I always enjoy thoughtful books on spiritual discipline. This is is a wonderful one. Firstly, the eight habits the author promoted already scored high points in my mind the moment I first glanced at the table of contents. (By the way, the eight habits he laid out are: 1. Kneeling prayer daily at morning, midday and bedtime; 2. One daily meal with others; 3. One hour with phone off every day; 4. Scripture before phone every morning; 5. One hour of conversation with a friend weekly; 6. Curate media to a set length of time, such as four hours, every week, 7. Fast from something for 24 hours weekly; 8. Keep a weekly Sabbath, on a day that works for you.)

The author was a lawyer and a workaholic. He had a breakdown due to the stress at work and at home with two young children, which moved him to start pursuing better spiritual habits. So the type of habits he proposed are all tailored to a person who naturally gravitates to work :D I am totally not that type of person, so I'm not as persuaded of pursuing some of these habits as another person would have been. But the author made such a thoughtful, honest, and beautiful case for each of the habits, that I feel enlightened on my understanding of the gospel, human nature, the relationship between God and man...and many other things after reading his chapters on why those habits were meaningful to him. Some favorite quotes:

" To fully understand habits you must think of habits as liturgies. A liturgy is a pattern of words or actions repeated regularly as a way of worship.....My life was an ode of worship to omniscience, omnipresence, and limitlessness."

" What if the good life doesn’t come from having the ability to do what we want but from having the ability to do what we were made for? What if true freedom comes from choosing the right limitations, not avoiding all limitations? .... I decided limits were a better way of life, and that’s when everything changed. "

" Work is the place where I realize how much I am made to be like God and, at the very same time, how much I am not God.....God is different parts blue-collar worker, artist, inventor, tinkerer, gardener, and entrepreneur, in all cases working with his hands, getting dirty, and calling this creative act good."

" Once you know who you are in God, you can turn to the world in love. But if you don’t, you’ll turn to the world looking for love. So much of our identity hinges on this ordering."

" How do we create a life of friendship when we have neither the courage nor the time to talk? The answer is to practice courage and prioritize time. We need the courage to be vulnerable in a world that is sacred, and we need to make it a priority to take time in a world that is distracted."

" In the Bible, fasting is not just to reveal and clarify our own need for God. It is to lean into the suffering of the world itself and to long for God to redeem it."

" Our soul need more than to do nothing; they need to do restful things. "
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Really enjoyed this book. The theme is simple, create 4 daily habits and 4 weekly habits. Very practical and easy to start. The hard thing is actually doing it.

Always try to improve my habits and am always looking to make myself a better person. Perhaps, through this book, I finally realized what I am doing wrong. I'm too focused on me and not enough on Christ. This book taught me the importance of rest, actual rest, including time away from screens and distractions. ( )

Summary: Offers an alternative to the habits of our technological world that make us busy, distracted, anxious, and isolated by proposing a set of habits enabling us to live into loving God and neighbor, and into freedom and rest.

Justin Earley was a well-intentioned, missional Christian with ambitious goals who found himself having panic attacks and self-medicating with pills and alcohol and other destructive habits. A life of busyness shaped increasingly by technology was undermining his health and relationships. He recognized that he was being shaped by a set of cultural habits, ways of being that left him busy, distracted, anxious, and isolated. He saw that these habits were not only shaping his schedule; they were forming his heart. Along with some friends, he identified an alternate set of daily and weekly habits that they thought were consonant with their shared faith. He began sharing these with others, and eventually, in conversation with a pastor, realized that he and his friends had rediscovered an ancient practice going back to Augustine and Benedict of living under a rule of life, hence the name they adopted, The Common Rule.

The Common Rule Consists of four daily and four weekly habits. Two of each of these focus on loving God, and two on loving neighbor. Also two of each focus on embracing the good in God's world, and two of each focus on resisting destructive cultural practices, even as we pursue a life of love. The eight are:

Daily:

Kneeling Prayer morning, midday, and bedtime (Love God/embrace)
One meal with others. (Love neighbor/embrace)
One hour with phone off (Love neighbor/resist)
Scripture before phone (Love God/resist)

Weekly:

One hour of conversation with a friend (Love neighbor/embrace)
Curate media to four hours (Love neighbor/resist)
Fast from something for twenty-four hours (Love God/resist)
Sabbath (Love God/embrace)

After introductory chapters explaining the rule, one chapter of the book is devoted to each habit, explaining the rationale for each habit and concluding with practical instructions for practicing the habit. He concludes the book with the observation of art critic Michael Kimmelman that the greatest work of art is the "curating of all of life as a single witness to something grand" (p. 162). Earley then applies this to the work of habits in our lives. He writes:

"I believe that paying attention to the work of habit is similar. It is best thought of as giving attention to the art of habit. It isn't about trying to live right; it's about curating a life. It is the art of living beautifully" (p. 163).

The book concludes with an extremely helpful set of resources for individuals or groups (Earley believes it is especially helpful to practice these disciplines with others who voluntarily enter in so that individuals can encourage each other). The resources include the habits in a nutshell, a guide to trying one habit a week, trying the whole Common Rule for a week or a month, ways congregations can use the Common Rule, prayers for those trying the Common Rule, and ways the Common Rule might be used in different walks of life for skeptics, parents, at work, for artists and creatives, entrepreneurs, addicts, and those with mental illnesses.

It may be a small thing, but I appreciated the typography of the book. The medium blue of the cover is used for titles, subtitles, diagrams, quote grabs, and headers, setting this book off from most mono-chromatic texts. More substantively, the practical application of James K. A. Smith's ideas of cultural liturgies and the early fathers practice of rule of life makes for an inviting book grounded in rigorous thought and tested practice. Couple this with his own vulnerable example, and you have a winsome exposition of the practices that makes you want to start right away. The practices of scripture before phone, shutting off the phone for at least an hour, and curating media were both challenging and helpful for this reader whose life is too dominated by the smartphone. Whether you embrace the full rule, or substitute other practices, Earley's Common Rule offers an important alternative for people of faith to the ways our technological culture may lure us into frantic busyness, distraction, anxiety, and isolation instead of helping us curate beautiful lives of love for God and neighbor.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. ( )

I’ve been looking forward to The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose For An Age of Distraction since I first heard about it a few months ago. It didn’t disappoint. After suffering a health crisis from living and working a overpacked, chaotic schedule with little sleep, Earley realized he needed to make a serious change for the sake of his health and his relationships. Earley, working with his wife and friends, established a set of practical habits around the ideas of loving God and loving neighbor.

Earley writes:

It’s utterly important to learn the right theological truths about God and neighbor, but it’s equally necessary to put that theology into practice via a rule of life... Only when your habits are constructed to match your worldview do you become someone who doesn’t just know about God and neighbor but someone who actually loves God and neighbor.

The Common Rule is a set of four daily habits and four weekly habits. I would call many of these habits spiritual disciplines, which has always been a topic that interests me, but I realize that phrase may feel stuffy for many. Earley defines habits as “a behavior that occurs automatically, over and over, and often unconsciously.” He goes on to quote a study by Duke University that found that as much as 40 percent of our daily actions are not conscious choices, but habits.

The problem is that means many of the important things in our daily lives are happening unconsciously. And if you aren’t choosing your habits, someone or something else is. Earley writes:

We have a common problem. By ignoring the ways habits shape us, we’ve assimilated to an invisible rule of life: the American rule of life. This rigorous program of habits forms us in all the anxiety, depression, consumerism, injustice, and vanity that are so typical in the contemporary American life.

Of course, the other problem is many of us don’t want to choose our habits. Choosing means we have to slow down and face our thoughts. It means we have to sometimes stop striving and sit in silence. That terrifies us. Let’s be honest. Most of us want to stay so busy that we don’t have time to think or sleep, because that would mean we have to admit to ourselves that we are finite. We justify it by telling ourselves we’re “called” or saying there’s just too much to do.

Earley writes, “Our habits often obscure what we’re really worshiping, but that doesn’t mean we’re not worshiping something. The question is, what are we worshiping?” Earley quotes James K. A. Smith who writes that worship forms us and formation is worship. “As the psalmist put it, those who make and trust in idols will become like them (Psalm 31:6). So we become our habits.” Our habits are daily liturgies of worship. Are we worshiping ourselves or our creator?

The Common Rule is not just theoretical. It is an incredibly practical book, perhaps more so than many of the Christian living books I’ve read. Earley clearly walks through each habit and gives a wealth of practical suggestions to get started. He even gives adjustments to the Common Rule for people in various phases of life and occupations. His website is also extremely helpful. If you’re looking to start the new year by making some important changes to your daily life, I recommend checking out The Common Rule. You can get a copy here. ( )