer (Module 5)? Does it hold private and communal prayer together (Lesson 6.1)?
For each “no” or “I am not sure,” write the revision you will make.
Step 3: Let someone read it
Show the draft to a trusted reader. Choose someone who will tell you the truth, preferably a mature Christian, and give them permission to disagree. Ask three questions: What is missing? What looks unrealistic? What looks proud, harsh or evasive? Then do something difficult: listen without defending. Write down what the reader says before answering.
If the reader raises a concern and you disagree, do not dismiss it at once. Hold it for a week. If two different readers raise the same concern, it deserves serious weight. Recall Proverbs 27:6: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”
Step 4: Revise and finish
Make the changes. Cut what you cannot keep. Add what is missing. Make vague lines specific. Check the length, which should still be about one or two pages. Add the date and the names of those who have read it, if you wish. Put the date of the next review at the end. Keep the old draft beside the new one, so that you can see how your understanding changes.
Then put the framework in a place where you will see it. Read it aloud once, in prayer.
Step 5: Plan continued review
Set a rhythm. A short check each week: did I keep my practices and my obligations? A longer review each season: what is bearing fruit, what is not, who have I met, what have I read, what have I changed my mind about? A full revision each year, ideally with your reader. Mark these on a calendar now.
Also set triggers for early review: a move, a death, a birth, a loss of faith or sudden new conviction, a period of illness. These are the times when a framework is most likely to be needed and most likely to be forgotten.
Finally, hold the work lightly. The framework is a servant of love for God and neighbor. If it ever begins to replace them, it needs revision.
- What did I actually do over the past month, as opposed to what the framework says?
- Which commitment has failed, and was the fault in the plan or in me?
- Which of the course’s warnings does the draft fail to meet?
- Who is my reader, and what did they say that I least wanted to hear?
- What decisions would call for an early review?
- What would I be sorry to find, a year from now, I had left unrevised?
Examples
A plan too large
A man’s draft calls for two hours of prayer and study each morning. After three weeks he has kept it twice. In review he cuts it to thirty minutes, which he keeps for months. The smaller plan did more good than the larger one. (A constructed example.)
A reader’s catch
A woman’s draft has detailed practices and no mention of her aging mother. Her reader asks about it. She sees that the framework had quietly moved her mother’s care out of view, and she rewrites the obligations section. (A constructed example.)
An annual revision
At the end of a year, a reader compares his first draft with the present one. He sees that he has moved from a plan of private study toward more service, and that he has written a note on a doctrine he once held with certainty and now holds with caution. The change is a sign of growth. (A constructed example.)
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholic spirituality commends a regular examination of conscience, an annual retreat and spiritual direction as ways to review one’s life. The Ignatian examen is a short daily form, and the sacrament of penance gives an occasion for review.
Orthodox
Orthodox practice includes regular confession, the guidance of a spiritual father and the discipline of the church’s fasts and feasts, which fix a yearly rhythm of review. Elders warn against changing one’s rule without counsel.
Protestant
Protestants have a long tradition of self-examination and of the saying that the church is always to be reformed according to the Word. Puritans and Methodists kept journals and met in small groups for mutual review. Some caution that too much introspection can lead to anxiety, and urge that review rest on trust in Christ.
Scholarly
Research on habit and goal setting finds that regular review, feedback from others and adjustment of plans improve follow-through. This is general advice and not a religious claim, but it supports an old practice.
Why it matters
A framework that is never reviewed becomes either a burden or a decoration. Review keeps it honest, because it brings the plan into contact with how you actually live and with other people who can see what you cannot. It also fits the Christian view that the life of faith is a continuing journey. This lesson closes the course by turning its lessons into a habit, and the framework into a living document.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Revising my framework means I failed.
Correction: Revision is the expected result of honest review. Even the great rules were adjusted for the weak and the sick.
Misunderstanding: Review should be harsh.
Correction: Review should be truthful and kind. Harsh self-judgment can discourage as much as pride can blind.
Misunderstanding: Once the framework is written, the course is finished.
Correction: The framework starts a continuing practice. The course ends. The review does not.
Misunderstanding: A reader must agree with my framework.
Correction: A reader’s job is to tell the truth, not to approve. Disagreement is often more useful than agreement.
Knowledge check
What are the main steps in reviewing a draft framework?
Compare the draft with what you actually did; question it with the course’s warnings; let a trusted reader read it; revise and finish it; and set a schedule for continued review with triggers for early review.
Why should a framework be shown to another person?
Because a person cannot easily see his own blind spots. A trusted reader can name what is missing, unrealistic or proud. This applies the course’s teaching on accountability and on self-deception.
What should you do when a reader criticizes your draft and you disagree?
Listen without defending, write down what they said, and hold it for a week. If more than one reader raises the same concern, give it serious weight. Dismissing criticism at once is the habit the course warns against.
What kinds of events should trigger an early review?
Major changes such as a move, a death, a birth, illness, a loss of faith or a sudden new conviction. These are times when the framework is most needed and most likely to be neglected.
Think it through
- Which part of your first draft now seems most mistaken?
- What did you learn from this course that you did not expect?
- Who will read the revised framework, and what will you ask them?
- What is the first sign you would notice if you began to drift?
Independent assignment
Revised framework and review plan
Revise your draft from Lesson 6.2 after following the five steps of this lesson. In your own notebook or document, write the revised framework (one to two pages), then add 250 to 400 words describing what you changed and why, what your reader said, and the dates of your weekly, seasonal and annual reviews. Keep the first draft beside it. Do not submit it to anyone; this program is for your own study.
Further study
- Benedict of Nursia, The Rule of St. Benedict Read chapter 73 and the Prologue again, now as a model for a rule you can revise.
- John Cassian, The Conferences Reread Conference 2, on discretion, as a guide to review.
- Benedicta Ward, trans., The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection Return to the sayings you copied at the start of the course and see which now mean more.
- Augustine of Hippo, Confessions An extended example of looking back honestly on a life.
- 2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves.
- Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God.
- Proverbs 27:6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
- Philippians 3:13 Forgetting those things which are behind.