89 is prayer. Yet, as one can see from the more prominent and current literature on resilience in the Christian or the pastor, the necessity of the spiritual disciplines for resilience is assumed more often than it is demonstrated. Moreover, spiritual disciplines and practices are often approached, whether by Christian authors or general academics, through a utilitarian lens of “what works for you.”70 The result is often a hesitancy to provide a coherent list of disciplines and practices that one might employ toward spiritual ends. The other difficulty in naming a concrete list of spiritual disciplines is the variety of the disciplines exercised in differing traditions. Packiam shares his own journey with the disciplines and how he began to borrow from other traditions for further spiritual sustenance. He says, “Years went by, and we stayed on our quest, never abandoning the practices we loved—praying in the Spirit, worship songs, Bible reading—but adding to the repertoire: Sabbath, Rule of Life, and the prayer of Examen. These were rich practices that opened up our hearts in new ways to the life of God.”71 This idea of “adding to the repertoire” can be detected in most of the literature on spiritual disciplines and practices in the last century.72 LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY: SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES AS HABIT Regardless of which specific practices make a particular list, there is common agreement on the Thomistic nature of virtue.73 From the time of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, lists of virtues have changed, but the common thread of virtue as the outcome of enculturated habits continues through present day virtue ethics. Alasdair MacIntyre is preeminent in the list of modern day scholars in this field. Credited with the resurgence of Aristotelian thought that has challenged deontological conceptions of morality, MacIntyre clarifies the progression of moral thought toward a Thomistic perspective in After Virtue: The New Testament’s account of virtues, even if it differs as much as it does in content from Aristotle’s—Aristotle would certainly not have admired Jesus Christ and he would have been horrified by St. Paul—does have the same logical and conceptual structure as Aristotle’s account. ... Moreover the relationship of virtues as means to the end which is human incorporation in the divine kingdom of AN ETERNAL WEIGHT OF GLORY: EXPLORING SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES AS POTENTIAL PREDICTORS OF RESILIENT PASTORAL LEADERSHIP
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