Foster begins by saying that we cannot develop Christ-like virtue out of our own will; God is the one who grows our virtues. The Apostle Paul even points out the contemporary rules of “touch not, taste not” are “will-worship” (Col 2:20-23 KJV), that is, worshiping our willpower. However, neither may we do nothing. Instead, the disciplines are a means of cultivating an environment in which God can grow virtue. Foster does not use this analogy, but it seems like it is Jesus’ illustration of the farmer growing a crop. The farmer cannot grow the plant himself, but that does not mean he can sit back and do nothing. Rather he tills the soil, fertilizes it, waters it, and weeds it. Similarly, the spiritual disciplines are how we till, fertilize, water, and weed our internal soil, so that God can grow a crop of righteousness which produces thirty, sixty, or a hundred (to mix Jesus’ illustrations together). These days, however, the (American Protestant) Church is so unfamiliar with spiritual disciplines that we do not even know the basics that everyone in the ancient world knew, like what to eat before and after a fast, hence the need for this book. Foster also cautions that the disciplines cannot become Law. With Law, you can measure to see how well someone is doing, and it gives some measure of control. But the disciplines are an internal work done by God, which cannot be measured or controlled, and attempts to do so harm those under us.

The first discipline is meditation. Unlike Eastern meditation, which seeks to empty the mind in order to become detached from the world, Christian meditation cultivates attachment to God (which does involve a certain amount of detachment from things of the world that interfere with attaching to God). Meditation “is the one thing that can sufficiently redirect our lives so that we can deal with human life successfully” (17), since meditation is how we hear the voice of God. Foster recommends setting in a chair with legs straight (crossing the legs restricts circulation), and for only five or ten minutes in the beginning. Start with your hand resting on your legs, palms downward. Release all the things you are dealing with to God. Then turn your palms upward (in a physical posture of receiving) and be silent and still, not asking for anything. You may hear something (frequently relating to dealing with mundane things), or experience something, but if not, that is fine. Alternatively, you can “breathe out” your concerns and then be still. In either case, close with thanksgiving. After you are able to “center down” as described above, you can add a second form, meditating on something in Creation, and ask God how it reflects his nature. A third form is to meditate on Scripture, for instance, the Ignatian practice of imagining yourself in one of the gospel stories, and imagining what you are seeing, feeling, and experiencing. A fourth form is to take an imaginary walk with God in a forest and see all things there are, thanking him for all that you see. A fifth form is meditating on current events, asking God for a prophetic perspective on them. Foster also recommends recording your dreams and asking God what they mean. (Some influential thinkers are Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Francis, Madame Guyon, Juliana of Norwich, Brother Lawrence, George Fox, John Woolman, Evelyn Underhill, Thomas Merton, Frank Laubach, and Thomas Kelly.)

Prayer is life-changing. William Carey said it was the root of personal godliness, P.T. Forsythe said that “Prayer is to religion what original research is to science.” (34) Martin Luther prayed three hours a day, John Wesley prayed two hours, and David Braintree, George Fox, and John Hyde of India were all known for their prayer lives. Prayer is an ongoing process of learning, so start with something doable, and expect that failures will be learning opportunities. Foster discovered that nobody prayed “if it be your will” in the gospels; rather they commanded. He also suggests that when praying for physical conditions, to start with easy ones, which builds up faith and authority for harder ones. Compassion for a particular person is good sign that God is leading prayer for them. Meditation is the precondition for praying: first “center down”, and then listen to God. Pray for others out of that. Imagination, that is, visualizing the outcome you are praying for is helpful (particular when engaging children in praying). Physical health, healthy marriages, pastors and worship services, your own children, all need prayer. For sexual deviancy, consider it like a river: there are channels to the river, and it’s unhealthy when the river overflows one of the banks. We can pray “flash” prayers for the people we merely see as we go about our day. But do not wait until you want to pray before you pray; like so many things, it takes work, but once you start you find you want to continue.

The practice of fasting has been out of favor—Foster could find no books written on fasting from 1861 to 1954—although interest has been increasing [written in 1978]. The disinterest is partly because of medieval excesses (when the inward life dried up, legalism comes in because it offers some control), but partly also because our age believes that it is virtuous to satisfy all desires. The Bible, however, talks a lot about fasting. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount assumes that people will fast ("when you fast ...”) and talks about motives for fasting. Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, David Brainerd, Charles Finney, and Pastor Hsi of China all valued fasting (Wesley would ordain no Methodist who did not fast twice a week). Fasting was widely practiced: Zoroaster, Confucius, Indian yogis, Socrates, Aristotle, and Hippocrates fasted. In the Bible, fasting was no food for a day, although there were occasionally fasts of a restricted diet, and in extreme need, fasts of no food and no water for three days (for instance, Nineveh and Esther). The Didache recommended fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays. However, fasting sleep (“watchings”) has very limited biblical support and Foster is skeptical of it. Fasting is not a biblical command, per se, yet it is a biblical expectation. The purpose of fasting is to center on God, although a secondary purpose is that it reveals what controls us, and it also helps us keep our lives balanced. There do seem to be spiritual breakthroughs that only happen through fasting. When beginning to fast, start with 24 hours that cross two meals, and after you do that for a bit, extend to 36 hours over three meals. Then, seeking God’s guidance, consider three to seven days, and perhaps longer after that. The first three days are hard and you will feel hungry, as well as have caffeine withdrawal headaches. After seven days your body will have rid itself of accumulated toxins and you will start feeling better and feel like you could fast indefinitely. Sometime after 21 days you will start feeling hungry again, which indicates that your body has used up its reserves, which is when you should break your fast. Start with eating a little fruits and vegatables (no oils, and definitely not a lot). Add in things like yogurt, and then progress to a more normal diet.

Jesus said that the truth will set you free, not heartfelt worship, emotions, or experiences. The discipline of study is one of the main ways that God changes us. Study consists for four steps: repetition of the material, concentration on the material, comprehension (that is, understanding the material), and reflection (reflecting on the material to get God’s perspective and finding its significance). True study requires humility, because you cannot be both arrogant and teachable. One major area of study is books: the Bible, obviously, but also other quality books. As described by Adler in How to Read a Book, studying a book involves understanding it, interpreting it, and evaluating it (in that order, sometimes in separate readings). However, books do not exist in a vacuum; we may need to read other books that the writer assumes we have read, or may need cultural information, or other context. Sunday school is rarely sufficient study; Foster recommends at least a three day retreat (but not camping, since it requires too much involvement in maintaining basic life). Foster recommends, in general order, Confessions (Augustine), The Imitation of Christ (Thomas à Kempis), Practicing the Presence of God (Br. Lawrence), The Little Flowers of St. Francis (Ungolino), Pensées (Pascal), Table Talks (Luther), Institutes of the Christian Religion (Calvin), The Journal of George Fox, Journal of John Wesley, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (William Law), A Testament of Devotion (Thomas Kelly), The Cost of Discipleship (Bonhoeffer), Mere Christianity (Lewis), as well as Revelations of Divine Love (Juliana of Norwich), Introduction to the Devout Life (de Sales), The Journal of John Woolman. Also good are thinkers on the “human predicament”, who were not writing explicitly Christian works: Lao Zi, Zarathustra, Shakespeare, Milton, Cervantes, Dante, Tolstoy, Dostoevski, Dag Hammarskjöld. However, there is also a second set of things to study: observing nature, current events, and relationships between people. Nature is best studied by observing, giving yourself to it (as opposed to drawing it in), and making friends with it; Foster has found an (unspecified) response to his offer of friendship in the natural world. Furthermore, God made the natural world, so we can learn about God from what he made. We can also meditate on current events to learn their prophetic significance, and study our culture to discern its true values (which may be different from the claimed values). And observing how people relate to each other can reveal people’s motivations, which will help identify the things that control us.

The discipline of simplicity is the practice of cultivating an inward focus on living from the divine Center and living first for the Kingdom, which results in outward habits. To cultivate only the outward habits is asceticism, which is not the Christian perspective of receiving everything as a gift but it is renouncing possessions. On the topic of simplicity, we need to be clear that the Bible speaks very clearly about wealth—the love of money and possessions is idolatry, and Foster cites a lot of examples of idolatry in our culture. He also gives some guidelines on practicing the discipline, while trying not to let such guidelines be able to be turned into a set of rules. We should buy what we need, not buy for status (which is helped by living out of the divine Center—when we trust in God’s provision, we do not need status). We should watch carefully for things that we get attached to, and for things that addict us. This ties in well with practicing giving things away, including possibly giving away things that we have an unhealthy relationship with. Avoid things that oppress other people in their making. Simplicity is seeking the Kingdom first, and trusting that what you need will be added to you.

“Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.” (84) We are terrified of being alone, so we even put speakers in our ears so that we will not be alone with silence. In contrast, Jesus often withdrew to solitary places. Foster notes that we need solitude to meaningfully related to others, and we need community to safely live alone; we need a balance of both. Solitude and silence are deeply related, and a large part of that is not speaking when one should not (as well as speaking when one should). “The purpose of silence and solitude is to be able to see and hear” (86), so not speaking is about having control over our tongue rather than lack of sound. It is a lot easier to say nothing at all (turning silence into a rule) rather than speaking in moderation. The tongue is both a measure of our spiritual temperature and also thermostat controlling our spiritual temperature. A different aspect of silence is the Dark Night, which is when (assuming we are not harboring sin), God makes us unable to imagine, deadens the sensual and spiritual appetites, while results in feeling very dry and afflicted. The church service may drive us nuts, the preaching boring, etc., and we may start looking for something new, but we should not do that, because the purpose of the Dark Night is to bring us to stillness, to do surgery on us and to train us to walk in the virtues. Since a large part of even Christian culture expects that it is possible to avoid this and “that we should live in peace and comfort, joy and celebration” (90). To cultivate solitude, Foster recommends speaking less and listening to others and God more. Experiment (not as a law) with not speaking for an entire day. Additionally, we can go on retreats specifically for silence and solitude, and we can use or create spaces for time alone (a special room, or even the time before other people in the family get up). Four or five times a year we should spend a few hours alone checking on progress towards our life goals and seeking God in developing goals for the next year and ten. These can include things like learning a new skill, as well things more usually classified as “spiritual”.

The discipline of submission is simply practicing what Jesus said—making the choice to voluntarily serve others. This has been frequently abused, but is not about obeying the hierarchy, subordinating or effacing your personality, or self-contempt. The New Testament tells both those lower in the hierarchy (wives, children, slaves) and those higher in the hierarchy (husbands, fathers, masters) to submit to each other. Those lower would not have had to change their behavior (but perhaps their hearts, since once can be outwardly submissive and be rebelling inside), but those higher would have needed to act quite counter-culturally. Similarly, submission does not remove our personality; Jesus did not become less himself by submitting to the Cross. Finally, self-denial is a choice that someone who knows their value makes; self-contempt is treating yourself without value, which is not true. The submission Jesus models is one that sees all people as equal in status, and our submission is the choice to serve them and seek their good before our own, which completely undermines a top-down submission. (Of course, this can be taken too far; the discipline does not include submitting when it is destructive.) Foster suggest seven areas where we can practice submitting to others: God, Scripture, our family, our neighbors and people we interact with, the community of believers, the “widows and orphans” who cannot provide for themselves, and the world (our actions affect others, for example, how we treat the environment). Foster concludes by recommending that we not despise the person in authority who does not also have the spiritual authority from compassion and power to match their position. He, himself, knows that to be in such a position, knowing you do not have the necessary spiritual roots is terrifying and it is easy to try to manipulate obedience rather than receive it via spiritual authority. Rather he suggests that we help such a person, and in so doing both of us may grow in spiritual authority.

Jesus’ definition of leadership and authority was not status, but function: authority is for serving those under you. Self-righteous service wants to serve in the big, visible things, or to be seen “helping those people”, and wants to serve even if the service would be harmful; true service sees little things as important, can serve with no expectation of been seen, and can even serve enemies the same as friends. The discipline of service is a good way to build humility. For one thing, it goes against our flesh, not just the “lust of our flesh” (which is more than just sexual), but also the “lust of our eyes” (being captured by the outward show), and the “pride of life” (that is, “pretentious egoism” (114)). When Peter refused to be served, it was actually a prideful act, because if Peter had been in Jesus’ position, he sure would not have washed feet! So even receiving service from others, without expecting to pay it back, is part of the discipline of service. One might object that serving makes us a doormat; well, yes, but it cannot hurt someone who has chosen to be a slave, and while we do not want to fall into medieval self-mortification, many of the devotional masters did serve in this fashion. Service is not actions, but a way of life. Thus we can do it at work, and as we go about daily life; even unseen, hidden acts of service build up a community and give the sense that something is going on underneath that cannot be apprehended. Foster recommends focusing on the little things; sugar is better liked than salt, but salt is everywhere. We should also serve the reputation of others by refusing to listen to complaints about others and insisting that they talk to that person (especially in a pastoral context). Common courtesy is another act of service: “how are you” is not a meaningless phrase, but a cultural way of acknowledging someone. Hospitality is another recommendation, inviting people over for meals. The service of listening is important, and of sharing one another’s burden (but we need to learn to give those burdens to Jesus and not carry them alone). Finally, when we go into the desert to hear the word of the Lord, we can share what we received with others, although we should realize that “blessing and cursing come from the same tongue” and be aware that they are likely to be mixed in our sharing.

“The usual notion of what Jesus did on the cross runs something like this: people were so bad and so mean and God was so angry with them that He would not forgive them unless somebody big enough could take the rap for the whole lot of them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Love, not anger, brought Jesus to the cross. ... Some seem to think that when Jesus shouted ‘My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?’ it was a moment of weakness (Mk. 15:34). Not at all. This was His moment of greatest triumph.  Jesus, who had walked in constant communion with the Father, now became so totally identified with mankind that He was the actual embodiment of sin. As Paul wrote, ‘he made him to be sin who knew no sin’ (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus had succeeded in taking into Himself all the dark powers of this present evil age and had defeated every one of them by the light of His presence. He had accomplished such a total identification with the sin of the race that He sensed the abandonment of God. Only in that way could He redeem sin.” (126, emphasis in original) This redemptive power is what happens in the discipline of confession. This is listed under corporate disciplines, because while we can and should confess sins to God, sometimes we also need to confess our sins to others. If we have asked for forgiveness from God repeatedly, but feel no release, and are starting to despair that we can have forgiveness outside of heaven, this is a good time for the discipline of confession. The formal Confession (or the sacrament of Penance) is useful because it gives us an outline, and forces us to admit that we committed specific sins, “by our own most grievous fault”, and offers clear absolution. In fact, when Confession was introduced to the Church it produced a revival of holiness. But all believers have the authority to forgive sin, so we can also go to other believers. “‘For a good confession three things are necessary: an examination of conscience, sorrow, and a determination to avoid sin.’” (132, quoting St. Alphonsus Luguori) The examination of conscience could use Luther’s approach of the Ten Commandments, or the more traditional approach of “the sins of the heart: pride, avarice, anger, fear, as well as the sins of the flesh: sloth, gluttony, lust, murder.” (132) It is not helpful to try to find every last little sin. Choose as your confessor someone who will not be shocked, will be understanding, who can keep a confidence, and will not try to say “that’s okay”. Someone receiving the confession should be aware of the seriousness of his own sins; this is no place for pride. During the confession, mentally keep the cross between you and the person, so that everything is filtered through the cross. Be praying for them inwardly. Be quiet; do not try to relieve the tension. If you sense that they might be holding something back (from fear, or embarrassment), just continue to wait quietly and continue to pray. Give them clear absolution afterwards, and pray for them. The discipline of confession brought Foster freedom (and quite likely deeper life in the Spirit), it also enabled the person he shared with to make his own confession of a deep sin and to get freedom from it, and he has seen it bring freedom to people from whom he has received confession.

Worship is touching Life. It is something God is desiring and leading us to, and worship happens when his Spirit touches ours (not the other way around). It is ministering to God, as the Levites were instructed to do. It is important to remember the service flows from worship; substituting service for worship is actually idolatry. The discipline of worship is conditioning our heart to perceive God. We can practice God’s presence like Brother Lawrence, or we can consciously try to listen to God throughout the day. We can come to church early to prepare our hearts, and then as people come in, pray for those that look burdened. Even singing is not worship, but merely a vehicle to provide the opportunity for worship. Although singing is the most common avenue to worship, silence (stilling the flesh) is another important avenue, as it reduces the noise covering up the voice of the Lord. Appropriate posture is also an avenue: standing, clapping, dancing, etc. for praise; kneeling or head bowed for humility, etc. We know that we have worshiped because it changes us. Worship should result in greater obedience and greater desire to fight for the Kingdom against the powers of darkness.

The discipline of Guidance is the corporate seeking of the Lord’s will, which is more powerful and more accurate than seeking along, although that is also necessary. One historical way is the body of Christ seeking God’s will together through prayer and worship (and sometimes fasting), in which the Holy Spirit moves to bring the gathering to a united conclusion. This is the process in Acts 15, when the church met to consider whether Gentiles needed to be circumcised, and Foster gives several examples of individuals asking Friends’ church meetings for guidance [the book was written in 1978, so the Friends must have been more orthodox than in 2024, judging from his statements here and elsewhere]. Another historical approach is the use of a spiritual director, where someone mature and with a close connection to God helps people discern where God is leading them. In both approaches we must realize that God does not direct mystically in a way that is contrary to his revealed Word, and we must not take a top-down approach, as that will stifle the Spirit.

Celebration is the last of the disciplines because it is where the disciplines point. Celebration is the pursuit of joy, without which we cannot long persevere. Celebration does not work if it is forced; forcing people to be grateful when they are not is destructive. But we can consciously choose to create times of celebration and thankfulness. Paul said to be anxious about nothing, but cast your cares on the Lord, asking for what you need in prayer. He also said to “set our minds on” that which is good, lovely, etc.; this choice to focus on the Good, the Beautiful and the True is the discipline part. Foster recommends learning folk-dances with your family (dancing is a natural part of celebration). Cultivate humor. He suggests cultivating some family celebrations (in addition to birthdays, etc.), and participating in festivals like Halloween in a celebratory mood by dressing up as festive characters, or as saints and celebrating Christ’s victory over darkness. Celebrate May Day, Easter, laugh at each other with a Feast of Fools, or create celebrations of your own as a community.

Celebration of Discipline is a very practical book that gives an introduction to the discipline, some context in the case of disciplines that have been scarred from medieval monasticism (like fasting), an explanation of how the discipline grows us spiritually, and some imaginative suggestions. If you come to this book looking for more spiritual depth, you will be convicted, scared (for me it is fasting), and be excited by imaginative possibilities. However, this is not a book that can be read quickly, because if you read more than about one discipline a month, they just blur into each other. Similarly, while this book is easy to summarize, the summary is probably not very useful, because, while I have tried to include everything important, there is not space, and what grabs you is likely to be different than what grabs me (due to our different backgrounds). My advice for this book is 1) absolutely read it, and 2) buy a copy and read another discipline periodically. This way you can practice a discipline for a while and have the space to incorporate the next one.