You are What you Love (James K. A. Smith)

In You Are What You Love, author James K.A. Smith argues . . . that you are what you love.

Summary
Smith states that "our wants and longings and desires are at the core of our identity, the wellspring from which our actions and behavior flow."  Therefore, "Jesus's command to follow him is a command to align our loves and longings with his . . ."  How do we do this?  Is it through knowledge alone?

Too often, we treat ourselves and others as 'brains on a stick'- and therefore believe that knowledge transfer will change behavior.  We approach discipleship the same way- "as primarily a didactic endeavor- as if becoming a disciple of Jesus is largely an intellectual project, and matter of acquiring knowledge."  Smith's counterargument: "We need to recognize the power of habit."  Specifically,

What if, instead of starting from the assumption that human beings are thinking things, we started from the conviction that human beings are first and foremost lovers?  What if you are defined not by what you know but by what you desire?

"This means that discipleship is more a matter of reformation than of acquiring more information . . .
we need to (regularly) calibrate our hearts, tuning them to be directed to the Creator, our magnetic north."  What does this mean?  Reforming, recalibrating what?  Our orientation.

We all have an orientation . . . "to be human is to be animated and oriented by some vision of the good life, some picture of what we think counts as "flourishing.""  Our daily routines- many of which are done unconsciously- reveal what we truly desire, even if we say we believe otherwise.  Our daily rituals (which Smith calls 'liturgies') "are loaded with an ultimate Story about who we are and what we're for.  They carry within them a kind of ultimate orientation."  This "baseline inclination" or "default orientation" is revealed by the choices we make. . .  and those are "shaped and configured by imitation and practice."  In short, we develop habits that shape and change our baseline inclination- for better or worse.  Any successful dieter knows this.  What's true of food is true of all things- even love.  "We learn to love  . . . through practices that form the habits of how we love."

Habits are everywhere, and ours are more affected by subconscious things than we realize.  We're all immersed in culture; a culture laden with messages and stories about what matter.  It shapes our loves; 'wrong stories' seep in and dominate us.  There are obvious ones- people make gods of money, power, and fame all the time.  But there are far subtler ones, too.  Therefore, Smith calls us to "become aware of the everyday liturgies in your life."  Since so much of what we do is unconscious, we need to be mindful of how it is acquired.  So audit your daily routines . . . look at your habits . . . and learn what you truly desire.

The good news is that the right rituals can re-train us to new, rightly-ordered ways.  We can be restored.  But first, we have to know what we're here for to know what we're to do.  We need to know our purpose- our calling.  Only then can we understand what actions are necessary; what practices to implement.  Then, we ingrain this right mindset in ourselves through practice and repetition- in short, we develop new habits (or 'liturgies') that help us long for what we should.

Review
This is an excellent read.  Similar in spirit to David Dark's recent release (reviewed here), it calls us to be aware of what we're doing and what our actions show about our true beliefs and desires.  It also shows the importance of habit- of dedicating ourselves to right routines and rituals to produce "rightly-ordered" ways.  Smith calls us to return to some traditions of the ancient Church, who realized this importance.

Reading this was enlightening and humbling . . . highly recommended.

Rating: A